Need Opinion and Advise with CPU Cooling

[mayankpate]

Need help with my CPU cooling questions

I have

Athlon XP1700+
NEW after changing (Cooler Master HHC-001 Heat Pipe Heatsink)
Arctic Silver 3 Compound
Kingston 256DDR PC2100 RAM
Asus A7V266 Motherboard
Maxtor 20GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive
TDK 24x10x40 CD-RW
Creative Labs IR 52X CD-ROM
Ledtek GeForce2 GTS with 64MB DDR RAM Video Card

My OEM heatsink that came with processor went bad. I went out and bought a new heatsink ( Cooler Master HHC-001), since it was rated one the best. And used Arctic Silver 3 Compound. I get about 57c at load and 50c at idel Using MotherBoard Monitor 5. I have never monitored cpu temperature before when I was using the OEM heatsink.

I want to know wather the temperature reading I am getting is good or bad?

I was under the impression that temp would go down to about 45c at load and 40c at idel By using one of the best heatsink.

What kind of room I have to overclock the CPU? I mean at what temp should I stop overclocking?

Did I make a good choice using Arctic Silver 3 Compound in stead of using the compund that came with the cooler?

What other basic steps can I take to lower the CPU temp. even further?

Need an advise on how to check max and min and ave. temp. of CPU. I am using Mother Board Monitor 5 to check the temp. but I am looking for a something that can do computations or so to use max CPU power for long period of time so I can monitor highest temp. accurately?

[vee_ess]

I use a very basic heatsink/fan on my Athlon @ 1.0 Ghz located on my KT7A-Raid mobo. My temperature is usually around 35C, 95F, and sometimes gets to around 40C, 105F - 110F after heavy processing, but those temperatures are supposed to be very low. For Overclocking, you should not allow your processor to go above 60C, 140F, and it should usually be around 49C, 120F, for the maximum combination between stability and speed. With the cooler you are using, you should be getting lower temperatures out of your Athlon XP, especially if you want to overclock. I would keep using Arctic Silver 3, because you can't get a better compound.

What kind of circulation do you have in your case? If you don't have a system fan to exhaust the warm air, that is your problem, because the fan/heatsink is would just be recycling the warm air. Also, what kind of environment is your case in (closed/open area, warm/cool surroundings, etc.)?

[mayankpate]

I have closed case with two fans. One pulling the air in the case and one pushing the air out.

[vee_ess]

Are your two case fans on opposite (diagonally) sides of the case? Otherwise, the air that comes in will just go back out. Also do you have adequate cooling on you vid card? That will produce a lot of ambient heat too.

[mayankpate]

I don't have space in the front for fan. One of the fan is on side in the middle of the case and another fan is in the back. The thougt of putting another fan in the front had cross my mind but there is no space to put another even if I coustomize. Only other thing I can do is keep the case open. Which I don't mind but lot of dust builds up. I appreciate your replay and I also welcome other ideas that u may have.
Thanks

[vee_ess]

You may want to consider fans that go into drive bays so that you can increase the area that has air circulation. Also, I avoid dust too, because if you try getting rid of it once it has "melted" into the circuitry, it will remove segments of the circuit making it unusable. Dust increases temperature, too. You might want to consider water cooling. That is probably a good bet if you are still considering overclocking.