Is this a temperature I should be worried about or not? I'm not using the stock heatsink. This is my third heatsink for this CPU (including the stock one) and the second one I would hit temperatures of about 20-30. Both heatsinks (second and third) were identical I have a ASUS P5VDC-X motherboard, is there a way I could increase the fan speed? The heatsink has the four cables to the motherboard, I'm not entirely sure how to use SpeedFan and it says my CPU fan (heatsink) is running between 2100-2200 RPM.

*Note: I used to run at these temperatures with the stock heatsink, but would changing back to it resolve my problem?

Could it be a poorly ventalated case? I'm suspicious it may be that. I asked someone a while ago and they mentioned that they used to have a similar problem but the heat issue was coming from their harddrives, could they be heating my case up too much? The Harddrives run at about 40C

If this helps:
Intel Pentium D 940 3.2Ghz
Kingston (PC2-4200, 533Mhz) DDR2 1Gb
ATI Radeon X1600Pro (Zalmann VF900-CU Dual Heatpipe VGA Cooler)
ASUS P5VDC-X
Seagate 160GB SATA HD
Seagate 120 GB IDE HD
Samsung Writemaster DVD-RW

I don't have that great of a case, may that be an issue? It was given to me and I just bought the rest of the peices to put it inside....

Open the case and run it that way for a while, monitoring the temps

Im running a pentium D 3ghz on a 945g board, and my cpu in a micro-atx case, is running 37-39c so your temps are high.
Im using a stock Asus cooler that was supplied with the board.

50-60c is too high, the hsf may not be seated properly and make sure you are using a small amount of thermal compound as too much will make things worse.

My board supports temp adjusted fan speed so the speed of my fan increases as the temps go up.

Im pretty sure yours does also so you may want to check you bios settings as well.


On a side note nice to see you Tmagic!!

Below 70C is quite okay for a Pentium D. They were notorious for having heat-dissipation issues, even with the reduced 65nm chip die. However, instead of SpeedFan, try ASUS' QFan utility instead. It's much more simpler and easy to use.

Yes its ok but unnecessary as this cpu is quite capable of running below 60c and in fact most people find it runs below 50c most of the time or lower.
It has the EIST- Enhanced Intel Speedstep Technology, so it throttles down when underutilized and in fact will run below 50c most of the time or lower.

Hmm, wouldn't know about that since I've never owned a Pentium D myself. But below 50C would be the desired operating temperature. I just recommended the QFan utility since the OP stated he's not sure how to use SpeedFan.

I run a Pentium D 930 (3.0GHz) o/c'd to 3.65GHz, using a CoolerMaster Hyper TX HSF (LGA775) and Arctic Silver 5.
I leave Speedfan constantly on and my CPU temperatures are 38C idle, ~50C full load.
You say you're not using the stock cooler. Then what are you using?
Try to re-seat the cooler because LGA775 units have a tricky installation that's easy to mess up.
As for ventilation, just make sure you have a rear exhaust case fan (at the back of the case, right under the PSU). I find that the fan in that position helps the most in regards to a lower CPU temperature.

THtnks for the info Grafficks as I think many people dont realize the Pentium Ds of this type dont that hot with proper cooling.

Ive got mine oced to 3.6 and my temps at idle are 37-39c and 50c at load.

Ive seen some systems with higher temps but honestly few above 55c at load.

Im not even using Arctic Silver,just high quality thermal grease.

I'm not sure that people don't realize that. Its just that the Pentium Ds run fairly hot. Everything else being equal they run hotter than a Core2Duo and many other processors.

What I'm not sure people realize is that you can run that Pentium D in the 50s to mid 60s without any problems. Sure you won't overclock terribly high if your stock speeds are that hot, but you aren't running the processor out of spec or anything. The common argument that I'm going to go ahead and counter is "but the life of the processor is shortened if you run it hot", I would ask how many people you know that have ran a processor long enough that it died.

That's an excellent point. There's hardly any occasion where a processor died due to heat before the user has already purchased another system.
Even though the concept of "the lower the temperature, the better" is generally correct, heat (as long as it is within spec) does not detriment a processor's longevity enough to be noticeable.

The Presler-core on the Pentium D is spec'd to operate at a maximum temperature of 63.4°C.
However the advantage of a lower CPU temp is a lower case ambient temperature, and thus a lower temperature of air being exhausted from the PC... (maybe keeps the room cooler...? just maybe.)

Wow, thanks for so many responses so quickly!

I didn't mention that I do play Counter Strike on this game. And I know that the temperature is effecting my gaming (as soon as it reaches about 60C the game starts lagging to cool itself off).

Tmagic650:
I took off the side panel and there was a slight drop in the temperature I got 45-50C with the side panel off. Thanks for your help. :] But I wish I could get it as low as it used to be with my first aftermarket heatsink.

Crosscourt:
Yeah I was concerned about my temperatures since I was getting them to run so low earlier. On Intels website I read that the max operating temperature should be around 60(something)C (I beleive 63 or 69...) I'll have to look into my bios, I tried finding figuring it out myself earlier, but I had no luck, maybe the second time I'll find it.

Rage_3k_Moiz:
I'm looking for this ASUS QFan, not having too much luck. I found a website which stated that my motherboard is not supported by it. Would this mean that I have no way of controlling my fanspeed? I'm concerned because 2100-2200 RPM seems pretty slow...

Grafficks:
I'm not even overclocking! So I find these temperatures to be pretty strange. I have three fans in my case, two in the back as you mentioned and one on the side panel. The heatsink I have is one by AVS... I actually was just testing the first one I bought from this brand, but if gave me pretty low temperatures (20-30C) so I decided to keep it!

SNGX1275:
I've heard that Pentium Ds run pretty hot, but I was just very concerned about it running at such a high temperature! And since I was hitting such low temperatures earlier I was really worried... Also I'd love to be able to play my game without the ingame lags caused by the temperture of my CPU. :[

SNGX1275, yes Pentiums Ds do run hotter than many other cpus, but its not an issue. On many forums people do the usual Intel fud saying, avoid these cpus because of heat issues which I disagree with thus my comment.

In fact they run cool with decent cooling and arent an issue, as referenced by a few users who posted in this thread.
I agree though that the fact that some users do run them in the 50c-60c range isnt necessarily an issue but it is unnecessary.

I agree Grafficks as most people will sell their systems before issues may crop up and the only other drawback would be running at 60c in a case that doesnt have decent cooling.

My CPU runs about between 50c - 55c, I have a pentium D it's not cool but it runs with in specs and I don't see a slow down.

So I see no reason to worry or show concern, or even bother trying to increase fan speeds.

I just thought I'd mention this in passing. You're posting from the southern hemisphere, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's summer down there, is it not?
Most of your replies are coming from the northern hemisphere where it's winter.

Well, except for Rage, he's in the U.A.E. It's hot all year there is it not? Yes? No? Sort of?

Most of the time, yes. But it's pretty nice now, with temps hovering around 5-10C. But when it's hot, it's very hot. And I mean skin-scorching hot.

I have the same CPU but my temps are crazy under load and overclocking with AI suite, AI suite is telling me that the CPU is running around 75C-83C underload but it has been up to 99C even idle or just web browsing it's at 63C CPU and 32C system, the system temp is always 36C-41C, the case temp is always 27C-33C the BIOS is set to shut down the system at 79C, It has never shut down and i dont have any issues.

AI suite is a poor program for over clocking and should not be used. go into the bios and do it right, but do some research on how to do it correctly first. and be sure to use a good program to read the tempts of the processor.