Watching temps and crash points

[Koo Koo Mouse]

System:

Shuttle AK31A MB, Amd Athon 1800+, Crucial 256, Antec cpu cooler (The 14 dollar jobby) Enlight 300w PS.

This is and upgrade from an Amd slot 600 and only a few weeks old. Once thing I noticed in the bios was a PC health info. Cool never had this before. I took quick notes on the temps and they were 32 case and 48 CPU.

The thing ran great on the game I love (Motor City Online) night after night no probs.

Then one Sunday I decided to lay down the car keys pick up a gun and play MOH. Abouy 45 mins into it I get a hard freeze.. no way out. Reset and play another 15 and freeze. Huh? Got to thinking and went into the bois and checked temps. CPU at 55. Thats bit of a jump but should that lead to a hrd freeze??
I pulled the front off the enlight case off and played for hours.

Mkay so now we know whats going on.

Tonight I found MBM 5 so I could see my temps in windows without rebooting.. It was a pain to setup (for me) but now I have it dead on.. Three tests with varying temps and comparing it to bios proved I could trust it. Once set up, it was never off by a single degree (bios vrs MBM)


Now for the Questions:

Can I trust what the bio reports? 55c seems a little cool for a lockup.

This MBM 5.0 ? It certainly does not seem to just GRAB Bios info and display it. IF that was tue the program would be about 2 kb..Right?

Do people put in there own probe not trusting the built in?

The Hs and fan I bought stinks.. And how bad

What color shoes am I wearing right now? J/K

Just wanting to hear from peeps with similiar setups and your heatsink solutions.. summer is commimg up and the ambient will 90 soon.. no case fans will help.
I gotta keep the CPU thing under 128F as 132 is my killer so far..

[PreDatoR]

Thats pretty hot for a XP i'd recommend picking up a better HSF... The AX7 with a quiet 80mm fan or a Coolermaster Heatpipe... My idle temps with my XP are 34C load is only 42C... i'm using the heatpipe. It does its job well and can be had for around 30 shipped. i've read about probs with MoH locking up. Have you downloaded and installed any patches for it? Updated video card drivers and be sure your running DX8 would be the things i'd look for first. 55C shouldn't lock it up but i wouldn't rule temp out as a problem just yet.

[dadx2mj]

Yeah get an AX-7 or and Alpha 8045. I like the Alpha because of the mounting system it screws to the mobo and does not use the socket clips. I have the Alpha and my temps on a hot day with full load might reach 40c but they are usually under that.

[EvilHorace]

I'm getting one of those Coolermaster heatpipes myself, on its way.
I have the same mobo now and my 1.4 ghz t-bird (running default clock speed so far) is always at 55C when I check it in the bios which is hotter than my 1.0 ghz t-bird ever ran with the same older coolermaster HS/fan with a 5K rpm fan. There are settings in the bios to increase both alarm and shut-down temp settings if desired but I so far havent had a reason to do that. I havent played any game real long with this setup (usually don't play games long anymore) but I always switch on extra case cooling fans whenever I'm playing games as it seems to keep the PC from crashing (previous experience).