My home-built headless server is now inoperable because of heat. I live in Japan and I purchased the parts during the winter, when indoor temperatures were usually well under 18 degrees (c-c-c-cold). Now that Winter is over, indoor temperatures have been rising to about 25 degrees and they will continue to rise until mid August. My hardware never gave me a problem until last week. Seems the CPU rises to the cutoff temperature in about 20 minutes (depending on load) and the motherboard kills system power.

I have an Athlon XP 3000+ CPU and a Gigabyte GA-7VM400AM motherboard. The notable thing about the motherboard is that it has on-board video and LAN, which seemed like a good choice for a headless server at the time, but helps contribute to heat buildup on the MB. When I bought the equipment, I was directed to a comically massive heat sink (or I thought it was comical at the time). I actually had to buy a new case to accommodate its girth and heft. Air flow is much of a factor as the case is now open and it still crashes like clockwork.

To get up and running again, I believe my choices now are:

1 a) new motherboard (sans on-board video and LAN)
1 b) a new motherboard that supports underclocking
2) slower CPU/motherboard combo
3) fancy heat sink
4) running aircon 24/7

I am cost-conscious and, as it happens, I love summer heat, so option four does NOT appeal to me one bit. Also, I do not need the fastest CPU in the world -- my CPU load usually sits under 20%. I bought that particular CPU because it was cheap. So I invite people to weigh in with their opinions on the best solution to my problems.

unless you're overclocking,a stock heatsink should keep it cool.you could try lapping the sink and using a different thermal grease to increase contact between the sink and cpu die.cleaning up the wiring to reduce air-flow blockage will help too.unless you have no air movement through the case,removing the side panel can actually make the heat issue worse.adding case fans (and checking the direction of flow on the current ones) will help exhaust the heated air out of the case.make sure there is room around the case for air to move to.check the front intake ports for clearance,a lot of newer cases have intakes on the bottom of the front panel that become blocked when placed on carpet.

The other poster gave you some good info. Buy a CoolerMaster or a
Thermaltake HSF. Those gadget devices they sell you are probably
not worth much in terms of effectiveness. I live in China, and always
buy AMD CPUs when I build a comp. I buy the CPU with the HSF from
AMD so I get their warranty. Never had a problem, and we don't use
A/C where I live. It is typically 26 degrees outside and in my office I
have 4 comps running 24/7.

You need to have proper ventilation, which means keeping the case
together, and venting case fans outside the case. You can have the
front case fan pointing inside and the rear case fan outside. Be
sure you get a case fan that is name brand too, not some strange
offbrand. I have found many stores point the case fans inside the
case, which just blows hot air around, rather than venting it outside.

Take that goofy HSF off, clean the CPU really good, and apply some
proper thermal grease. That and a good HSF should work fine
without having to underclock.

Thank you for your replies. I have installed a copper CoolerMaster heat sink and fan combo and thrown in a new, high-powered case fan to the back of my rig. As well, because the heat sink uses a mounting plate that bolts to the motherboard and because my old mother board hasn't the holes to accomodate it, I had to go out again and buy a new motherboard. To say that I was sick and tired of this nonsense is to merely brush the surface of my sickness and tiredness.

The CPU seems fine. At a bios (zero load), its core temperature is about 45 degrees, a little less than 20 degrees above ambient temperature. I will try to install lm_sensors (had real problems installing it with my old mother board). If I have anything further of interest to report, I will post it here.

Edit: lm_sensors has been installed and the CPU, under load sits at 21 degrees above ambient temperature. Very, very nice to see.

Again, thanks for the advice.