47 Celsius with AS5, Zalman 9500, 4 fans, near A/C vent!

[rustygrant]

I just took off old thermal grease using Acetone (thanks for the suggestion Jaime Nixxx) and high purity alcohol and coffee filters. Replaced it with Arctic Silver 5. I changed my case fans around to where I have two exhaust (one above video card, one in rear) fans and two intake (one on front panel and one on side). Before I replaced my thermal compound, changed fans, placed system near vent, my CPU was 55-57 C idle in BIOS. Now it's 48-49 C. My mobo temps have changed a little (about 2 degrees C). Will the temps drop 5 degrees after the AS5 sets, as the manual says? Is 47-49 still too hot for my CPU? How much hotter can it get under load?
There's little more that I know to do, other than install a better heatsink/fan. Any ideas?

Athlon 64 x2 6000
Zalman 9500
Asus m2n-sli deluxe motherboard
2 gb G-Skill dual channel RAM (pc 6400)
Hitachi 320 gb hdd.
Raidmax Smilidon case with 500w psu, 4 case fans.
evga 7800 gt ko.

[Jamie Nixx]

Arctic silver takes 200 hours to bed in so to speak. But i am a little worried about those temps. Amd's are well known for being very low in temp.

I reckon you should check your cpu cooler as it may be slighly dislodged.

I have a new intel core 2 duo system and these are supposed to be hotter than AMD.

CPU tem 28 degC (even under gaming load never goes above 33degC)
Mobo temp 27 degC


Then again i do have an Antec 900 :p :rolleyes: :cool:

Check out the cooler mate and make sure that if/when you take off old thermal paste use tissue paper over and over again until there is no residue being left on the paper (even if it looks like the cpu and fan is clean there is always loads left on it)

Hope this helps

P.S under gaming load you could push 60degC and that is dangerous.

[rustygrant]

I took off my Heatsink fan, again (this time noticing a slight scratch on the bottom of the heatsink pad--not sure if this is bad). I noticed that the Arctic Silver 5 had only touched the heatsink pad in along the outer edges of the pad (while not even touching the center--I could literally see my reflection). So, I'm going to sound real ignorant, (if I haven't already) but I reapplied the AS5, using more this time, and even applied a little to the heatsink wiping the excess off. I let it idled in BIOS for about 5 minutes this time it fluctuated at 40 (+/-1) celsius. Sounds closer to my goal. When it'd idle before, it would continue to increase, this time it stayed right about at 40. Thanks for the help.

[Jamie Nixx]

Thats good to hear mate. By the time that arctic silver beds in good and proper you should idle 35-37 degC which is fine.