Newb ... P4 Cooling

I just purchased a 2.8 (HT) Pentium 4 chip in conjunction with a Asus P4800 Delux MoBo. I also have a Hardcano temperature/fan control module in my ThermalTake Xaser III series chassis. I'm not overclocking yet and I have two questions. What should the normal operating temp be for a non OCed chip? According to my MoBo monitoring sw I average 111f but according to my Hardcano I average 130f. Second question...which tempearture reading is more accurate? I've left my machine off for the last few days because I cannot seem to find any documentation for normal running temperatures nor which temperature method is better! Please help this newb before I blow up my system!

most people prefer C around here but umm 130 C is rather high but don't oc any while 111F is ok temp. Where is the temp probe located? are you on stock hs?

130F, granted is a little high for Idle temps (assuming that these are temps when the computer isn't doing anything fairly intensive?)

I would trust the Hardcano more, as it is an external probe, and most motherboard diode readings are off nowadays.

Whatever the circumstance, you can run your system just fine - these temps are well under Intel's reccomended spec of approximately 70C (158F).

And I doubt that your P4 will blow - They have a thermal throttling feature that tries to prevent any hardware damage... So, at a certain temp they turn down the speed to keep it from getting hurt seriously.

Please share with us what your heatsink is, and if you have tried to reseat it (as the event of improper seating is quite prominent).

That is quite high for an Intel, but I don't know jack. You might have mis-seated the heatsink, or used too much thermal compound.

More Info

First off...thanks everyone who has answered this post. Okay here are all of the details. Everything listed is stock from the vendors...didn't use any thermal glues, or other gadgets.

Chip: P4 2.80C (HT Enabled)
MoBo: ASUS P4800 Deluxe
Mem: Kingston Hyper-X PC3500 (Dual Channel) 2 x 512mb
CPU Heatsink: Intel Supplied HeatSink
Chassis: ThermalTake Xaser III 1000A (7 fans not including PS)
PS: Antec 400 Watt PS w/ 2 Fans
HDD: Two SATA 160 GB HDDs On (MoBo Integrated) Controller
Drives: Sony 510A DVD +/- R/RW
Video: NVidia Quadro 900XL

Hardcano (came with the chassis) has the external temperature probe that I affixed to the bottom of the P4 chip.

ASUS Probe (SW that came with the MoBo) reads from temperature probes integrated into the MoBo.

According To Statistics Last Night
Idle Temperature According To MoBo: 108f/42.2c
Idle Temperature According To Hardcano: 124.5f/51.3c
Active Temperature According To MoBo: 112f/44.4c
Active Temperature According To Hardcano: 131f/55c

NOW FOR THE GOOD STUFF
Would someone please recommend what I should replace/upgrade to get the machine cooler so that I can overclock? Since I've never done this before...but am anxious...I don't want to jump the gun and screw this up. Any recommendation would be appreciated.

What is the proper way to reseat a P4 heatsink? Second, I didn' use any thermal compound. Any recommendations? From what I can see...and granted I'm pretty oblivious to the world. The fan unit clips to the MoBo which holds the Heatsink in place.

I would suggest removing the CPU fan, clean it and the surface of the CPU with 91% Isopropyl Alcohol ( can get from any drug store), APPLY Arctic Silver III paste, in a THIN haze. You should be able to just about read the letters on the CPU if you do it right. ONLY apply to the CPU. Install cpu fan and make sure BOTH levers are locked down!!


Best of luck

those temps are fine my 1.8 p4 on an asus p4s533 hits 153 degrees farenheit at full load with a 25% oveclock, don't worry bout the temps it will get angry and crash before your temps get too high


if i oc to a 50% increase 2.7ghz then if my north bridge hits 95 degress farenheight, then it crashes, so it never sees full load temps, but it will this weekend when it is watercooled

in other words enjoy ocing, the temps are good, but be prudent, and to get lower temps take the side of the case off, and tape a box fan to the side that is what i did