Need assistance please

[aaroncat]

Hey there people I have some questions, I am relatively new to building pc's this is my first attempt:

Asus P4S533 with P4 2.4
Zalman 7000 cpu fan (92mm)
Geforce 4 v8170 64Mb
768 Mb ram 2700 (3 x 256)
Raidmax 330W PSU

The part I didnt do was the fans which I have two case fans on the side that both appear to be blowing out(one seems to be blowing warmer air than the other). Now when I had the 2.4 running with stock intel fan system was idling around 33C and also with stock fan when I OC'ed it to 2.52 at 1.55 V it stayed around same temp (33C). The first of my problems is that when i put the zalman fan on the cpu wasn't any cooler. Could this be due to not putting the HSinthe precise spot over the cpu??????
Right now I am running at 160 FSB which puts cpu speed up to 2.88Ghz with 1.55V. This is the highest setting I have achieved that passed the torture test of prime95, however when running counter-strike the cpu temp rises to almost 55C, is this dangerous???? and what is the danger zone I should be staying away from?? Also is prime 95 a sufficient test, as my system seemed rather stable at 2.93Ghz 263FSB but wouldnt last 1 minute on the prime95 torture test. Should I be going that high??? does anybody know the limit of this motherboard cpu combo?? is 3Ghz pushing it?? Do I need more case fans??? both fans i have now are very small? should i get more and is it important how and where they are placed? and what direction they are blowing? I would appreciate anyones input

 

[gusgizmo]

prime95 is important. if it's failing prime 95, you might need to bump up the vcore to run at that speed. the temperatures are on the way high end, but if your system is stable at these temps, you should be fine.

the extreme danger zone where cpu's die is above 90degrees celsius. what are your case temperatures? this should be the biggest gauge of whether or not you need to upgrade you case circulation. if the temps are more than 5c over ambient, you need to look into fixing that, and even 3c is still not very efficient.

i dont know the limit for your combination, but someone else might. you should post your processor stepping, that may help others help you.

 

[aaroncat]

Right now my idle temp for cpu and MB is 36°
when you say case temp is that the motherboard temp? or should I be monitoring the temp inside case?
So you think it will pass prime95 if I bump up voltage???

If i am approaching 60° should i start underclocking?

I am new to this and am not really understanding you when you say ambient? (excuse my ignorance)
so 5° over ambient ??? does that mean over room temp?

 

[clocker2]

AC,
I would say that your biggest obstacle right now is your Zalman HS.
They are primarily designed for low noise applications, not as good OCing heatsinks.
I had/have one and went to pretty extreme lengths to get it to perform halfway decent.
You can see pics of my setup in the "Modding XaserIII" thread.
Outside of getting ridiculous ( not that there's anything wrong with that!) the best solution that I've seen on this forum involves replacing the fan.
This is not a completely straightforward proposition as the Zalman fan is somewhat unique and the mounting is unusual, but it has been done.
There is a topic about this, "Modding my Zalman 7000", that you may want to dig up...it's probably a few pages back.
If you are using the supplied Zalman speed controller- get rid of it and plug your fan directly into the motherboard. Then use SpeedFan to control your fan/temp balance.
I was able to get my rig into the mid 30's while Folding doing this.