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I've got a somewhat older computer that I purchased from Alienware in 2005. The only detail that I've changed is the video card. I recently upgraded that in order to play more recent games at full resolution and keep all the "bells and whistles" turned on.

My PC has always been loud (the fans can be very noisy), but recently the pitch has risen to that of a turbine engine if the computer has been on a while. Because of this, I downloaded a program called SpeedFan which monitors a PC's temperature (including other details).

All temperatures are rated in Celsius. It seems my CPU Idle Temp is anywhere from 69-73°, while the highest temperature I've recorded it at is 89°. That's pretty damn hot. Both the Internal Temp and Remote Temp seem to hover around 50° or so.

I'd also like to note that 89° is without playing any games. It generally rises to that temperature when web browsing, using WinAMP or any other productivity program. I'm hesitant to load up a game since those usually require far more out of a PC.

I've tried removing dust (both inside and out) and reducing the room temperature. None of that helps. I wonder if I need a new CPU heatsink and/or better fans. I'm reluctant to do either since new and faster fans will make even more noise and installing a new heatsink could potentially damage or even crack the CPU itself.

For some background, here are my computer's specs:

OS: Windows XP Pro (SP2)
TYPE: Pentium 4 (Hyper-Threading)
SPEED: 3.6 GHz (1 MB Cache, 800 MHz FSB)
CPU CORE: Northwood (Prescott Generation)
MOTHERBOARD: Intel D925XCV 925X
HARD DRIVE: Western Digital 250 GB (SATA 7200 RPM)
RAM: Crucial 2 GB DDR2 PC4200
VIDEO CARD:
* Original -- ATI Radeon X800 XT (GDDR3 256 MB, PCI-Express)
* Current -- ATI Radeon HD 3870 (GDDR4 512 MB, PCI-Express)
SOUND CARD: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
POWER SUPPLY: 480 Watts
FANS: Turbo Cool 510 ATX12V 2.0
OPTICAL DRIVES: NEC 16X Dual-Layer DVD±R/W, Lite-On 52/32/52 DVD/CD-RW
MONITORS: 19" NEC LCD 1960NXi plus a 19" Dell E196FP (dual-monitor setup)
OTHER: 3.5" Floppy Diskette Drive, 7 USB Ports (3 in back, 4 in front), Marvell Yukon Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000 Base-T Adapter, US Robotics V.92 56K PCI Modem

The P4s always burned very hot. I have a friend with a P4 in his laptop, which gets hot and mine is a Core Duo. Mine has twice the RAM and a faster HDD. His cooks with little battery life and mine stays nice and cool with long battery life.

if you have already cleaned the dust there is probably not much more that you can do short of doing something with the cooling. You could try to place more fans in the case. Some CPU coolers allow you to unmount the fan without removing the heatsink, but I doubt that you will find a new fan that will fit that will make much of a difference. Other suggestions aren't much better for obvious reasons, such as a new case with better cooling or under clocking the CPU. A new CPU cooler may be the only reasonable solution. Perhaps water cooling?

As Collector stated with dirt and fans. How many case fans do you have in your computer case? I noticed with mine that there was so much dust and dirt in side my computer that sometimes the computer would fail to display the video and cleaning it out really good really helped. So I would try giving your computer a good cleaning. If you have cans of compressed air or an air compressor blow out your case (every nook and cranny that you see.) If that helps good but if it doesnt I would get a compatible 3rd party CPU fan and heat sink.

As DPX said, he already cleaned the dust, so it is probably an issue with inadequate cooling for a hot P4. It is part of why the P4 line of architecture was abandoned.

Good news! I cleaned the CPU heatsink and that worked! The hottest I was idling at was 92C. Now, with all the dust cleaned off the heatsink (and there was a ton!), I'm currently idling at 42C. That's a huge difference!

For those of you who don't understand Celsius, 92C is roughly 198F and 42C is around 108F. As I said, that's a big difference.

Great news. One of the disadvantages of a lot of ventilation is the buildup of dust. Dust can be a real killer. I regularly blow out my cases all the time. You might want to think about replacing some of the fans with ones that can be throttled down in cooler temps.

Collector wrote:Great news. One of the disadvantages of a lot of ventilation is the buildup of dust. Dust can be a real killer. I regularly blow out my cases all the time. You might want to think about replacing some of the fans with ones that can be throttled down in cooler temps.

I guess I was just being lazy before, but now I know to regularly clean my PC case.

After cleaning the heatsink, I used Maia's hairdryer (set on cool) to blow out the rest of the dust. It worked remarkably well. I strongly dislike compressed air since it can turn liquid if tilted, so I wasn't about to use that.

As for my fans... I think they can throttle down. SpeedFan seems to be indicating that, anyway.