55degC seems pretty hot for idle temperature. Even if you are overclocking! Even for a Pentium D 8xx...Make sure you are getting adequate cooling. Make sure the HSF is firmly mounted and the thermal paste (I assume it had some) is properly applied. I'd hate for you to burn up that new cpu!Rhett

I don't want to fry it either.. But the summer is so harsh here, room temperature is around 28-30 degC, so, the CPU running at 55 degC in midday sounds somewhat natural.That doesn't mean i'm going to leave it like that! I'm trying to figure out a new more ventilated area to put the case in. Should make things better. I've managed to get the temps back to 50 degC idle.As for the HSF & the thermal paste, the retail store did the installation of all the new parts, so, I don't actually know if the HSF is properly installed. Do you know if there's any visual signs that I can seek to know if the HSF is installed properly or not? The CPU's user guide, however, says that the thermal paste is already applied to the bottom of the heatsink.Another thing i've noticed is that Asus PC Probe reports the CPU fan speed @ 2500 RPM @ 55 degC, it only goes faster when the temperature gets above 58 degC. AI Q-FAN is set to "Performance Mode". So I think at idle there's only 2 fans -other than the PSU's fan- running: the CPU fan, & the chassis fan. The board uses passive cooling, and it's also running hot; about 48-50 degC most of the time. Any suggestions to make reality a little bit cooler?I'd hate to burn it up too, although I could use a BBQ party now!Thanks Rhett.

Well, you can add case fans to increase the air circulation in the system, which, of course, also adds noise. Other than that, turning down any over clocking or getting an even better cooling solution for the proc is about the only way to go. If the motherboard has passive cooling, it is going to run as it is going to run.You should actually be ok there, but you are very close to not being ok. I've had processors run at over 60, although they don't last long.Also, a pet-peeve that has nothing to do with your heat issues:I cringe everytime I read "Oblivion 4". It is called Oblivion (a subtitle, actually, along the lines of 'A Century of Flight') and it is the fourth game in the series, but the title is "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion", so it would be like calling FS2004 'A Century of Flight 9'.I have absolutely no clue why something so silly bothers me, but it does. Have I proven myself insane here yet, or is it just all the years with the first three Elder Scrolls games screaming "Remember me!"Who knows.

I also have an ASUS board, with Q-Fan. But I don't use Q-Fan.I just let the fan run at it's standard rpm, and I don't like to ever have it run less. That's my preference, I guess.If you are idling at 55, or 50, or whatever, I can easily see your cpu surpassing 60 degC in an app like FS. FS is a good cpu burning program.I would not want to pass 60 for extended periods. I don't own a Pentium D 8xx but do they all run that hot? I would want to find out from other owners to see about that.After all, you want to make sure it was installed properly. It's really not possible to tell just by looking. If the sink isn't on the paste, if there's a gap, you probably can't tell by looking. the only thing I can think of is to (with the power off, power supply unplugged) see if the cpu/fan is actually loose on the board.With your room temps approaching 30 degC, I am sure 50-55 is more normal, but if that were the case I would probably run with the case side panel removed, and aim a big space fan at your cpu. :)You might laugh, but it lowers temps a lot, I have done it in the past with my P4's.Other suggestions to make it cooler: an aftermarket cpu cooler. Zalman and Arctic Cooling and Thermaltake all make good ones. Beyond that, you would have to go to water cooling, which I have never done myself. FYI, my AMD 3700+ runs at 31 degC at idle at stock speed with stock (air) cooler and a 3 80mm fan case. I am presently overclocking by about 10% and it idles at 35 degC. That nets me about 3-4 fps in FS. The highest temp I have seen on my overclocked 3700+ is exactly 50 degC. My gpu (7800GT) I have gotten to 60 degC and then it started bugging out on me. This is all under summer conditions. But it might give you an idea of where you stand.Rhett

First things first:I would like to appologize to NotASenator for writing a wrong name. It happened because I've had no experience whatsoever with the other 3 games you mentioned. I didn't even hear of any of them. I bought this game only because I was curious to try it, with all the puff&bluff this game has had across the web, I just had to try it. So, sorry again. And no, you're not insane. I'd say you were just 'emotionally shaken' :-boom . But don't worry, you'll stabilise soon ;-). I would've done the same if I were in your place. It's annoying, I admit it.OK, now back to the subject. It appears that i'm certainly standing on the hot side. The case has a side air duct located right above the CPU to get the fresh air inside directly to the CPU's heatsink. Will it be better if I remove that duct and put a new fan there instead? It will be a fan-on-top-of-fan situation. I don't know if it's effective, because the fan I have here takes the air outside the case, while the CPU fan gets the air inside the heatsink. Is that a good situation?I have another question here too: the OS I have is WinXP Professional x64, but it reports that only SP1 is installed, even though there is a "Security Center" and "Windows Firewall". Does that mean there is no SP2 for the 64 bit version of Windows?I've tried removing the side panel and aiming a big room fan straight at it. With my old processor, I really HAD to do that! And no I didn't laugh, I know that feeling. But actually i'm ready to do anything to protect this new CPU. I've had enough troubles with CPUs. All are casued by heat issues.Anyway, i've seen other users having the same issue over at Newegg, here's a link to some user reviews:http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustRatingRe...A=0&Type=&Item=N82E16819116001&SortField=0&SummaryType=ALL&Pagesize=50&Page=2Looks like most of them are having some heat issues. That's why I said it wasn't a surprising issue before. So I guess i'll be needing a new heatsink purchase soon. Meanwhile, i'll try my best not to overload this thing! Although i'm sooooo tempted to do so, if you know what I mean :-).

I use Q-fan all the time on my systems, and much prefer a higher idle temp in near silence than a lower idle temp with a noisy fan. I note that Max core temp for your CPU by the Intel Spec sheet is 65C, so your under load temp being close to that would be more of a worry for me.While considering Core 2 Duo setups myself, I came across this HSF http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16835186134 that would suit your situation beautifully - super quiet, much lower CPU temps and the hot air is vented directly out the case.Gary

>First things first:>I would like to appologize to NotASenator for writing a wrong>name. It happened because I've had no experience whatsoever>with the other 3 games you mentioned. I didn't even hear of>any of them. I bought this game only because I was curious to>try it, with all the puff&bluff this game has had across the>web, I just had to try it. So, sorry again. And no, you're not>insane. I'd say you were just 'emotionally shaken' :-boom .>But don't worry, you'll stabilise soon ;-). I would've done>the same if I were in your place. It's annoying, I admit it.>I grew up playing the first Elder Scrolls game. It was pretty much the same concept, just much much older. If you can stand the crap graphics, it's worth a go.The second one is pretty much something everyone tries to forget. It tried really hard to be incredibly innovative, but it was a very buggy mess. I heard that there are patches now that fix all of that, but I've done my time with it, and as much as I enjoyed it, I'm not going back.And then Morrowind came along with great graphics and a XBOX port and became super popular. It was a pretty awesome game and I highly recommend it if you are enjoying Oblivion. It will make more of the in-jokes and the endless history of the world more clear too.But on the topic at hand, I'm glad things are running ok for you. As long as your computer isn't exhibiting any issues, then I wouldn't worry about too much. A lot of computers have a warning temp in your BIOS where it will shut off if it gets too hot to avoid any damage. It's not flawless, but at least it's there.Best of luck with the new rig!

Thanks for the info NAS.Oblivion was my first shot at RPGs. And to be honest, I didn't really like this game! I loved the concept though; being free to choose and play on your own pace..But it appears this game didn't fit on my pre-fabricated rule: If there's blood and gore involved, it ain't worth it.As for my issue, it's still the same, although I've already tried to remove the case panel and expose the side to a big room fan, but it didn't work out, only dropped temps. by 2~3 degC. No big deals.And I also noticed that the VGA core is running pretty hot; 65 degC at idle! Reaching for 80+ degC when busy!! The threshold temperature set in the drivers is 145 degC.. Is that normal?? And do you have any idea on how to change that threshold value?? The installed drivers version is 91.31.I'm still looking for a replacement HSF package, and found this model the other day: http://www.glacialtech.com/product/socketT_5600_PWM.htmPlease tell me what do you think of it.I'm still trying to find that Arctic Cool Freezer. So I didn't make a decision yet.And FYI here's another bunch of game tests results:- SimCity 4 Rush Hour, running at 1280 * 1024. Large test city, population 200000. Runs pretty smooth, stutters a bit when moving around the map. Had to turn off AA & AF because they ruin the visuals. Other than that, it's a perfect 10!- Another FS2004 test: Heathrow to Charles-De-Gaulle flight. POSKY B767. All sliders maxed except: autogen and scenery complexity set to very dense, 80% AI traffic with lots of PAI packages installed, high 3D clouds density at 80%. No AA or AF. "Cold Fronts" weather scenario.I was getting 15 ~ 25 FPS around Heathrow, solid 30 FPS after takeoff and all the way to France, went back to about 20 FPS after landing at CDG. A very good result in my opinion. More than I was hoping for.Anyway, I've tried FS2004 with AA set to 2xQ & 8x AF with minor or no impact on framerates.Absolutely stunning performance for this huge amount of heat I guess!!

Re VGA core temp, they do run much hotter than CPU cores. My X800XT gets up to 90C in heavy cloud situations, and has been doing so regularly for the last year with no harm done to my GPU.Re your FS2004 EGLL->LFPG test, crank your AA / AF up to max and I bet you still see minor - no impact on frame rates!Gary

>>I'm still looking for a replacement HSF package, and found>this model the other day:>http://www.glacialtech.com/product/socketT_5600_PWM.htm>Please tell me what do you think of it.>>I'm still trying to find that Arctic Cool Freezer. So I didn't>make a decision yet.>I am beginning to do research on CPU coolers. I think you should look at the Zalman cpu coolers, browse them on a site like www.newegg.com. The Zalman has copper, which is better conductor of heat than aluminum, which is what that Glacier cooler appears to be made of.I need to read reviews of the Arctic Freezer line...I have heard of them, but I need to study up on them.Rhett

>And I also noticed that the VGA core is running pretty hot; 65>degC at idle! Reaching for 80+ degC when busy!! The threshold>temperature set in the drivers is 145 degC.. Is that normal??>And do you have any idea on how to change that threshold>value?? The installed drivers version is 91.31.>Keep in mind, in general, if you run with frame rate "unlimited" in FS, you will see hotter GPU temps. If you lock your frame rate at a proper lock for your cpu/gpu combo (i.e. probably 25 or 30 for you) then you will see lower GPU temps *if* you still have some headroom with your frames. (Of course, if you don't have any headroom, you won't see a decrease)My 7800GT GPU runs hotter than the cpu, in general.Rhett

It appears that I have some headroom when en-route, but anyway the FPS are locked at 30 which look more than enough to me.But I'm really questioning that threshold temperature value, 145 degC??!! I could easily cook an omelet on the GPU!!I think nVidia knows what's best for their GPUs. So, I'm getting this topic out of my head for the moment. The VGA should be more than enough until DX10 VGAs pop up..

Hi everybody,I wanted to nudge this topic to give you all an update on FSX performance with my new system..At first glance the game chose a low setting for my system on the first run, and the game was running fine except for some stutters..Anyway, after tweaking & fiddling with the sliders I reached a reasonable situation with the following settings: Everything is maxed except: no light bloom, autogen set to sparse, scenery density set to normal, water effects set to low 2.x, cloud draw distance set to 128km, cloud coverage density set to medium, airline traffic 15%, GA traffic 10%, airport vehicle density set to high, land and sea traffic all set to 10%...I'm getting a great performance from FSX! Around 20 FPS all around, except around heavily detailed cities & airports..My tweaking revealed the 3 most FPS-killing settings:1) Enabling light bloom eats up 3~4 FPS.2) Autogen takes out another 3 FPS.3) Water effects on max 2.0 takes about 4 FPS.Obviously they're all shader-related. So, it's probably my VGA who's making the bottle-neck here..BTW I liked FSX, and the new mission system turned out to be a winner this time! I really liked it! Thanks ACES!Let's hope the new SP1 delivers the performance increase we're all looking for. I just can't wait to see the results.I'd like to re-thank everyone who helped me with my system upgrade.Peace.

It's fun looking back on those recommendations from August 06. FSX wasn't out yet and we didn't know a lot of things.Back then I recommended for a budget build, a 6800 vid card. :) I guess that was before the cheap 7-series (7300, 7600) came out.Kind of interesting that DX10 was mentioned back then. I suspected it would be slow-to-appear-and-adopt in the marketplace...and it has been. No DX10 games and only 1 card series supporting it for the last couple of months.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2310 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 2.5-3-3-8 (1T), WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian case