Cooling Problems?

[Fusion]

Here's my rig...

AXIA 1200 (not oc'd yet)
Taisol CGK760092 with stock fan (didn't have any thermal grease, so used what it came with)
GeForce2 64MB
Elian-Vital (Asus) case with stock fan (80mm) for exhaust, 65CFM 115v fan for intake in front.

The ambient temp of my gaming fortress (otherwise known as my den) is very warm, 29-32c. At idle, using Asus' Probe program in Win98, the CPU temp is 50-55c, mobo is at 32-35c.

I played some Tribes2 last night for, eh, 4 hours. Checked my temp, which registered 60c according to the Asus probe. Will this kill my processor if I run it at that temp under full load? I've heard the Asus probe is around 10 degrees hot, which would put my CPU at 50c under full load.... which would let me sleep better but I'd still like to get it lower.
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Needless to say, I'm going to buy another window A/C unit for that room (I don't have central air *yet*), so that will lower my room temp to 21-22c. How much that will affect my T-bird remains to be seen.

My questions are this... should I pop the HSF off and use some acetone to clean the old thermal tape from the core and heatsink, then apply some RadioShack thermal paste to it? I plan on replacing my intake fan with a 90 or 120mm 12v monster, which I hope to route directly towards the HSF... which brings me to my next question. Should the HSF direct air across the fins, or pull it away? The Taisol I bought is blowing across the fins, blowing the heat down into the mb, making it really hard for my exhaust fan to draw it out. *shrugs*

I don't expect miracles, just to run 45-50c under load

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

 

[castle lager fan]

Get rid of the tape and get Artic Silver II. It will already help.

Also see my reply to "How do I cool this rig?"

 

[JoeCrappa]

maybe get a new HSF bro. i'd recommend a nice loud one from OCZ or somethin. i mean if you want longer CPU life then cooler is better. and that a pretty pricey chip and i wouldnt want it to go to waste, for your sake bc i know what it feels like to lose a CPU =(. if you wanna overclock that thing then you might need a more extreme solution that is in some terms more silent. go watercooling if you're planning to overclock that thing. and the room temp will help it a lot. my CPU temp went down to 20c last night just by opening the window. well, happy hunting.

 

[William]

actually you have a good hsf, you just need to either put a screaming Delta 36cfm fan on it or a nice quiet 80mm fan to realize its performance. Loose the frag tape and use at least the $1.99 heatsink compound from Radio Shack. It is not as good as Artic Silver but is still very very good stuff. By going with some goop and a better fan for the hsf, you should get much better numbers., probably about 10C better.

 

[Fusion]

Well, I removed the thermal tape, cleaned the core and the heatsink with acetone and alcohol, then applied some RadioShack HS compound. Purchased a window unit A/C unit (needed one anyway) and reduced ambient room temp to 25C. Thus far my highest temp has been 51C under full load (running T2 1024x768x32).

I think I would save an additional 3-4C if I used Arctic Silver, which would bring me down into the high 40s under load. Almost there.

I think I need to invest in a nice cooling system, that's not going to sound like fighter aircraft taking off. I read Hoot's Grainger article (it HAS crossed my mind), but I think with some better airflow I can easily attain 45C under load... just have to find out how I'm going to get there Going on vacation next week, so I'll post what I did and the results the week after.

Thanks for all the tips, Overclockers.com has been a great help.