Since having to replace an insanely loud CPU fan I've taken a vague interest in cooling solutions. I've made my own ducting assembly so the CPU now gets air straight from the front of the box, which keeps it a bit cooler than the fan just using the ambient air within the box.

I was interested to know what other people's CPU and System temperatures are when their computer is idle and under load, and a few things that could explain the conditions. I'll start things off with my info, hopefully someone other than myself finds this info useful and maybe even interesting.

I've read that XP2100+ CPU's are recommended to run at 90 degrees or below, however this seems mighty high to me - although my M/B has it's warning temp set to 110 degrees, but a friend of mine's M/B has a warning temp of 70.

Case sealed, no sides off or any "custom" holes
Room Conditions: 25-27 degrees or so
CPU: AMD XP2100+ (running at ~1740 MHz = 2100+)
Cooling: Ducting taking air from front of case straight to CPU Fan, plus extra rear mounted fan blowing out of the case.
CPU Fan Type: Nothing special, $20 or so.
Idle System: 35 degrees
Idle CPU: 52 degrees
Under Load System: 40-42 degrees
Under Load CPU: 60-62 degrees

Without the aforementioned ducting, the CPU was reaching 68 degrees under load - which is why I started looking into CPU cooling.

Under Load was running Q3 Team Arena with 2 teams of 4 bots each for over an hour.

I'd appreciate info from anyone else, thanks.

I've read that XP2100+ CPU's are recommended to run at 90 degrees or below, however this seems mighty high to me - although my M/B has it's warning temp set to 110 degrees, but a friend of mine's M/B has a warning temp of 70.

90 degrees CELCIUS?! That seems way hot.

I don't have an AMD CPU but I remember reading that 50 degrees was considered very hot for an Intel!

60 degrees usualy isnt good for any cpu be it amd or p4, my p4 goes loopy when it hits 60 degrees and so does my AMD box

just make sure the temp doesnt go much above 50, put in some quiet case fans or maybe even replace the heatsink for a more efficient one

My XP1800+ was running at 78 degrees C when i accidently knocked the heatsink (it's one of them ThermalEngines with the tiny contact area). Q3 crashed a bit and that was it.

i think AMDs will start to burn at 80-90
Id never let mine run @ 60

Get a proper heatsink, and some case fans.

My Xp1900+ sits at about 40degrees idle ... 44 load
Using SLK-800 heatsink ($110, i went all out :D)

And 3 fans running on 3/4 speed

this heatsink might be of some interest, cheap and good.
Spire, Falcon Rock II

i'm runing a AMD xp 2000
on an asus a7n8x

my average temp when not under load is around 45 degree
the mobo temp is around 38

under load it goes up by about 10 degrees on the cpu, that was while encodeing a divx for about 5 hours

the cooling is just a stock fan.

i know that amd cpu's have traditionally never had a auto shut down feature on temprature, but recentley they do. i know my board shuts down when the cpu hits 70. and i'm preety sure that 90 is the upper limit before they start damaging the cpu

my system isn't overclocked, stock everything.

I got the 90 degrees from this page, if you want to check it out yourself:

http://www.cpuscorecard.com/cpuprices/aaxp.htm

I just checked their Intel Pentium 4 temps, which suggest a max of 75 degrees for the 2.8 GHz Pentium 4

Giri: your using a T'bred core though arent you?

cause theyre 10-15 degrees cooler than Paly cores

90% sure DeKrow will be using a paly ... same as me

Yeh AMD's do run a lot higher temp than Intel.. I think from memory they run higher voltage so therefore more heat is expected.. 90 degres.. you could boil water with that cpu almost.. lol.

Nidz: you obviously havent seen someone cook an egg on their CPU :D
forget where i saw it .. cbf digging up link

Took the heatsink off like a 1.2ghz CPU, make a tray and s*** out of alfoil, and strived to cook the egg before the CPU went up in flames :P

Dont think he got any flames .... but he ate the egg :P

Hemerage: How do we tell if it's a Palomino or Thoroughbred? (apart from the crazy temperatures :)

* NUKED COS AMD SUCKS *

How long ago did you buy it?
T'bred are new

or download this ...
Cpu-Z

If it says stepping 2 .. its a paly

casa is a n00b, shutup

i have an XP2200 on an A7N8X with a volcano 7 cooling my cpu, my case has 2 80mm fans at the front sucking air in and another fan on the side sucking air in, directly onto the motherboard, i have a fan at the back taking air out and i have had a custom hole cut in the top to suck hot air directly out, my cpu idling sits at about 40ºC during the day my motherboad sits at about 33ºC

on load the cpu goes up to 45ºC the motherboard goes up to like 35ºC but thats a T'bred core for you :]

the t'bred cores came out half way through the xp2100's since abut the end of janurary 2003 they have been making 2100's with T'Bred cores

hemerage, i would think it's a tbred (the newer version of the xp range)

I bought my 2100+ in September 2002, so she's definitely a Palomino.

And I also read that interesting article about frying an egg on a CPU, as far as I remember the CPU didn't eventually die - but my memory ain't so good.

Thanks for the info folks.

Hemerage.. i'd be interested in seeing that link on here for the guy who cooked the egg on his cpu

Nidz, here 'tis:

http://www.handyscripts.co.uk/egg.asp

Haha.. classic.. I like it.. I want episode 2:- Cooking the Bacon

My loud case drives me insane, who has done research on water cooling and would like to share?

My AMD1.8 idles around 60 :|

My 2.8ghz intel idles at about 40 degrees and is about 50 degrees under heavy load (games), even after going overboard with fan cooling (7 internal ball-bearing fans inside the full tower case). Lots of case fans only work if the ambient room temperature is high, otherwise it doesn't really impact directly on cpu temp. Otherwise just stick to huge CPU fans :)

If you have relatively low ambient room temp, then getting an alluminium case helps (essentially a big heatsink) but is counter productive with high room temp.

well, my AMD 1400 died at 90-100 degrees and the power also short circuited and engulfed the motherboard but it wasn't exactly flames i.e. fire but sparks like when metal wielders umm wield metal. So I doubt 90 degrees is any sort of safe threshold unfortunately :D

Get a P4 FFS. mine idles at 40 adn under load at 48. with the stock heatsinc. It doesnt turn out much (if any) more expensve as the stock P4 heatsincs are the best. my room temperature is more like 30 + up here in the qld summer.
I've had 2 amd's , 1st one's L2 cache died. the 2nd one burned out after running at 56 to 62 degrees under leoad for a few months. It might seem ok now but in time it will DIE.

I have an AMD XP1800+, Palmino COre, with a Tt Volcano 7, i used to get 35 degrees Celcius with my old case with the fan rpm at 3500, but since i got the LAN boy, idle CPU is 41 degrees and the fans rpm is now around 4500, which i believe is not a good thing

imho (the user who posted above): Rather than looking into water cooling, why don't you just find out which fan(s) in oyur case are making it loud, and replace them? Water cooling will be a bigger hassle, and probably more expensive than replacing a fan or two.

I've borrowed some Arctic Silver thermal paste from a friend which I shall be applying to the heatsink at some stage this week. I'll let y'all know how much of a difference this makes.

Hey Cook me some toast please

I have the latest XP1800+ my system temp when idle is 33c
My CPU temp is 36c.

The highest I have seen my CPU is 42c.

This is so that people can learn from my (bad) experience and not have to learn it by doing it themselves, and save them the heart palpitations.

I RTFM, but didn't have all the required cleaning agents stated in the Arctic Silver application instructions. All I can say is make sure you have all the cleaning agents stated in the instructions.

I cleaned the heatsink and CPU core somewhat, there were small amounts of the original heatsink wax visible, but c'mon there was hardly any (I said to myself).

I then applied the Arctic Silver to the heatsink, following the instructions correctly, and spread the small amount over the CPU core - although in hindisght it was probably just a bit too thick.

I put it all back together and powered the PC on.....and after 5 seconds the PC powered itself off. I repeated this twice more, which is probably actually a bad idea, to see if maybe it would power up properly "next time". No dice. I actually broke out in a cold sweat (explaining to my wife moreso the reason than anything else)

My motherboard is set for a cutoff temperature of 110 degrees - which isn't changeable to a more "safe" temperature, so I was kinda panicking at this point that that CPU was fried.

I went to bed at 11:30pm, since I had to work the next day, thinking that I'd just fried myself $230+ worth of hardware.

The next morning I took the heatsink off, and examined the heatsink and CPU core surfaces, they didn't look too dirty or contaminated, and the CPU didn't look fried, ie. wasn't black around the edges like burnt toast, but I don't know if that's what fried CPU's look like.

Since I fiigured there wasn't much I could do to break it further, I put the heatsink and fan on top of the CPU but didn't clip it down, I just pressed it down hard. The computer booted, and held on for about 10 seconds this time - whilst holding my breath.

I tried it again, pressing down harder on the HSF, whilst also in a position to press the DEL button to get into the BIOS and see the actual CPU temp, which I was able to do. The CPU was running at 81 degrees. I turned the computer off, somewhat relieved that the CPU still seemed to be working, but annoyed that I'd done such a half-assed job of the Acrtic Silver cleaning instructions.

I'll post the 2nd half of my story later today

The *maximum* the Organic packaged processors are supposed to take are 85C.

In the past I've seen processors hti 70+C by either having the HSF on backwards, or the clip on backwards, hence the HSF on at an angle and not properly contacting the CPU die.

My Palomino (1800+) which was replaced on Saturday used to run at around 48-58C... The 1800+ Thoroughbred B which is in here now is at 36C right now - which is the highest I've seen it since I got it. (Current cooler is an XDream on the lowest fan setting).

But yeh, my advice would be to check that you have the HSF on the right way! A CPU at that temp says there's something wrong.

As for the Arctic silver (or any thermal paste), you only need about the equivelant of 2 grains of rice, evenly spread across the surface. Excess thermal paste has an inverse effect. All it needs to achieve is just smoothing the minute imperfections in the core.