Finally some sorta decent temps!

[cryogenic]

I actually went out and bought a new case today @ CompUSA. It's a mid-priced midtower case, has both a side & top window, takes 4x80mm fans up front, 2x80mm in back, 1 80mm side, and 1 80mm top. Right now, I have 7 80mm fans in it (only one front slot isn't used right now). As well as doing this, my friend gave me his old HSF from his Barton 2700 today since he bought a TT Volcano 11. My system specs are as follows:
Asus A7N8x-deluxe
Athlon 2000+ (Palomino core)
1 x 512MB Corsair 3200LL RAM
WD800JB 80gb 8mb cache HD
Powercolor Radeon 9700 OEM (between non pro and pro speeds)
Ben-Q 56x CD-ROM
Artec 52x translucent CD-RW

About the only reliable temperatures I can get right now are CPU & HD... my case temp sensor does not work anymore on my board for whatever reason. CPU runs @ 44C idle, 49C load... HD is about 24C or so most of the time... My case comes with a front LCD display with a temperature diode attatched that I stuck to my northbridge heatsink just for fun... it read about 99.5F under load. Mind you, my old setup ran about 60C under load and about 53C at idle, so this is a huge difference. I'm happy, to say the least.

 

[NetRyder]

I know the feeling.

It's been almost a year since I bought my laptop, and heat has always been a concern at the back of my mind since it contains a desktop P4 processor (Northwood core). But all was well, and I had very stable temps.....until a month ago. Temps started to skyrocket all of a sudden...had idles of 60C and a whopping 78-79C under heavy stress. The thing even shut down on me once (owing to the P4's autoshutdown mechanism).

I was quite sure dust was the culprit, especially since the machine hadn't acted up like this until now. So out came the compressed air can, and I gave it a few bursts from the vents. Believe it or not, it's now happily purring at idles of 38-40C and not much more than 60C during load. Beautiful.

Moral of the story: Clean out that HSF/exhaust system if weird things start happening.

 

[cryogenic]

I keep compressed air on hand for just that purpose... I live in a VERY dusty house and make a point to clean it out every couple of weeks. Needless to say, even with thorough cleaning, I very seldom saw idle temps under 50C with my old setup. I've not seen anything even remotely close to those temps with this setup, even running Folding @ Home. I'm pleased, to say the least.

 

[LeeJend]

Tis the season for dust build up. Noticed my system was up 4 deg C MB & CPU last night. Dusted it when I shut down last night and it's back to normal today.

The dry hot air from forced air heating systems in the winter creates a lot more air born dust during the cold months so the system cleaning schedule needs to go to once every 2-3 weeks.

One note. I had been ignoring internal dust build up in the power supply (oops forgot it). When I shot some compressed air in there a stampede of dust bunnies flew out the back end. Make sure you get the PS too!

 

[NerdUprising]

I must say this thread is pretty reassuring... I am no Jedi of the CPU cooling variety, so I was afraid that my system was running hotter than the norm, but, according to this, I'm all set

CPU: 90F(32C) idle, 97-102F(36-39C) heavy load
Rest of the case (split into 2 zones): between 79-87F(26-31C)

weeeee! only 4 case fans (all 80mm) plus GPU and CPU fans. My computer is my friend

[edit] Im sure the fact that my room tends to waiver between ice and semi-tundra temperature conditions helps

 

[cryogenic]

I wish I could get my CPU under 100F... Just out of curiosity, what CPU/mobo/HSF are you running? I do know that the Palomino core Athlons run fairly hot in comparison to the T-breds and Bartons. (my 2000+ runs hotter than my friend's 3000+)