I recently built a computer. It has P4 3.0Ghz proccesor, it worked fine and everything. I played games on it and the graphics were amazing. But, after I had the comp. for about 3 months I started getting a warning from the Intel Active Monitor program that my proccesor zone was getting too hot. At normal opperation the temp is @ about 50 degrees C. If I run multiple programs or any game the heat goes up to around 70. Why would it start doing this now? Can I do anything besides hook up a water cooling system?

Check/ clean your fan & case. Perhaps clean & reapply the thermal compound.

Besides the warning does this affect your computers' performance?

Ya, I took it apart and then took the heatsink and fan off since I saw the heatsink was kind of dirty. When I did that I saw that the thermal compound that cam on the heatsink was pretty worn down so I actually replaced the old heatsink and fan with a new one (I had an extra from when I first got my computer). Then I also put some extra thermal Gel on and that seemed to do the trick. It stills runs hotter than I'd like but it doesn't overheat (or hasn't yet). Do you think getting a water cooling system would be a good idea?

has the PC got lots of space around it for adequate air flow?

it has space in the front and on one side but it is kind of in a corner, though it is always pretty cool in the house. But, since I put new thermal gel on it has been fine, though I am still considering getting a liqiud cooler for it so I can be done with it.

Here are some H2O cool links:

http://www.google.com/search?q=compu...=7&sa=N&tab=gw

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=co...=7&sa=N&tab=wg