2.66ghz Northwood Idling at 60C is bad right?

[TheRyuu]

Title speaks for it's self. BTW, this is on the stock Intel Cooler. This isn't my rig, it's my father's, and that just seemed a bit too hot for a Northwood.

Not sure about the load temp though. I don't have much experience with P4's or Northwoods for that matter. I do know a lot about the newer Opterons and A64's, but unfurtinaly that really doesn't help me on this older rig.

Should I try a remount of the HSF?

 

[dexvx]

Yea, at 2.6Ghz, it should be idling at around room temperature.

 

[Furen]

I'd clean up the heatsink and check the case's airflow. Also, try touching the heatsink while the system is running to see if it actually is getting hot.

 

[996GT2]

yes, that's a high temp

check the heatsink to see if it is loose, and add some new thermal compound and remount it. If that doesn't work, check your case fans and any airflow blocks

 

[secretanchitman]

if my 2.4C is idling around 60C on the stock heatsink, i guess its time to buy a new one now isnt it?

i was thinking a thermalright XP-90.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Not much I can add here.

I built my sis-in-law's system with a 2.8C Northwood on a D865PERL Intel board with Corsair DDR400's. We put it in a PC Power and Cooling (plain-vanilla) Midtower case, modifying the 80mm front-intake fan-hole for placement of a 120mm fan. And we put a ThermalTake PIPE101 heatpipe cooler on the processor, Arctic Silver and another 120mm fan, but the exhaust port in back is still an 80mm job.

At 80F room, it would idle at 95F, and under computer games, would climb up to 112F or 44C. We never over-clocked it, and I never ran S&M or PRIME95 on it.

And THAT was too warm for my liking. But she couldn't tear herself away from her games long enough for me to finish modding the case, and she's happy . . . .