I'm wondering how hot my CPU should be running, both at idle and at load. I have an Athlon XP 2500+ (the Barton core, running at 333Mhz FSB and 11x multiplier; not at all OC'ed... unfortunately). After an hour or so under moderate load (gaming) it gets around 60C. I first noticed this because the BIOS defaults on my motherboard are set to give a warning beep when the CPU temp hits 60C. This worried me a little, but since I didn't see any performance problems I just set the BIOS up to 70C before it beeps and it has never reached that high. It seems to always peek right around 60C, but I've never seen people talking about their processors being so hot. I'm using the AMD stock heatsink/fan than came with the CPU, and I've also got 2 80mm Case fans and the fans on my power supply, so I thought there'd be sufficient cooling. Oh, one other strange thing: the ~60C temp shows up in the BIOS, but when I use a program (PCAlert) from within Windows to check the temp and fan speeds, it only shows up as ~40-45C. I assume the BIOS would be right, but does anyone know why the other program is so far off? Thanks for any info/ideas!

Have you done a spring cleaning yet? You know, blow out all of the fans and the heat sink. Also stick a tooth brush up in the opening of your front plastics and the frame and clean off the front grill. You have to look at that from the bottom of your PC. I would do that stuff and report back. Also, 99% of the time I would trust what the bios said before I would trust these add on programs that you get off the internet. JMO. YO

I second on YOYO's opinion. But IMO other than YOYO's, Check your in-take and out-take fans. Make sure that they are working properly. If YOYO's tips and my tips didn't solve your heat problem, then its time for you to buy a new HSF. Expert™

The best thing to bring down your cpu temp. without spending to much money is CPU lapping with just makes the bottom the heatsink more easier to conduct heat. abit- ic-max 2 2gb duel, corsair.ee p4. ee 9800pro 500/600 oc window xp 64-bit

Repeat of my other post get a good heatsink and sort out your airflow Been building custom performance PCs for over 6 years as other say best is to have a good intake fan bottom front, and then outtake fans on the back. Side fans depends on position on systems that have CPU fan blowing on heatsink I have ducting so the air for CPU is fed direct form outside and then firstly cooks the CPU and then is sucked out by the rear chassis fans. This way you do not get recirculation on air around the CPU heatsink which increases the temperature as air temp goes up. You can also as stated have a fan on top of case blowing out. All this is good but air flow is important too so ensure all cables are clipped out of the way, best is to invest in some rounded IDE cables and loads of cable ties this will improve air flow thus less dust will settle. Drop me an email and I can send you picture of the setup I have and my CPU is xp2800 with 512 DRR and Radeon 9800XT plus 5 hard drives 2 opitcal drives my sys temperature never goes up beyond 30C and CPU never goes above 40c even in the summer have fun

Here are details about CPU fan / Heatsink. CPU Coolers for modern processors will generally have some form of heat transfer material on the underside. This may be in the form of a small square about 1 or 2mm thick. This will help the heat to dissipate from the CPU core to the CPU cooler. Be sure to check the instructions that come with your CPU cooler. In some cases, a thin protective film will need to be removed prior to fitting the cooler to the CPU. Failure to do so will cause the CPU to overheat very quickly and destroy itself. Never power up the PC without the CPU cooler attached! The heat sink is a very important piece of your computer. It's main function is in CPU cooling. It keeps the CPU from overheating and crashing your whole system. Heat sinks come in many different shapes and most will do the job, although you should make sure that heat sink you have is sufficiant for CPU cooling. Now grab the thermal grease that came with your heatsink. If you don't have it, buy it from your local electronic store. It helps in CPU cooling. Apply the thermal grease to the raised portion of the CPU and not on the circuit board. Now place the heatsink on top of the CPU. The heatsink has a raised lip on the bottom. This lip sits over the higher section on the socket. Attach the levers on the heatsink to the matching hooks on the socket below it. Take your time with this so you don't damage the CPU or the motherboard. Also connect the fan cable to the motherboard fan connector. Fan will get the power through this cable. cheapest-computer-hardware-software.com Resource to Build computer using cheapest computer parts

Thanks for the info, guys :) As has been suggested in some of your posts, I do have 1 intake fan at the bottom front of my case, and one out-take fan in the back right below the power supply (which also has a fan blowing out. There is a fan grill on the side of my case where an out-take fan used to be located, but I had to remove it because its location interfered with a CD drive I installed. I moved it and its now the out-take fan on the back. I will go home this evening and check the cables inside to make sure they aren't suffocating the CPU, but I do know that my IDE/floppy cables are all rounded. I guess I can take off the CPU heatsink and make sure I put it on correctly, but then I'd ahve to buy some thermal paste or I'd void the AMD warranty. I've been building computers for several years now, and I can't imagine that'd I'd have made an error in installing the heatsink, but anything's possible. The main reason I posted this thread, though, was wondering if 60C is too hot for my CPU? This is my first Athlon XP, and the only chip I've ever had get hot enough for the BIOS to beep. For the sound of your responses I assume it must at least be bordering on too hot. If any of you out there run a Barton, what temp does yours run at? Just curious :) Thanks again for the ideas! MSI K7N2-Delta AMD Athlon XP 2500+ 2x256MB Kingston HyperX PC-2700 Chaintek GeForce4 MX440-8x 64MB SB Live! 5.1 MSI TV@nywhere Master WD 20GB+40GB 7200rpm HDDs Lite-On 52x CD-RW