Hello folks, Been trying to find information on these HP socket 478 boards with little luck. I have a HP ze5300 with a P4 Socket 478 2.66ghz Northwood. If I'm not mistaken, this processor is NOT the mobile variant, and by virtue of the intense heat that it produces out the heatsink and cooling vents on the side and on the keyboard surface, I'm ready to believe it. The fans run excessively noisy as well - I hear there is a BIOS update to correct this, but I don't hold much in anything that may prevent this machine from being cooled. -Kurt

Well for starters a bios update can't stop the fan noise, it may be able to help control the fan speed better but not stop the fan noise. The best way to cool it down is to flip over the laptop find the part where your processor is unscrew the cover and blow out all the dust around that area. Then take off the 4 screws holding the heatsink to the processor, take the heatsink off and put some artic silver thermal paste on the processor and heatsink you can pick some up at a local pc store or online for 5 to 10 bucks. Clean the old paste off the processor and bottom of the heatsink with rubbing alcohole and then apply a grain of riced size of the artic silver thermal paste onto the processor then put your heatsink back on and close everything up. this will lower heat temps on your pc. Also note, the northwood cores were one of the coolest cores in the Pentuim 4 line. So whoever told you that northwood cores were hot they didn't do much research. It was the prescott pentuim 4 cores that were hot.

Just to clarify - that BIOS update does adjust fan speed, thereby reducing the noise. It isn't that easy to get to the processor or heatsink on this unit. Have a look at this: http://www.overclockers.com/tips120... Casing is essentially the same as the 5300. As you can see, the process of opening this thing up is quite a job, so if there is a chance of putting a P4 Mobile in this thing, I would like to do so. I believe I found my answer here though: http://www.overclockers.com/tips120... One thing - the Northwoods may run cool for processors, but when the fan exhaust gets hot enough for the exhaust air to warp plastic (hasn't happened yet, but I dare say it could if one runs it long enough), well sir, that's too hot in my book. -Kurt

I thought you meant the fan was just nosiey in general even in low speeds. Yeah that's Hp for you. Other brands are much easier to get to the processor. It's not bad though, if you take your time. The nothwood core processors may run hotter in a laptop then in a desktop for obv reasons, but a prescott core processor would overheat for sure.

Well, that's another thing - both fans are quite noisy at low speeds as well as high, but that can't be helped (except for a little oil in the bearings, perhaps). Processor accessibility isn't a complaint of mine - if it requires some effort to get to, that's fine with me, so long as the problem can be taken care of. Well, the replacement CPU I have in mind is essentially the same Northwood processor in the laptop configuration - I gather I'd be on the safe side replacing the 2.66 P4 in it now with the Mobile variant of the same kind. Can't hurt. -Kurt