Natural convection cooling of discrete heaters located in a two-dimensional vertical open top cavity is investigated experimentally. The five discrete heaters with same heat generation are located on the wall of the cavity. The heaters are arranged in two configurations; flush-mounted on a vertical wall and protruding from the wall about 4.5 mm. The materials used for the vertical walls are copper and epoxy-resin, and air is used as the cooling fluid. The temperature and flow fields in the cavity were visualized by means of Mach-Zehnder interferometer and smoke-method. Also, local temperature measurements are made along the vertical wall. Results are obtained for cavity aspect ratios of 4.6, 7.5 and 9.5 and modified Rayleigh numbers ranging from 10$^{3}$ to 10$^{6}$ . Results indicate that the cooling efficiency for the copper wall is superior to that of the epoxy-resin. For the epoxy-resin wall, the protrusion of the heaters plays a role in decreasing the heat transfer performance. The location of maximum temperature is significantly influenced by the wall materials and heater configurations. Correlations relating the Nusselt number to the modified Rayleigh number are proposed.