My computer's been having issues for quite some time, major performance problems in games, and so on. Initially I thought it was my graphic's card (6800 Ultra) but I now believe that to be ok.

My processor is idling at 89 degrees(!). And yes, that is celsius. Just browsing with firefox can bring it up to 94(!). I'm using the prepackaged heatsink and fan, but i'm wondering if this is a problem with the processor itself, or just a faulty heatsink/fan.

Also, could somebody reccomend me an affordable heatsink/fan to replace what is possibly a faulty one, and finally, can somebody confirm to me that this overheating is probably why I see such terrible FPS in generally low-end games (UT2k4, WoW etc).

Thanks.

The Zalman 9700 is easy to install and is loads better than the stock cooler. Its not the BEST performer, but its pretty darn good, and its not the most expensive either. I would suggest first, making sure your stock HSF is free of dust, and the fan is spinning at the appropriate speed. If you want a cheap fix, get some q-tips and rubbing alcohol, and some AS5, clean off your proc and HS, make sure you get rid of the dust, and put it back. Hopefully your temps will go down enough to stop the throttling and the performance hits.

P4 Prescott overheating, no kidding (JK). I'd get a new headsink, but it could be that your thermal paste has broken down. If you do anything at all, clean off your processor/CPU heatsink and re-apply some good thermal paste. But the stock fans that came with the Prescotts suck anyways and I think I sat a about 60C when doing nothing before I bought an aftermarket cpu cooler.

How much would you spend on a cooler?

I'd be willing to spend up to around £30 ideally, but I could go higher if absolutely necessary. ($60+)

Would the thermal paste breaking down be an accurate assumption to take, I've had the computer for a long time now, and it's only started performing like this the past couple of months. I presume i'm gonna need more paste anyway, could someone point me in the right direction on this?

Thanks for the help so far

A cooler will come with thermal paste with it but it wouldn't hurt at all to pick up some arctic silver 5. It runs for about £5.99, and you can use it multiple times. This stuff will be better than the thermal paste you get with the cooler.

P4 Prescotts have one design "feature" in common with the Athlon 6400+ Charred Box Edition: They are designed to overheat!

Zalman CNPS7000B-CU £18.99
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £5.99

I think that you could easily Zalman 7XXX series easily since I hope you're not overclocking with that thing. It's cheaper than the 9XXX series and will definatly get you results. I think that the 9700 would be overkill.

This is from www.overclockers.co.uk.

Hi Miles. Is your heatsink completely clean of dust? You'd be so suprised at how much that can affect the fan's ability to cool it down. My load temps dropped from 85C-55C.

Somewhere in the past couple of months you probably passed the point of dust accumulation where the heatsink can no longer keep the CPU below throttle temp. Open the case, blow all the dust off the heatsink, then see how it runs.

Thanks for all the helpful replies. I'll go ahead with some of your suggestions and see how things work out, thanks again