High Temperature, Pentium DFollow

Over the last few months, while playing WoW, my computer case has been getting very hot. Almost painful to touch. So today, I took it apart to clean it out. I also removed the heat sink, removed the thermal paste, and reapplied new.

I didn't have a temperature monitor before now, so I'm not sure what it was. But now the CPU is idling at 55 or so, and maxed at 74 while testing it with WoW open. The Video card has been between 38 and 51. And the hard drive has been sitting at 40 since I started recording. My house is 28-30.

2.67 gigahertz Intel Pentium D
ATI Radeon HD 2400 Series AGP [Display adapter]

Not sure what other information I would need for this.

Lets see, 55 degrees celcius is what, 130 degrees fahrenheit? A 2.67 Ghz pentium D usually idles between 110 and 140 degrees fahrenheit, depending on case airflow and heatsync. That would have been one of the 90nm CPU's, they were not that heat efficient compared to later models. 74 celcius is about 167 degrees fahrenheit though, and that is a bit over the safety limit for a pentium D.

first thing i would check is for air bubbles or areas of the heat sync that don't have thermal paste. while you are checkign that, also look for any areas of discoloration under the heat sync itself. if that all loks good, check the fans and make sure you have a good inlet and exaust path. fans blow frome front to back, and the back is always the bracket that holds the fan itself. you want to make sure you are taking cool air from the front of your case and exhausting warm air out the back. going in reverse will tend to draw in exhaust air and overheat your system. you also want to check and make sure the fans are installed correctly. i've seen more than a few cases from the factory with backwards fans.

If all that also looks good, you might want to consider moving up to a stronger heatsycn or a case with better airflow.

You could always undervolt it if you're worried about heat, even the smallest bit of undervolting results in a large temperature drop.