I was wondering what the normal temperatures are for a computer? I'm also wondering if there's a way to tell the temp without having to install third party hardware. Do most motherboards have ways to read temps and tell the os?

Hi jawknee912.
What you really want to ask yourself is what is a normal temperature for "your" computer.
Different configurations will produce significant temperature differences.
The rule of thumb (obviously) is the cooler the better.
The cpu temp, mainboard temp, ambient temp and fan speeds are stuff you normally would want to monitor and you can do it via software if you like, though I prefer the hardware approach for accuracy.


Newer mainboards will show certain temps in the bios, older ones don't.
However, reading temps in the bios is only accurate when there is no load on the system because it's obviously in a fairly inactive state when doing so. You want to monitor your temps after the OS has loaded and working under a normal or heavy load.

Well, AMD has a specific program for reading there CPU temps. But I didn't find them to usefull, the gauges never move except the CPU speed gauge. But that could be since I'm not doing anything stressful on it. But gneraly you don't want your case to be hot to the touch, or any part of your computer to burn you ( like my firends Dell Hardrive ) Simple things to do to lower a a computers temperature is to get it out of any inclosed spaces. So it can ventilate properly. Or adding a Chassis fan if you don't have one. There's also little PCI fans that connect to your motherboard, but they can be noisy.

according to hardware sensors monitor 4.2 that i downloaded my CPU is going at 60C. which seems way to hot to me. The ambient temp is 44C and the GPU temp is 55C. I dont know how accurate these readings are but i've ordered a new case and some fans so my airflow should be far better soon.

I have the stock heatsink and fan on my CPU and I was also wondering how difficult it is to replace the heatsink. the only things i've done with hardware is installing video cards and RAM.

Depending on what CPU type you have. Most are quite simple, and relativly the same. There's usuallly two clamps on either side of the Heatsink. Some you pull a small leaver, and some you pinch a clip or something. Only thing you should remember is that if you replace the heatsink. Buy thermal compound/paste. You can get it pretty cheap ( 3-10$) and make sure to clean all the current thermal paste/compound off the CPU, you don't want to mix them up.