P3 Thermal Information.

[Dputiger]

I've got a friend (helping remotely) with a very unstable system. Her CPU (a P3 600) is running at 56'C.

While this is obviously hot, I don't know if its hot enough to qualify as "severely unstable heat". DOes anyone remember?

[originel]

Hmmm...i can't really say as i'm mostly an AMD guy, but here's my 2 cents anyways. That's friggin hot! i mean, that's hot for an AMD system, and Intel's run much cooler than AMD systems. Generally it's considered that AMD systems become unstable at around 60C, so i could fully believe that the instability is being caused by the temps.

My advice, get a volcano 7+ off of newegg (they're going for cheap now, $17) and put that on with some artic (preferably silver 3 or 5, but aluminum or ceramique would work if money is that tight). That will cool it down tremendously (i would guess by around 10C at least, if not more). if it works, great, if not then at least you don't have to worry about it.

[Dputiger]

56'C is actually NOT overly hot for a modern AthlonXP or P4 system and is only slightly warm for an Opteron or FX-51. Times have changed, and thermals have grown.

The P4 3.2EE sits around 60'C full load with Intel's stock cooler.

[Dputiger]

I do still need that thermal info, however.