Desktop

Well, Athlon and XP processors do run warmer than do Intel type processors. Be sure your case is in a place where there are no air-flow restrictions.
[IE: not in a corner, clutter blocking air vents.etc....]
Secondly, occasionally, **** the dust and foreign matter out of your case. Dust holds heat! This should be a regular thing maybe once a month. Compressed air is cheap compared to replacing a component.
The next question is . 'how many watts is your power supply?' a 400+ watt power supply will produce a bit more heat than say a 250w or 300w supply.
There are a number of slot type fans you can install, and/or ones that fit into open 5 1/4 bays and harddrive fan assemblies also.
Basically, if your machine runs within suggested Mfg. temperatures you shouldn't be to worried about over-heating. To be sure you should check your proc/MB specs and adjust your bios and tempurature settings accordingly. There are some good 3rd party softwares available should your bios not make thesechoices available to you. SoftMenuIII is a good one for example.

Hope this helps ... H

To improve your thermal management, start with the articles from AMDs web site.

The next step is to look at the airflow through the case. If your inlet and outlet fans are directly across from each other, you will get very limited cooling.

Myimpression is that your CPU fan is not effective enough for your CPU. I would start with a better heatsink & fan.
Next, you want about 10% more air into the case than air out. Add inlet fans, and baffle them to circulate the air instead of havingit flow from the inlet fan to the outlet fan.
(cable routing can have a big impact.

Chas

ok, that didn't work. What else have you tried?TheChas gave up some good info, that didn't help either? Short of being in front of your machine we could use some help here. How 'bout just a wee bit more information.

I have gone through countless articles on the web, also those of AMD. Nowhere I can actually pick up what the preffered and maximum operating tempretures are for the CPU. I believe that the tempreture on the M/B is fine, as it runs cool enough to myliking.

The heatsink and fan on my CPU is the biggest I have seen on any PC so far. I am only running a 250W PSU, I think I'm also stressing it a bit with all the the hardware currently in the system.

If any of you might have an idea where Icould find these optimal and maximum operating tempreture of the CPU, please let me know. From there on it will be easy to make a desicion.

The fans are placed as follows, one at the bottom of the case blowing air in, one just below the PSU at the top of the case blowing air out. The way my drives are stacked, especially the hard drives, I do not have any space to mount other types of fans in front of the HD's to make reduce heat over them, but these drives have been running like this for over 3 years stacked in the same method without problems(7200RPM driveat the bottom, then the 5400rpm drive, stiffy drive,DVD-rom drive, CD-RW drive on top) all stacked without a spacing between them. Some cause of heat buildup. The hard drive's are also mounted in the 3 1/2 inch slots.

I have moved the cables so that it shouldn't according to me have any impacton air flow.

Per AMDs specification for the model 6 XP CPU Data Sheet,
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_756_3734^3748,00.html

The maximum DIE temperature is 90?C. This is the temperature of the internal die of the CPU, and not the case temperature. The case is usually at least 10? cooler than the die itself.

I think your high CPU temp is the result of either static air flow around the heatsink, or your motherboard is setting the CPU core voltage higher then specification causing extra power dissipation.

As to air flow, experiment with turning your rear case fan to **** in, and see if the CPU temp drops. Also, are there vents in the power supply just above the CPU? These vents allow the exhaust fan in the power supply to draw the hot air from the CPU heatsink out of the case.

As to CPU core voltage; I have seen several reports of motherboards setting the voltage both higher and lower than the jumper or bios settings state.

The only way to verifythe correct CPU core voltage, is to measure the output of the voltage regulator with a digital meter.

Start by making sure that the core voltage setting matches the voltage on AMDs Data Sheet for your CPU.

Alternately, you could try reducing the BIOS setting for CPU core voltage a step at a time. The lowest CPU core voltage where your system operates properly will result in the lowest CPU temperature.

As to the power supply, I would upgrade to a 300 - 400 watt supply as soon as practicle.
I recommend dual fan power supplies, as they help move the air even better. I have a couple with a large fan that would be just over the CPU heatsink on most socket A motherboards.

Chas

If you've already got case fans as intake and exhuast then you may need to look at getting a better CPU cooling fan, the best methods that I have seen for this are copper or copper core heatsinks.