Hey all... I'm running a 3.0GHz Prescott with a Zalman 7000B-ALCU HSF, with Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound. Problem is, it's still hot as hell. My case isn't too bad (between 26-32 C in normal usage), but the CPU gets up in the neighborhood of 74 C under a load (such as when I'm playing Guild Wars) and idles in the low 50's. (To everyone except fellow Prescott users, those temperatures probably seem obscene, but I'm sure the rest of y'all can understand.)

Of course, I added on the Zalman HSF and AS5 after trying the out-of-the-box setup from Intel, and of course did a very thorough job cleaning the stock thermal grease off my P4's heat spreader. After I mounted the fan and ran it through the normal "break-in" period, I only noticed about a 1 to 2 degree drop in temps. I even re-mounted the processor (of course, thoroughly cleaning and reapplying the AS5) one more time, but still not much improvement.

So that led me to notice that I had bought a HSF that's known for low noise, but not necessarily great cooling performance. Naturally, if I'm going to be addicted to Guild Wars, I'd like to not destroy my Prescott in the process. I know it's designed to withstand high temperatures, but 74 C?! That's just ridiculous. :hotbounce

Since I'm fairly new to the neighborhood of hot processors (my last 2 rigs have been Celerons), I'd be interested to hear what folks have to recommend for cooling. (The Vantec Mach 1 heatpipe cooler looks promising, but I can't find much by way of reviews or a CFM rating... anyone know if it's any good?)

Thanks,

Marc

I haven't used these personally, but have heard some good things about them.
http://www.xoxide.com/silverstone-nitrogen-nt-01-p4-cooler.html
http://www.xoxide.com/thermalright-xp-90c-cpu-cooler.html
http://www.xoxide.com/thermalright-xp-120-cpu-cooler.html
actually, most all of xoxides cpu coolers are good.
http://www.xoxide.com/insoc42pen4c.html

Thermaltake Spark 7+

Those actually look rather tempting. Only thing is, the way my motherboard is situated in my case, I'm not completely sure those would fit.

After doing a bit more searching, I came across one that will probably fit well, the Thermaltake Spark 7+. (ZipZoomFly listing: <http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=370438>) Its specs are impressive -- at its highest setting, it can reach 49.17 CFM. That should keep my Prescott much cooler.

Does anyone have one of those or know someone who does? I'd be interested to hear some personal testimony before I go ahead and replace my Zalman HSF.

Thanks!

-Marc

i reccommend the zalman 7700 (comes in all copper, and copper/aluminum). it's a quiet fan that installs easiest on socket 478 boards and provides great cooling power. just make sure it fits your box before dropping $50.

74C is hot. I burned an athlon 3200+ running around there.

I stopped overclocking and everything is ok. I'm running with a bigger fan now also.

Yeah... guess I'm just a bit confused about the fact that I spent $40 to get myself a big cooler (the Zalman 7000B-AlCu is HUGE -- it has a 92mm fan!!) and it's still doing a crap job of keeping temps down.

Nice thing is, 74 C would be complete disaster for most processors, but the Prescott thankfully is designed not to burn at extreme temperatures. I read somewhere it doesn't even begin to throttle till it hits 95 C, but I really don't want to test it out.

Sigh. Think I might try on a Spark 7+ for size, hopefully it'll help. Thanks everyone for your input.

I have the Spark 7+ and it does a decent job of cooling my P4 3.4C (actually below my case temp at idle... just goes to show that temp readings shouldn't always be trusted to be accurate). Can get a bit loud when you crank it up to 6000 rpm, but it doesn't bother me. That said, you really shoulnd't be getting that high of a temp with that HSF, even with a S478 Prescott. How much AS5 did you apply? It can make a huge difference if you put too much on.

state what socket and exact p4 model you have.

If that was directed at me, as I said it is a 3.4C, or a 3.4 GHz Northwood which is only available as a S478. My setup really isn't in question, I was just giving my opinioin on the HSF that MarcFOnline was thinking of buying.

Unfortunately, I wish my problem were that simple... but alas, I'm pretty sure that's not the case. When I put on the AS5, I went for the "dot in the middle" approach, and the dot was fairly small. I may attempt to re-seat it just in case my dot was too large, but I would find that fairly unlikely.

Considering that the absolute lowest I've ever seen from my current setup is 47C (and that was with nothing running at all besides Motherboard Monitor and the essential Windows components), I'm tempted to go ahead with the Spark 7+, but you're right, the temps I'm getting seem to suggest there's something else fishy.

Thing is, everything else seems great -- as I type this, my ambient temp is 29C, and my hard disk (equipped with its own fan) is at 19C. My case is a bit old (there aren't any case fans in the sides or the back, except my dual-fan power supply), but considering the hottest I've ever seen my case get is 33C, I'm thinking that isn't that much of a problem. I'm still considering a case replacement nonetheless, since it's a boring computer beige box, but we'll see.

In the meantime, thanks for your reply. If your 3.4C is below ambient, I'd say that's a good vote of confidence for that HSF, so I'll probably put down the 30 bucks and order it.

the newer socket 775 5xx p4's have known issues with overheating resulting from the use of anything except the intel boxed cooler and thermal paste. i saw this on thg, they even made a video about it on a 560.

Excuse me, I'm a bit of a newbie here. I'm running a P4-2.6HT on an Asus P4V800-X mobo and I do a lot of heavy duty video editing, conversion and rendering on it, not to mention marathon gaming sessions (Call of Duty, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, etc) PLUS, I very rarely shut this PC down (as in it's lucky if it gets shut down for more than an hour in a week TOTAL) but so far, I don't have any problems as far as overheating is concerned. The highest recorded temp I ever attained was 58 degrees, and that happened just once.

And what heat sink do I use? The STOCK heat sink that came with the CPU, well, almost stock. All I did was to piggyback another fan, an 80 mm fan that came from a junked power supply. It's sitting right on top of the original fan and supported by a bar mounted under the power supply and another one bolted to the rear part of the casing. And since it's a bit bigger than the original CPU fan underneath, I offset it a bit so part of the air coming out of it blows right on top of the Northbridge chip thereby cooling it as well.

And to help keep case temp down, I just mounted 2 80mm fans in front, blowing right into the 2 hard drives there and another fan in the rear of the casing exhausting the hot air out. That's all I did. Cheap cooling job, if you ask me. But it works, so why fix it...

Now, my PC idles at around 38-39 degrees at below 5% CPU usage, averages at around 45-48 degrees under normal loads and peaks at 56 degrees when run at full throttle. And if you think it's because my room is cool, no way man! I'm in the Philippines where the normal room temp rarely goes below 30 degrees C.

You should be fine. If you're not overclocking, your stock fan should be ok. You said you have more than that, so you're defiantely ok. Unless you live in a very hot area, or your office is abonromally hot, there shouldn't be any problems.

yes. loaction is an important factor. in summer my place can go above 100 degrees (farenheit), and my my computer gets pretty hot. but the heat's no match for a good supply of cold beer...

I'd like to see the computer drink beer!

the computer doesn't need it, i do. beer is very important to a man's health, among other things...

yes. Cures all ailments!

Especially for colonic cleansing!
hahaha

I have used them...

I have used these and prefer this one>>> http://www.pctoys.com/840556016502.html

The Company Makes something for every CPU out there... I think, these fans are fans are large and almost silent, one computer I built you cant hear the CPU fan over the 80 mm side fan. They look and run cool only draw-back is they add about 1.5 Lbs to your system and I have given myself some nasty cuts installing them as you have to rip the mounting shoe(s) off and mount the new shoes... Asus and MSI are real bad for this as they use a very strong glue on their shoes. and the Zalman fans are lage so the displace heat well but not towering and restricive in air flow you get some of the other heatsinks and they keep you CPU cool but the system ambient temp spikes because there is no direct or even good air flow through the tower.