A week or so ago my stock cpu fan broke, I had the HS and fan replaced at a small mom/pop computer place. Computer is runing fine and stable but I'm worried about the idle temp being too high. The guy who replaced the HSF took like 5 minutes to do it. Did he forget to add a thermal compound? Or did he use the stock thermal pad that probably came with the computer. I've read about reseating the HSF might fix the problem, but I don't have any thermal compound and am afraid to break the thermal seal if there isn't a thermal pad. And I don't even know how to remove the HSF. All the info I got about HSF and thermal paste is strictly from reading. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Specs: AMD xp2000+ (1.6668Mhz) 512mb pc2100 (266mhz) ram Shuttle AK31 (via kt266a) mb GF4 ti4200 40g 7200 hd Win XP Home Temps: MB Temp: 37-39 C CPU Temp: 52-54 C Idle and 55-59 C After gaming CPU Fan: 4650 RPM Note: I think my case has proper cooling, it has 2 rear exhaust fans and 1 side intake.

Hi Guy I presume from your post that prior to the heatsink being removed you had no heat issues ? It is possible that NO thermal compound was added, however in saying that the temps would be higher that those quotted. What type and brand of sink and fan was put on there? Is it capable of doing the job required ? Removing and reseating sometimes does fix these problems. It also may be possible the heat sink may not be seated correctly. Removing the heatsink is not a mjour problem but EXTREME CARE needs to be taken in doing so. If you havent done it before I would recommend that you return the comp to the person and explain your problem. Or take it to another shop and have it checked out. Fan speed of 4600 and temp at 59 sujest something is defntly not right. Have a look at the THERMALTAKE VOLCANO 10+ it is a pure copper heatsink, and AMD approved. Just in case the one you have is not doing the job ( and from your post that may be the case. Apprt from that very little else I can sugest to you at this time. Good luck regards Janos

I have the same CPU with a pretty good HSF and my teperatures are about the same as yours.

In reply to gary. We all know the amd runs much hotter than intel. Even though the temps are high they are not critical I agree. In the same breath the 2000, with the KT266 chipset should be a bit lower that those temps. If that was the newer NFORCE chipset I would say yeah normal. Just an example for you. Recently I buitlt a XP2600+ wiht the Gygabite 7NNXP board which has the NFORCE2 chipset on it. 2 extra fans, 1 side intake and 1 exaust, directly in line with the chpset and cpu. The temps were 52 at idle and upto 61 under load. I change the factory heat sink, and installed a thermaltake silent boost pure copper heatsink AMD approved. The temps dropped to 41 at idle and upto only 52 53 at full load. And system tmp down as low as 27, with the fan running at about 2350 rpm +- 50 rpm Much more acceptable temp range, and will extend the life of the entire system. Regards Janos

Hi Guy. I am running the same cpu on a PC CHips 830LR baord. I'm using a Thermaltake Volcano 6Cu+ HSF. I use thermal paste that I ghot from Radio Shack for I believe $2.99 a tube. Right now, Speddfan 4.09 is showing 42 C with the mobo at 30 31 C. The cpu may hit 50C at times, under load. I'd say they either didn't use any thermal material at all, or tried to reuse the old stuff. That won't work. I vote with Janos; take it to a different shop to be checked, if you don't feel comfortable checking it yourself. It ain't too hard, but it's pretty easy to make a mistake if you aren't experienced at it. You might ask the guy if you can watch (egads) him, and that way you'll know how the next time. Ok, I know I am going to get all sorts of flack over that! But, HEY, the guys gotta learn somehow, right? Sure beats busting the ears off the heatsink tabs. Or worse, a screwdirver slipping off and trashing the mobo. Good luck, Guy. :)

I going to make 2 guesses here. Quess 1. The new hsf had thermal tape on it. Quess 2. The tech did not clean any residue off the cpu from the previous install. I know AMD wants us to use thermal tape and not compound but I've found that paste gives lower temps and that any residue must be cleaned off both surfaces prior to reapplication. You also may have a slightly less efficient heatsink and fan that the thermaltake.

39C board temp seems high...are you sure your temps are accurate? If they are, you might wanna try juggling the case fans around to see if you can get the case temps down...your CPU temp should drop accordingly. My personal theory is that the case temp should be within about 5C of room temp & that the CPU temp at idle should be no more than 10C over case temp...so as long as your mobo temp sensor isn't in a "hotspot", with a room temp of 25C, your system temp should be about 30C & your CPU temp at idle should be less that 40C. Any comments on "jam's theory"?...lol Although when applied properly, thermal paste outperforms a pad, the difference is usually just a couple of degrees C...I don't believe claims of a 10C drop when switching to Arctic Silver. There's always cooling software too...Vcool works very well for boards with VIA chipsets.... Here"s a site for anyone out there interested in CPU wattage requirements: http://www.computernerd.com/cgi-bin/thermalcalculator.cgi