Hi, I am building a computer, and I just got it running last night, and this morning when I was installing all of the software, I decided to see how hot the CPU would get when running a game.

So, I started up Battlefield 2142. I was going to go play, but I thought that I might as well turn up the graphics settings to see how it would perform. It told me to restart the game, so I closed the game down, and brought up my CPU temp monitering program. I was suprised that when I brought up the screen with my CPU temp, it was already at 55 degrees C. I had read earlier that 40 degrees was a good place to be at, and that my specific CPU shouldnt be going higher than 55. I am afraid that if I actually start playing a game, it will overheat and damage itself.

When building my system, I used Arctic Silver 5 paste. I didn't follow Arctic Silver's instructions (put one or two rice-sized pieces on the CPU, then put on the heatsink and fan), and instead I put on a whole bunch of it, and smoothed it out with a gift card. I think it's possible that I used too much, or that I just have to give the paste the 50-200 hours to thicken up.

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
Motherboard: nVidia nForce 590
Fan: Thermaltake Silent 939 K8 CL-P0200
Case: Ultra Wizard Black ATX Mid-Tower Case


According to the link below, my max case temp should be 63 degrees C
Processor Electrical Specifications

So, is my CPU overheating, and what can I do about it?

HI welcome to the forum MAx CPU temp is 63C AMD Processors for Desktops: AMD Athlon™ 64 Processor and AMD Sempron™ Processor as for the Arctic Silver paste to much could be an issue. I'd try cleaning it off and installing it as directed

Have you ever though of water cooling? I did it on my core 2 duo and it runs at about 29 celcius when playing games, playing a dvd on 2nd monitor and buring a dvd. Its actually really nice.