CPU = 478 Pentium 4 HT @ 3.4GHz, 800MHz front side bus, Prescott. One of my fans in my computer was loud, but I did not know which one it was (video card, PSU or CPU fan). So I shut down my computer and unplugged my CPU fan (JUST FOR A MINUTE) the stupid thing that I did was I did not give it enough time to cool down from when it was on previously, so I went to turn it on with the unplugged fan, and the computer turned on, I had it on for maybe 1 minute and 30 seconds, and it shut down fine. The Problem is when I plugged the fan back in, the heatsink was still very hot, and the fan could not run fast enough to cool it down, so the computer shut down, than I let it cool down, and I turned it back on and it said there was a thermal problem. Anyways it is running ok now, I ran a CPU test on it and it seems to have no errors, but could something happen in the future? Thank You, your help is very much appreciated Jesse My Maxed Out Pentium 4! Dell Dimension 4600 Pentium 4 HT @ 3.4GHz 4GB DDR Ram (2x500GB) SATA II Drive Windows Vista Ultimate NVIDIA 7600 GT Computing.net Member since 2003!

It surprises me that it would even boot up without the CPU fan connected. Most good boards prevent that. As to future problems? Pentium processors themselves have thermal overload cutout inbuilt so it obviously did not get hot enough to trigger that. ( Your motherboard bios also has thermal cutout settings and that was triggered when the fan was re-connected) Check in your bios settings usually under System Health for the alarm & cutout settings and for temperature reaadings. Goin' Fishin' (Some day)

It is better to start checking with the case fan for noise problem. Are you using stock fan that came with the processor ? Is it Sanyo-Denki make ? This fan has about 40,000 hrs life span. By the way, what fan was making noise ? Anyway, if your PC is running normally now, that means the processor was not damaged at all. This pocessor's thermal design temp is 90 degrees Celcius or 194 deg F. Regards SuatCINI

It turns out afterward that the noisy fan was not in my computer, it was something else, that happened to be running when my computer was running, it was actually an outdoor air conditioner. The way the sound came in through my windows it sounded like it was coming from my PC. Anyways my CPU is still running ok, I checked both my FSB and my Core speed, and it is all running normal. My Maxed Out Pentium 4! Dell Dimension 4600 Pentium 4 HT @ 3.4GHz 4GB DDR Ram (2x500GB) SATA II Drive Windows Vista Ultimate NVIDIA 7600 GT Computing.net Member since 2003!