Is this a good temperature for a Prescott P4?

[Game Boy]

I have a C2D computer as well; that's fine, but I sometimes use my old 3.0GHz Pentium 4 "Prescott" (i.e. HTT). It's NOT OVERCLOCKED IN ANY WAY.

Every diagnostic program shows (!) 67 degrees Celsius on idle and 69 under load.

The room feels like an oven just with it idle, and the fan is always at full speed.

The computer's out of warranty and shop-bought, so what's the easiest way to reduce it?

Or is that fine?

 

[eelw]

Reducing Vcore can help

 

[apoppin]

you can underclock it or swap a cooler running NW for it

probably a better solution would be to get a better HSF ... they didn't call your CPU "PressHot" for nothing.
:sun:

 

[Keysplayr]

Seems very hot for idle temp. And only a 2C increase under load? What kind of load are we talking about here? Gaming? Archiving? Encoding? etc. etc.

I had a 570j engineering sample (Prescott 1MB 3800MHz) that had an unlocked multiplier in that the bios can make the CPU run at 2800MHz at idle. So my idle temps were in the neighborhood of 40C and sometimes lower. Under full load (3DMark06 or 2 instances of SuperPi) I would reach 67C and that was with a Zalman 7000ALCU cooler.

 

[Game Boy]

It's gaming (but the games have a very inefficient compilation process so that Pong uses just as many system resources as Half-Life would) and my clock speed doesn't change at any time.

Will it damage the system? I've had this for 2 years now.

 

[apoppin]

what HSF are you using? Stock?

yes, excessive heat damages CPUs even though yours is designed to run hot.
--get a better cooler ...

problem solved

 

[PCTC2]

I've got a lot higher temps than you. I use an IBM workstation and it idles at 67C and loads around 79C running F@H and BOINC. Then again, I'm using a small form factor HS w/ a 40mm fan.... on low.

 

[zephyrprime]

Originally posted by: eelw
Reducing Vcore can help

This is a store bought computer. It won't have options for that.

Probably not worth money investing in a new heatsink since it's an old machine. Instead, just reseat the heatsink with some new thermal compound. Also blow out the dust on the heatsink. This won't reduce heat output but it will reduce temps.

If you have windows xp service pack 2, go into power management and then set the power scheme to "minimal power management". That will enable speedstep on your machine. Also be sure that it's enabled in bios (although there probably won't be an option for that).