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I'm running a P4 2.8C in a MSI Neo 2 MB, with 1GB Corsair DDR, and ATI AIW 9700 Pro.

Idle CPU temp is around 47C/116F which seems high to me
Case temp is about 32C/90F
Ambient room temp is 70F to 74F

I have standard cheapo case fan blowing in from the front across
my HD's and a little better fan exausting on the back of the case.

My case has a vent on the side with a cone that extends to the CPU FAN.

I'm going to try and put a fan in the cone vent to force more outside air to the CPU
(I just tohugt of this, but i gonna finish the post 1st.)

I'm using the stock intel fan, when I play UT2003 my cpu temp jumps to 60C/140F YIKES!!
I've been told these CPU's run hot but this seems high!

Any suggestion on better CPU coolers?

TIA

Bo

ANYTHING isbetter than standard cooling

I have been seeing some pretty good cooling from that p4 Zalman copper cooler. Its a big ass copper orblike heatsink

Welcome to PCA,

I have a Vantec Aeroflow with the TMD fan (Model # VP4-C7040) I run on my P4 3.06 (533fsb) and get it up to 3.5. It' probably not the best heatsink/fan in the world ( I beleive the swifttech hsf's are the best currently but i hate bolt through hsf's.) It's a royal pain removing motherboards IMHO for a heatsink swap. This Aeroflow has a nifty P4 clip that makes removal a breeze, a Copper core, not extremely loud and keeps it all near stock temp while O/C'd.

Here's a linky: http://www.overclockers.com/articles644/


or you can go really loud and use this baby: Cooler Master IHC-H71

Really superior if you like dem' noisy fans

http://www.overclockers.com/articles579/

ANYTHING isbetter than standard cooling

I had just purchased a 1.6a, and thought that if I wanted to o/c it to 2.4 that I would need a new HSF. I spoke to my wife's cousin, who is an electric engineer at Intel, and he just smiled...said the stock HSF that came with my 1.6a was the same one that comes with their new 2.2G and was rated up to 2.4G.

However, there was some visual anomalies in UT, and Prime95 quit after less than 15 minutes when the CPU was running at 2.4. I backed it down to 2.24, and it became perfectly stable. So I thought perhaps he was wrong. But he wasn't...although my Inwin Q500 has considerable venting along the bottom of the case, there apparently was not enough air intake, even tho' I also had a front panel intake fan. Once I installed The Card Cooler, I noticed quite a bit of air flowed over the top of the video card...going almost straight towards the CPU. On a hunch, I ratcheted it up to 2.4...and it's been perfectly stable, running 24/7 since January.

MaxPC pointed out in this month's issue - which the cover story is how to o/c, step-by-step - and they pointed out at least once that the stock HSF is highly capable. Several reviews on The Card Cooler (including MaxPC's review in their GOTY issue last November) point out how The Card Cooler reduces the overall internal temp of the case, as well as allowing insane overclocking of the video card.

Since your intake fan is blocked by your drives, your more-powerful exhaust fan may not be getting decent airflow and thereby inefficiently getting hot air out. Simply putting a fan on the cone may not do the job, since it's a targeted airflow...it will provide a little help for the CPU, but not much since it will also be stirring up hot air even more that cannot escape...which will continue to swirl around the CPU anyway.

You need more airflow. I suggest checking out the areas of intake and designing a (hopefully) simply fan design. Be sure to also consider exhaust, you don't want to pull in cool air that heats up and cannot escape. A suggestion here would be to get a dual-fan PSU, such as an Enermax or Antec.

i highly reccommend the dual fan psu. i just got a kingwin dual fan psu with 3 speed switch and my temps fell from 49c idle to 38c idle and 56c full load to 49c full load