Heatsinks

[Ninjutsu PiloT]

I am experiencing a heating issue in my computer when I game, I think, it may be something else... either way my computers temp is almost always reading 50C so in efforts to lower that I've been looking at heatsinks. I currently use the basic stock type heat sink but how much would buying an after market heat sink change temperatures

[Spawn-Inc]

what are the specs?

if thats 50C load then it's not that bad, my video card hits 74C sometimes while gaming.

but to answer your question an after market cooler will generally drops temps a 5 or more degrees.

[The boy 4rm oz]

What thermal paste are you using? When I changed from stock to Arctic Silver 5 on my old AMD 3400+ I had a 3-4*c drop in temps. For a cheap fix you may also want to lap the bottom of your existing heatsink and use an air compressor to blow the dust from the fins. New thermal paste can make a huge difference in temps, add lapping to the mix and you can probably expect 5-7*c change, in ideal conditions I may add.

As Spawn said, what is the hardware in question and at load 50*c is reasonable.

[Xperiment]

Which component is at 50'C? The GPU or CPU. As 50'C for a GPU under load is nothing to worry about, for the CPU its quite high but within tolerance.

A very easy way to reduce overall temps is to tidy up those cables to increase air flow, this can have quite a large effect and doesn't cost a penny. You may also want to invest in some more/better case fans to get the air moving inside the case.

If you have those areas covered then an aftermarket cooler will (if fitted correctly) and better thermal paste (as the boy 4rm oz pointed out) will only benefit temps.

[The boy 4rm oz]

I never suggested tiding up the cables cos I thought it obvious lol.

[cured]

When i game, my CPU stays around 50C-60C Then goes back to 35C-40C when i close it.

[The boy 4rm oz]

At idle my C2D E6600 sits around 50-55*C, when I game it never exceeds 60*c.

[Xperiment]

An aftermarket cooler would improve those temps, my recommendation would be an arctic freezer pro, its a great little cooler and doesn't cost the earth Here(uk) (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-000-AR&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=821)

[Spawn-Inc]

oh ya well my cpu never hits 40C under any load :) idle is about 28 and load is 37, according to speed fan anyway. core temp says 47C for the core at idle and it's more accurate so all the temps are well within limits

[Ninjutsu PiloT]

my CPU idles at 50 C. Not sure why, its new that it started doing this but for the life of me I cannot figure out why. My computer isn't under any load and all the fans are working just as they used to. I have 100 percent open airflow from my fans to my entire system.

[Xperiment]

Perhaps you have not mounted the cooler correctly - maybe a clean and remount is needed?

[Ninjutsu PiloT]

I have had my computer in the same configuration for quite some time, it would idle in the 30s, about at 35. I installed COD4 and I've had all kinds of problems with heating. I don't monitor the temps while I'm playing the game but I will go days at a time without playing and still never see the temps drop below 48. I have checked my task manager and some other security programs and find nothing else seems to be running that would cause the system to be under a constant load. Thats why I was thinking maybe if I spend a few dollars on a aftermarket heat sink, i may see some improvement.

[Spawn-Inc]

what cpu is it? we can reccomend various coolers, i will start off and say if its a celeron/P4/core 2 duo/quad socket 775 and you don't have a whole wack of cash to spend the arctic cooler freezer 7 pro is a nice cooler.

[Ninjutsu PiloT]

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ Windsor 2.8GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 Processor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103769

[Spawn-Inc]

in that case the amd version of the arctic cooler is a good one, here is a link (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185125).

[Ninjutsu PiloT]

I have been looking at a variety of heatsinks since starting this thread. I like the one that is recommended I just see the reviews talking about how it will blow the hot air into the graphics card or the memory. The same would occur with my MB set up and I'm concerned about performance loss? will it make an appreciable difference?

[Spawn-Inc]

all the newegg links seem to be dead, assuming your talking about the Arctic Cooler freezer 64 pro. it has 3 of the bottom fins bent to cool the mosfets on purpose. i don't see how the heat from the heatsink can get into the video card heatsink when there seperated by the card itself. i would be very surprised if adding a better cpu heatsink would add heat to the video card in any way.

[Ninjutsu PiloT]

quick reply heh, I didn't mean the heat sinks directly, i meant the cards, the RAM sticks and the video card. I wasn't sure if that would be a possible cause of reduced performance

[Spawn-Inc]

well what heatsink is install thats not stock will increase the performance and shouldn't hurt other parts performance provided there is good case air flow. i've got a side 250mm so i need not worry about those things.