Hello, I have an Athlon 1800+, with 2100 DDR RAM and a GForce3 Ti500 Graphics Card.

My CPU temperature runs at around 55 degrees sometimes - I was wondering whether this was too hot or not?

A friend (who thinks it is a little too hot) suggested my PSU may need upgrading, so I installed a 400 watt PSU, and it has made no difference.

while it is on the high side of normal it is not too hot. what heatsink are you using?

I got one with the mainboard and processor, but I replaced it with one I had bought especially because the headsink was very large, and the fan was quiet.

I feel confident that the heatsink is adequate, for a reason I will explain below.

I believe the case is a factor - when I ordered the parts (from Scan Computers) I ordered their latest case. It is tall but to me it looks narrow and has no side ventillation at all, and although there are two case fans, I feel certain if the case had more room and was better ventilated, the CPU temperature would settle at a more reasonable value.

Your response has made me feel a little better about things.

Well sorry to say, but you wasted your
money on a new Power Supply.

But the good news is that you CPU is fine.
The temp you have to start worrying is
when it get around 65, that is getting hot.

My Athlon was running at 69c ! Then I
sanded the heatsink to a nice polished
finish, replaced the grease and now it
runs at around 50c. But yours is fine.

Thanks for the reasurance guys.

With regard to shelling out for a PSU, the
PSU that came with the case was 250 watt, and I got the new one for £48, which wasn't bad really.

I was led to believe I needed at least a 300 watt PSU and it seemed a bargain to go for a 400 watt one at that price, but then, I have been led to believe many things in my lifetime...

Make sure that you have good solid contact between CPU and heatsink. Make certain that you use grease.

There is a program around that stops the operating system (W98) from executing needless commands during idle time. The name of it is RAIN. I don't know if you can still find it. It was from a guy in Japan.

If you think it is your case try running with the side of your case off and see if you notice a difference, if so you could prolly use a extra fan or two.. Also consider upgrading your heatsink and fan, I highly reccomend any copper dragon orb by thermaltake or any Zalman cooler.. also make sure you are using a good thermal compound. Arctic Silver ][ is about the best, switching to it from the white silicone paste i noticed a 5degree difference.. check out cpucool also to moniter your temps and help lower them at idle.. nice little proggy..

Power supply *could* make a difference if it has dual fans, one on back as usual plus one underneath to pull air off CPU! Overclockers.co.uk sell some 400W ones but about £70!
Side vents on case do not help, make sure fan at front base is pulling air *in* (cool off floor) and fan at top is pushing it *out*. (You do have 2 fans, don't you? Less than £5 if you don't) Visualise your box as a wind tunnel. Taking side off case could actually detract from the effect! Make sure that the flat ribbon cables are neatly arranged to help airflow, I separated mine at 6 strand intervals (careful slice between strands followed by gentle pulling lengthways), then sandwich and cord the layers together to form a sort-of circular cable: less airflow interference but lot of work!
Fan on the heatsink can also be upgraded to be bigger/faster (/noisier!)
Finally, what is ambient temperature? Can't get CPU cool in a hot room!
I have XP1700 with big solid copper heatsink running at 45C ambient temp 24C.

I have two case fans - pre-installed with the case, although the PSU only has one fan...

The room temperature does effect the CPU temperature as you pointed out - it makes a difference of 5 degrees in fact (the room at present is fairly cool, and the CPU temperature is now 52 (after it has been on all evening, and after playing a 3D game for about 90 minutes).

I have the wires and ribbon cables quite neat. The GForce3 graphics card kicks out a fair amount of heat (and as you know, those AGP slots are ridiculously close to the CPU and memory).

The PC does run perfectly well - I was just concerned I was running a high temperature (a friend of mine reckons his Athlon 1300 runs at a constant 35 degrees no matter what).

I have ordered the top of the range heatsink from a supplier which boasts being "probably the best in the world" so I will give this a whirl (Coolermaster HHC-001 - http://www.coolermaster.co.uk/hhc-001.htm)

New heatsink installed - CPU temperature settled at 45.5, Mainboard temperature 32.

I am running an 1800+ with a Swiftech MCX370 w/Artic Silver2 compound, Enermax SX1040 w/4 case fans, an Enermax w/dual fan 430w power supply, round ata133 ide cable, and the cpu temp. is at 36.5c for normal operations and gets to 43c when finishing a Halflife game. System usually stays around 24c and rises up to 30c when running Halflife. Tell you what before I had this setup my cpu temp was much higher at 45c normal ops and system was at 30c. The fans and case does help and what good is it if you have the best cpu fan in the market if you can't even get rid of the hot air built up inside. There are pros and cons with having a setup like my sytem... and thats dealing with the noise all four fans generate. I am not going to include the extra two fans on my power supply because they are quiet. So other than that its all good in the neighborhood.

There is one thing all of you left out. When comparing the temperature, none of you posted your environment temperature. I am running Athlon 1.2 GHz with Epox 8KHA+ with Arctic Alumina + Thermaltake Dragon Orb 3.
Environment Temp 26-30
CPU Temp - 40 -42
System Temp 34
living in tropical Singapore

I was wondering about the temp of my CPU so I searched sites for info on normal/average CPU temp and was kinda worried that it was running to hot since my AMD 1800+ is over clocked and my computer now sees it as 1900+... The temp now runs from 42C to 47C after I placed another CPU fan on the CPU fan. That got the fan RPM up as well. Without that extra fan doubled up on the CPU it would run 10 to 15 degrees higher. If anybody wants to email me with any more cool running ideas please let me now.

I am runing at Athlon 1000 with case fans, Arctic silver and Globalwin FOP32 Cooler. My cpu is runing at 53degrees, which concerns me. Would anybody suggest I get a coolermaster.

I am running an Athlon T-Bird 1200 that I've had to lower the clock speed on in the past due to overheating. Even clocked back to 1000 it was running in the high 50's...

I recently broke a fan blade on the CPU in a freak accident (I was trying to move a wire that was touching it and my finger just jumped into the fan...LOL)

So anyway, I got an Antec Fan with a copper core. Then I buffed the base with steel wool. I also buffed the processor core with steel wool to remove any residue from the thermal pad I was using before.

I then added a dollop of Silver Themal Compound to the processor core and to the base of the heatsink.

I mounted the fan.

Then I put two 80mm case fans in the computer. The one at the bottom front is blowing into the system and the one in the upper rear is blowing out of the system. the direction of your fans is VERY important. Like the above post from Andy states, you're looking for a wind-tunnel effect...

Now my CPU is running at a very nice 38º at idle and after 3 hours of Unreal Tournament is was at a very healthy 42º My mainboard temp is 30º and my system temp is 19º

Here is a link to ask AMD...

http://ask.amd.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE/,/?St=92,E=0000000000028216241,K=9471,Sxi=8,Problem=obj(4519

It answers a LOT of questions!

How do I add another case fan to create this
"wind tunnel" effect if I have no place to mount it. I have adequate ventilation holes, just no way to mount the fan, no holes to screw into. Also, how do you go about applying the thermal compound exactly, I have never done it, just want to be sure I am doing it right. Thanks!

When I built a new computer this past weekend in a full tower case, I was concerned with getting the airflow dynamics right, so I took a drill (VERY VERY CAREFULLY) and put two holes in so I could mount a fan to pull the air coming off the CPU out the back. I would not recommend doing this with all your hardware in the machine; i had the luxury of doing it while I was putting it all together. However, theoretically you can do something like this even with the hardware in because the motherboard is not grounded to the case at all. My system, with something like 10 fans in it, runs a bit hot because of a ridiculous number of cables. Ambient is generally 32 C, and CPU runs between 50 and 54. I'm going to work on cleaning up the cables and getting the airflow a bit better, maybe switching some fans around to see what gives me the cleanest path. Good luck with getting a new fan in. Just make sure you're careful when you drill the holes, and drill them first with a small bit, then ream them out with the (i think it might be 1/4 in, or slightly bigger) final one.

Im having some problems with my computer lately and after reading a few articles online, i checked out my CPU temperatre... Its running at about 190 degrees F. And my System temp is running about 136F. My guess is that is WAY to hot. Any suggestions how i can cool my computer off? Email me please.

my pc is an athlon xp 1700+ and when i look the temperature in the bios it run at 66 degrees C !! even if i let my pc on 24h a day 7 days on 7 is that normal ?

Hi!

I have an Athlon XP 2000+, Asus mainboard A7V333, 256mb PC2700 DDR ram, Asus Geforce 1 6800 DDR, CPU Cooler Thermaltake A 1239, ,... and I am reading a CPU temperature of about 61 to 65°C in idle state and about 71°C under load.

Is this a normal operating temperature, or is there something wrong?

I have not overclocked the CPU. Everything is set to standard values.

Thanks
Joe

Joe ,

Athlons are hot mammas anyways, but I suggest you get that temp down, 71 degrees is a little too hot and if it ever gets over 75 degrees you are in the red so to speak. I bought a Thermaltake Volcano heatsink and fan with variable fan speed, this is one big heatsink i can tell you, has a large copper core as well making for excellent heat dissipation, the fan is oversized too, increasing and decreasing in speed in accordance to the temperature of the cpu. Anyways, make sure you get THERMAL GREASE!!! this is VERY important ,i lowered my cpu temp by about 22 degrees just by coating the heatsink with the grease (not the cpu) i also run 2 case fans, one at the front, one at the back, make sure you have the rear fan blowing the warm air out the back, if you have both fans blowing inwards all you are doing is circulating warm air and basically wasting your time, try to keep your cables neat and out the way too, this promotes good air flow.

If anyone would like some advice drop me an email - I'm a IBM hardware engineer dont ya know.

Just put together a PC at the weekend. Which is running a XP1900+

CPU 50C - 54C if stretched
MOBO 20 - 24
Room Temp about 21

I have Alu Case and 2 big fans (sucking in)at front and 2 at back (blowing out)and round cables and CAK11-68 (copper heatsink) but what i want to know is there anyway to further bring the CPU temp down as it still seems high. I was thinking along the lines of HDD coolers any suggestions for which product or any other ideas ?

Hi!

I built a wooden box around my box to reduce the noise!
I'm afraid that this could increase the T°.
When I put my hand on the chassis it was warm. But hen I checked the T° in the BIOS it showed 45°C.
P4-1800. Usage:normal ambiant T°: 17°C
What do you think?

I have A Dual Athlon MP 1800+, on heavy load (90% of the time) both CPU's go up to 81°C!
I have an Antec SX1040B case, six fans in total and it still goes up to 81°C!

Asus A7V333 Boards read out higher temps by default. They are about the only Boards that read out the XP's inner Diode. I havent seen one guy whose temp was below 55 C° on a A7V333 Board ( XP 1800 +++ ) .

So thats a BIG FACTOR to be taken into consideration

I am having radom lockups when using my system. Athlon XP 1600+, Asus A7V266-E nothing overclocked. My CPU temp is always between 120-122 F. I can power on my system and get into BIOS as quickly as possible and the temp will immediatly be at 120 F! The highest I have seen the CPU go under a load is 123 F. I am using a heatsink that AMD included in their retail box with the pink stuff already on the bottom for thermal resistance. I've been reading about the use of thermal compound (greese). My understanding is that silver is better than white paste. True? I have removed the heatsink from my CPU and some of the pink stuff is still stuck to the heatsink and even the CPU itself... should i remove this from both CPU and heatsink and what is the safest way? Once I buy some thermal compound, is it very difficult to apply? From what I've read, you have to spread it out perfectly even on the bottom of the heatsink. Thanks for your help.

Hi,
I have Athlon 1.3 GHz. The cpu temperature reaching point of 75 degrees. Although I've give it a cpu fan (12V,0.1A) and athlon's heat sink. And also my GeForce VGA have fan too (12V,0.1A)

Is it save or unsave? How could i solved this?

Thanks

My XP1700 athlon runs at 122 degrees on the CPU consistently except for some high graphic games when it creeps up to 133. I've got the volcano fan on the chip and two others (in and out). Not much room for anything else. I should add that I also have a Gainward Ti4600 card that jacked up the heat a tad as well. I've been thinking that increasing my RAM from 256 DDR to 512 or more would help (reduce HD seeking) what do you all think?

Umm well i was just searching for CPU temps and found this site. I have just recently downloaded speedfan and some other program. Comp has been on for about 10mins probably not that and already cpu temp is at 57 degrees celsius. Last nite I saw it creep to around 64. That with only having it on a while and durfing the net. Aint tried it with any high demanding graphics games but I also find some thing else strange. All the read outs on both programs are saying that the cpu fan is at 0rpm. I find that worrying slightly. I think that the only other fan is the one at back and the one on PSU. dont think i have one at front. cant see one. And this PC is a manufactured Packard Bell, not one i built myself. Cos i would of had loads of ventilation otherwise. Also my geforce 2 doesnt have anything cooling on it. Another graphics card which i had fitted for a day because of problems had a huge heatsink and fan on it and wasnt really that much faster. so should my geforce have a heat sink and fan aswell?? Help would be appreciated.

Jason

I have an Athlon XP 1700 running at maximum (1466MHz) while using an asus A7V333 motherboard, with a very cheap fan that i bought at a computer fair, called "Speeze" and the bios monitor shows readings of 43 degrees celcius. this is not the real temperature, as the motherboard gives readings 10 degres celcius more than what it actually is eg: 43C= 33C. so if you have an Asus A7V333, then consider the temp to be 10 C less than it actually is. ( and i am not even using any chassis fans)

I've been having this problem from the first day i got this computer, amd xp 1800+, msi gf3 ti500, whenever i play CounterStrike, over a period of time it would jsut freeze and you would onluy hear the sounds repeating.
The 2nd problem started happening yesterday after i opened up my side panel of my computer: it spontaneously restarts, and it keeps on doing that whether i'm just on my computer or playing Counter Strike, can anyoe tell me what my problem is (someone said its because its overheating)
CPU TEMP : 51 degrees celcius
MB TEMP: 39 degreess celcius
CPU FAN: 4500-4700 RPM

if u guys havent read the amd site info u should.
all AMD athlon xp Processors can live upto 90C
anyway i have an athlon xp 1800+ and it constantly runs at 57 C and under stress 62 C
and i have Gigabyte 7VTXH+
and a AMD HeatSink (Box Pack).