CPU temperature
 

Lately I've noticed that my cpu temperature on my P4 has been a bit high. I went out and bought some thermal paste, and that seemed to help a bit.

What other methods should I use?
Also, is there a program that will tell me the cpu temperature?

Are you running your stock heatsink-fan? If so, get a larger one.

How many case fans do you have? Are they oriented so that cold air comes in from the bottom, hot air leaves from the top?

Do you have rounded ribbon cables? They help promote air flow.

Any other suggestions?

-SF

Lots of people say that their CPU temperatures are a bit high, but no one ever says how high they actually are. How hot are ya talkin about?

Remember that the temperature of your CPU fan varies directly with the temperature of the room it's in. My CPU goes from 40 celsius to 55 celsius depending on how hot my room is.

-Lasereth

Saltfish covered most of them. However, you could try a custom blow hole on top of case. I haven't yet tried it, but it makes sense to blow hot air out of the top.

As for temperatures Motherboard Monitor seems to be the way to go.

You can get programs that display system temperature information, but only if your motherboard has built-in sensors. Check the mobo manual for information, since most that do come with a utility on the mobo driver disk.

You can also try this program.
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/hmonitor.html
It also checks fan speed and PSU voltages, although there are plenty of other programs out there.

edit:
I've tried a blow hole on my old case, and I couldn't believe how much of a difference it made. To be fair though, it was an old AT case that I'd modified extensively. Most new cases are designed well enough not to need them, but you might want to try it anyway.

Also, how did you notice the temp on the CPU was high if you don't have a monitoring program.

Thanks guys for all your help.

My cpu runs at about 100-118 F. I have 2 fans, one on the case and one in the back. I bought a separate cpu heatsink/fan, and it seems to be cooling it down quite a bit.

Update: It's now running at 96.8 F. Thanks again everyone.

My normal CPU tempature is around 31C or about 89F. I just looked up the max tempature on my AMD cpu and it is around 90C. I would think that an Intel CPU would have about the same limit. So as long as you have some kind of heatsink on your CPU you should be fine. (Assuming, of course, that you don't use CPU intensive programs like...3d Games...CAD and so on.)

100-118 Fahrenheit is great. You have nothing to worry about.

-Lasereth

That's good to know, thanks. I have the 2400+ and when I get rolling on UT2K4 it goes up to around 50C, looks l ke I have plenty of room before I get into any trouble.

hmmm, some overclockers once tould me intel could run with higher temperatures than the amd, dunno if thats the case though

Heh, I'm running a nice 84 F load right now.

I'd say you aren't into the severe "shit" until you reach 70 celcius or above. That's about 160 Fahrenheit. My old Athlon XP 1900+ used to run at 55 Celcius, and it's still running fine in a computer I put it in at my dad's shop.

as long as you stay under 55 load, you should be fine.
I run about 44C full load, which is running Prime95 for about an hour.