P4 running too hot? ~55°C

[CloudsShinji]

Hi, I put together my new system on Friday, and the CPU seems to be way too hot from what I've heard about P4s.

Specs:
2.53 @ 2.66 (but even at stock 2.53 the temp is the same)
Gigabyte GA-8IHXP
Kingston PC1066 256MB x2

for a cooler I'm using the Thermaltake Volcano 7+ with Arctic Silver 3 as the thermal paste.


Anyways, the CPU temp as given by both the BIOS and Gigabyte's Hardware Monitor is generally around 52-55°C, and the system temp is about 35°. The thing is, that's the temp at idle, but I've been running Prime95 for about two hours now and the temp has gone up by maybe a degree. I had the Volcano 7+ on High-speed (~6200 RPM), and I turned it down to Low (3500 RPM) and the temperature has not changed.

I tried checking in MBM, but it doesn't support this mobo.

So, I was wondering, do you have any advice? I was expecting temps in the 35-40°C range....



EDIT: I should mention that I have the Lian-Li PC-7 case which has two 80mm intake fans and one 80mm exhaust fan. In addition, I have an Enermax 450W PSU with an 80mm exhaust fan and a 92mm intake fan located directly above the CPU.

 

[CloudsShinji]

Well, I was playing around with my system today and I got to load up Windows, etc, at a FSB of 150 (2.85 GHz). The temps remained in the 50-55°C range, so I decided to hit up Prime95 and see how it held out.

But after only a few tests, the CPU temp had shot up to about 70°C! I shut off Prime and it dropped down to 52° and is sitting there currently, but aren't these temps WAY too high for a P4, especially with this cooling setup?


Any help would be appreciated...

 

[Mallow]

man, I have no idea what the accurate reading would be. Get a thermometer?

 

[CloudsShinji]

I actually should do that. My case temp is supposedly 39°C right now... :Q

 

[muddocktor]

It sounds like you guys with the northwood P4's are starting to run into the same problems as people like me, who are running Athlon cpu's. The heat ouput of the high speed P4 is getting in the same neighborhood as the Athlon and it is a lot harder to cool down. With that said, if your board temp is actually running 39° C, then it sounds like you need to get better case ventilation. I know with my XP systems that I better have at least a couple of 35-40 cfm fans moving air through my case, besides the psu fan. Otherwise, all that heat your hsf is absorbing just stays in the case and the hsf can't cool efficiently. If you have good case airflow, then you might try upgrading the fan on that volcanoe 7 to something more powerful, like the 53 cfm Sanyo Denki or if you can live with the noise, a Vantec Tornado.

With the P4, I wouldn't worry about a temp reading in the 50-55° C range with the proc loaded, because your boards read the temp off the cpu itself. I imagine that 70° C temp you had was just about to trigger the clock-throttling feature that the P4 has buit into it though.

 

[CloudsShinji]

Thanks for the tips. But yeah, I probably should try to clean up these cables. I've got the two intake fans blowing over three HDDs, and I'm sure the IDE cables are really messing up my airflow.