Overclocking and Heat Problems with my XaserIII/Volcano 11 + Barton 2500+

I'm most likely going to get a new hsf to replace my Volcano 11, but i am wondering what combination people think would be good for me. My idle temps on my brand new Barton 2500+ (stock FSB/speed) are being read at around 49 deg celsius and if i do overclock to a 200 MHz FSB (mult at 11x), my temp will rise to 51 deg celsius and if i try to run Prime95, it will easily pass 58-59 deg celsius. This is annoying...

I think one problem with my case in general is that i have restricted airflow, yet i have no clue how to fix this problem. With my xaser3 ive got all the HardCano9's wires draping down, and ive got all the molex connectors going to my 3 hard drives, which i recently moved so that some air could pass from my HD cage SmartFans (2 of them). If i leave the front of my case open, i can usually get my system temp to drop 1 deg, and my system temperature is usually below or at 40 deg celsius.

If you can help me figure out some ways to cool my computer w/o needing water cooling and too much money, id be thankful. I am willing to buy a new heatsink and fan, as long as the fan is less noisy (yet cools better) than the volcano 11 stock fan.

Here are my system specs for those who may be wondering:
Barton 2500+ @ 166 FSB x 11x Mult
Xaser III Aluminum with window and 7 Tt SmartFans
Volcano 11 hsf, ducting mod and removed Xaser Fan Grill
Corsair Twin-X 2x256 MB DDR400/3200
Gigabyte GA-7NNXP Motherboard
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB
160 GB Maxtor 7200 RPM 8MB Cache
120 GB WD Caviar 7200 RPM 8MB Cache
100 GB WD 7200 RPM 2MB Cache

Also, i am using the Gigabyte EasyTune4 utility that allows me to probe my CPU and System temps, and adjust my Vcore, FSB, and dimm/agp voltages/clocks.

that's not right. you must have something installed uncorrectly. take off the 11+, apply a correct, tiny amount of AS to the chip, and seat it correctly. check your ducting mod. with that case and the stock cooler you should have lower temps

i agree, i think you need to try reseating the heatsink and make sure you applied the thermal coumpound correctly.... you should also be overclocking through the bios, not a windows based utility.

I dont seem to have any problems with the Gigabyte EasyTune4 program, as all it does it change options in the bios. I am using OCZ Ultra II thermal compound (applied in a paper thin layer). Is there a specific direction that the ducting mod should be facing?

not really as long as your fan is blowing in....

i know that my fan is blowing in, but none the less, im gonna try reseating the hsf...

last night it was running @ max load @ around 52/53 deg celsius, but that was with the side of the case off... i had no problems whatsoever running prime95... anything you suggest i can do to increase airflow in a xaser 3 case?

yea all those thing that hang down kill airflow.... i replaced the two intakes with SMFII's running at like 7 volts.... and the exhaust is also a SFII running at 7volts. I also replaced one of the window fans and the other exhaust with a LED fan (but those just for pure looks). next im gonna cut off the fan grills which would help alot. my temps only go down by 2-3 degrees with the side off, so i guess my ariflow is decent

I just found out that gigabyte athlon boards generally will read temps on average 10 deg C higher than usual (as they use the die-temp sensor on athlons), so i guess im actually good. Im still going to reapply my thermal compound and reseat my heatsink so i can place a probe under my cpu to check actual temps. Thanks a lot for they help, guys.

Also, my airflow, i guess, isnt too much of a problem with these SmartFans... When i remove the side of the case, my system temp is remaining about the same, so i guess im really ok.

The Volcano 10+ and 11 just... suck. I've reseated my 10+ many times. I still get the 50C idle and 60C loaded. My motherboard doesn't have any off temperatures either. AMD Recommended heatsink my ass.

(P.S. I'm new here.)

If your case

HAs the filters like the one i built for my buddy, Remove them.

Also, I use to use the easytune to OC. You are better off changeing BIOS settings. The easytune wont change them Permanantly. believe me. Easytune will show a crazy AGP setting when i KNOW the agp is locked at 66. The only thing i use the easytune for is PSU RAil Monitoring and temp and Vcore voltage Mon.

Harry

Easytune wont change any agp/pci settings, so theres no need to even care about those. +, I also think that easytune sucks, and the only thing i use it for is temp monitoring. I use Cpu-z to check my CPU voltage, and ive been finding that EasyTune is way off... like .3 V off.

Ive actually recently been having luck with my volcano 11 heatsink... considering that Gigabyte boards use the on-die temp for AMD's, the temp reading that you get thru EasyTune is almost 10 degrees Cels higher than what you would get if you used a heat probe. Im going to use my heat probe on my cpu from now on...

im also finding that my airflow is better than normal... even w/ my screens on... dunno whats up, but ill be checking that out soon

I've got a volcano 12, and seem to be having similar heat problems. Even at stock (166 x 11) speeds on my Barton, my Asus board tells me I'm running at extremely high temps at idle. And if I use Asus probe it usually reads the temps about... anywhere from 10-20C lower than what BIOS tells me. I honestly do not know what to believe, I've reseated my hsf once already, considering doing it again. Case airflow seems to work well, everything else stays cool (except the video card).

I've also noticed my HS doesn't feel warm to the touch unless I'm running Prime95 or another CPU intensive app. I do not know if I shuold be concerned with this or not.

I'm truly afraid to OC much because the BIOS temps are so incredibly high.

Just installed MBM, it says my CPU is running at 35C, BIOS said it was 52C... I'm going to stick with the MBM temps, as they seem much more realistic.

lighty^,

yeah, the temps that your bios is probably reading are on-die temps, like what mine was reading. This is the probe that is put inside the athlon processor, and you bios is reading temps from that. Because it's located inside the processor, the temps will be much higher than, say, a probe stuck underneath it. If MBM says 35C, thats a temp you should be following. Try overclocking a little and see what happens. I oc'ed my barton 2500+ succssfully to 11x200, and i've burned it in w/ prime95 for roughly 7 hours and my system has been on for the past 2 days without any stability problems

hmm yeah im at 190x11 right now, running prime95... it gave me one rounding error last night after a little over 3 hours. started it over again earlier today, mbm says my cpu is at 45C which is fine for a full load and im hoping to oc some more today/tomorrow

45C is great

thats what i run at with a 450mgz OC. Very good for air man.

Harry