Help an Athlon XP newbie out please! re:CPU temps

[Skold69]

I bought an Athlon XP 1800 and it came with a Volcano 6 heatsink/fan combo. I originally used the thermal tape provided and the temp in the bios said it was running at 52 degrees C. I decided to ditch the thermal tape and go with Arctic Silver. I removed the tape with goo remover and added teh arctic silver exactly as instructed on their website. On boot up, my cpu temp is still at about 51 degrees C.

Is this a normal temp to operate at? Also, how can I monitor CPU temp while in Windows?

This may or may not be related to cooling issues, but when I get into various games, the PC just reboots itself.

Any ideas or suggestions here?

Thanks!

 

[ErikS]

So many questions, so few answers. You'll have to provide much more detailed information if you want a decent reply. We need to know case size/type, # of fans in the case & their arrangement, MB make & model.

I'll give you what I can, first of all it sounds as if you may indeed have a heat issue, 51 @ idle is very high & when you run games it's probably hitting 60+ & that might just cause re-boots. The first thing I'd do is get rid of that POS Thermaltake HSF, I've never known one that does a decent cooling job. Second how is the cooling in your case, do you have a decent airflow (no cables etc clogging things up)? Third use a monitoring program (like Motherboard Monitor) to check the voltage, specifically the VIO & make sure your MB isn't setting too high by default (it's recognizing the chip correctly).

Like I said, provide more information & you'll get better answers.

 

[Kipper]

51 degrees celsius on a processor at idle that fast isn't that bad at all. You should see it rise to ~55 under load. If you're worried about temperatures really that much, you should look into a new HSF setup, and if you don't have a very good airflow through your case, consider getting a few intake/exhaust fans...

 

[Migroo]

Random rebooting sounds like your PSu isnt powerful enough for your PC. This is probably directly related to the XP... Athlons need some decent juice!

I could be wrong as always, but I think you might like to check it out.

What is your PSU rated at?

 

[PUNKtotalled]

I agree with ErikS, I want more informations! Migroo could be right too. We Want MORE!

 

[Migroo]

Just a further note to my post:

A 250W PSu is on the verge of being ok for a 900mhz T-Bird (my friend is *just* about ok with one of those). If youre running a 250W PSU with that XP and a lot of high drain devices like HDs, then its probably the problem.

Of course if you have a high quality 350W PSU, then we can probably rule it out as being the cause of the problem.