Ok, I finally got a new server for my house, but I'm finding out through my work that I need to put my old server back in the mix at my house (no way am I running work stuff on my server). Well the problem with that (and the whole reason I got a new server) is that the old one has issues with heat. I'm running 6 drives in it, 2x 20 gig drives mirrored with the OS and 4 160 gig drives in a RAID 5 config. Here's the other problem, it's running a AMD 1900+ with either the Palimino core or Thoroughbred core (don't remember which) but it runs hot to begin with. The heat sink is rated up to a 3200+ chip but it was still shutting down on me because of heat. I'm looking at upgrading two things here. One the case, that's a manditory thing. I just don't have enough spots for fans (it was fine when I only had 4x 40 gigs in there but since upgrading to 4x160 gigs, I've been having issues), two I'm wondering about upgrading the CPU to something that's over a 2200+ that has one of the newer Socket A cores to try and get over the heat issue.

I should mention here that the mother board is a AsRock board that will handle anything that's a FSB of 333 for the CPU and DDR 3200 (although I do have to look and see if it'll handle the Sempron chips). The RAID controller card that's in there, is just that, a RAID card that I can slap into anything and it'll keep the RAID 5 config.

What I'm wondering here is, does anyone have suggestions on what case to get and for how much and two, any suggestions on what the most power with lowest heat disapation issues there are for a Socket A chip.

The case I'm looking at is this one with temp gauges on the front but I'm open for suggestions here.

http://3btech.net/blandsibtstg.html

My work has given me a little bit of slack here after explaining the issue and is giving me a 250 budget for getting what I need so I have to keep it simple with both upgrades. Power supply is cool, but I probably have to buy a couple of fans.

Are you sure the server is shutting down because of the heat? Could it not be shutting down due to insufficient power? (In which case you need to upgrade the PSU).

Secondly, see if your motherboard can handle Mobile Athlon XP-M processors. They require less power and have PowerNow!

Socket A Sempron's don't really differ much in power consumption compared to Athlon XP's.

Lastly, what does your old case look like? Perhaps you can cut a hole above the processor so it's fan can suck in fresh air.

Also remember that you need more fans sucking out the air than blowing it into your case. (It creates a negative pressure which slows down the heating of the air inside the case). And, heat rises, so fans positioned lower should blow in air and fans positioned higher should suck out air.

Nice overview of Socket A processors and their values (power consumption, etc.)
http://balusc.xs4all.nl/srv/har-cpu-amd-k7.php

Thank you very much NitroX. Good point on the PS, I don't think that's the issue but very well could be. Guessing it was heat because at idle, Everest home was mesuring the heat at 138 for the CPU (been to busy to watch it doing load times at the moment) and using HDDLife Pro (monitors smart values for the hard drives along with temps if the drive supports it) it was mesuring the drives climbing to 125/129 degrees. The case I have now, sucks. It's an old full tower case with one 80 mm fan in front at the very bottom and a 80 mm fan in back, there is no other spots to add a fan unless I cut holes for them. There is room for four CD Rom drives. In this spot, I've got a cd rom and Duel Format DVD Burner. The last two spots are filled with the OS Drives because above the 80mm fan that is at the bottom of the case, there is only a four drive compartment which has all four of the RAID 5 drives (very little room in between drives and no fan in front of them). The PS is a 450 watt with duel fans. The reason I was looking at the CPU is that my 3200+ chip idles at a 109 degrees and only gets to a 120 when gaming with the same heatsink.

The motherboard is a AsRock K7VT4A-Pro and will handle up a Sempron 3000+. The support listing on the site doesn't mention anything about the mobile proc. though.

Hope this gives a better picture of why I'm thinking it's a heat problem. But like you mentioned NitroX, could be something else.

As mentioned in my first post, while I was running 4x 40 gig drives in the RAID 5 config, I didn't have this problem at all, everything ran fine for about 4 years, it's when I upgraded to the 160's that has caused everything to kind of "meltdown". To make sure it wasn't one of the 160 drives causing this individually, and I don't know if this was the best way to do it, but I have unplugged three of the four drives and then ran it for a couple of days running cpu and HD bench marks through SiSoft Sandra's Burn- In test to see if would shut down. During this time, none of the drives caused it to shut down. This could have been a waste of time, I don't know, but individually all the drives worked fine (although I couldn't access files being that the raid was broken). Plugging all the drives in together is when I seem to have problems though. I don't know if it just adds that much more heat to the mix or if it is a power issue.

Looking at those temps (Fahrenheit I assume?) it's probably is a heat problem.

What brand is your PSU? Sweet and QTec are terrible brands.

Indeed there seems to be no support for mobile processors but your motherboard (with a newer BIOS) does support the Geode NX processors. The NX 1750 runs at 1400MHz and only uses 14Watts. Should lower the heat considerably!

That's what that NX was, I was wondering about that, never seen it before. Looked at AMD's site on it and looks like it would be perfect. This machine won't get accessed that much but have to keep it running. I looked through price watch and newegg any idea of where to get one of these things?

Ebay perhaps? Or another second-hand site?
There are two shops in The Netherlands but one has a bad overall rating (user reviews) and the other is 40 Euro's more expensive and I don't think they ship abroad. (Besides, shipping and transfering money would likely cost a lot too.)

Best is to check Ebay.

Well found two chips on ebay both from the same guy in Germany. Roughly 54.00 USD and then another 20 USD for shipping to the U.S. Good deal you think?

Here's the link. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120006576861

Only place I've been able to find them at.

Seems like a good deal.

NitroX, I want to say thanks for all the help, man. I really appreciate it. With all this info, I should be able to get it back up and running a whole lot cooler then it was, thank you. I'm going to order that chip and get everything in that new case with a new power supply and let you know how things go.

Hope my help helps :D