Staying Cool

[scippy4848]

I wanted tips on how to get my computer to generate less heat and use less power. I'm satisfied with the airflow and temperature in my case, i just want less heat generated overall, for sometimes it gets incredibly hot in a room if one needs everything closed. I've tried using vista's power savings mode, and it seems to help some. I was curious how much heat/power savings that is, and if there were some things I could do, like say dust it out for example. I have ruled out underclocking it, due to how technical it is. Perhaps there is a program out there which underclocks everything on the fly? best thing i've found just changes sleep mode times and things, but doesn't save power while your doing basic tasks where you don't need much power at all. Anyways, any tips or info would be helpful.

My somewhat outdated rig is
Vista Ultimate Lite x86
asus m3a mobo
amd 4200+ x2 with stock hs/f
ocz 4gb 800 ddr2
Rosewill modular 630W psu
PNY 8800gt 512mb XLR8
2x 300gb maxtor sata

 

[overshocked]

enable c1e in the bios...

That will underclock it for you when your not using all the cpu power.

 

[orangegator]

Cleaning out dust etc. will not reduce power and heat. For your AMD system, be sure Cool n' Quiet is enabled. This will lower the cpu speed and voltage when idle. By default, it should be enabled. Use CPUZ to monitor these and see if they drop when idle. Otherwise, a high efficiency psu and low power cpu and gpu are other ways to lower heat produced.

 

[Superhal]

Check out this article:
http://forums.amd.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=11&threadid=98342&enterthread=y

If that doesn't fix your problem, you probably need a new hsf:
http://forums.amd.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=11&threadid=100223&enterthread=y
and
www.frostytech.com

If you want to force it to work with the stock hsf:
http://forums.amd.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=11&threadid=99410&enterthread=y