Fan Cooling Solutions for an AMD Athlon 64 3500+

[IncaDummy]

Question for the Gurus:

I've built an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ on a A8V motherboard. The case is the Thermaltake Skull case (found here). I'm running a gig of RAM, a couple of SATA drives, and an NVIDIA 5700 video card.

I'm noticing that the processor is running hot under load...it has actually shut down on me once due to heat. Now, the room I'm running it in is definitely on the warm side, but I'm thinking of doing something to improve airflow. If I pop the side panel, it is a bit better.

I'm using the stock heatsink/fan combo. I'm not super comfortable with removing the heatsink if I don't have to, but does anyone have any suggestions for a better fan solution? Something that might be more effective but not tremendously loud, and would attach to the stock heatsink?

Any and all suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[fanboi]

If you aren't overclocking, the Thermaltake SilentBoost or Zalman CNPS7000 are both good choices; fairly light, good cooling and quiet.

Just remember to clean your CPU before applying new thermal grease to it (some use either lighter fluid or rubbing alcohol).

 

[yezhou]

Have you tried using the Cool & Quiet? That'll help temperatures when its idle.

 

[IncaDummy]

Yeah, I've got cool and quiet turned on. At idle its fine, but when I'm gaming it definitely heats up...

 

[IncaDummy]

I'm not overclocking, but I'd like to leave the current heatsink on just add a better fan, if possible. I've built quite a few computers, but I've never been big into the overclocking, so I've never needed to remove a heatsink from a chip, so I'm a bit wary of it.