CPU Temperature with NZXT x61

jikirga

Honorable
Dec 24, 2012
10
0
10,510
So, I finished my first build a few days ago and ran into one major problem. I mounted the heatsink from the x61 to my CPU and everything seemed to be fine; however, due to my inexperience, I had thought I made a mistake while mounting the cooler and decided to take off the heatsink to see if I was right. Long story short, I was wrong and I did mount it correctly. So I mount the heatsink one more time, I boot up the PC and when I went into the BIOS, I saw that my CPU was running at 91C, which is clearly a problem. I later realized that by taking the heatsink off previously, I had actually created air bubbles in the thermal paste which rendered the cooler ineffective. Okay, no problem, I was bound to make some mistake since it was my first build. I bought some Arctic 5 thermal paste, and received it today. I cleaned off the thermal paste, re-applied the new thermal paste in a pea shape after watching some videos, and mounted the heatsink back on. I go to boot up my PC again, go into the BIOS, and the CPU is still running at ~90C.

Can anyone tell me what the issue is here? Is the BIOS wrong? Is there some troubleshooting I can do here? I can't even install Windows because I'm scared I'll fry my CPU if I keep the PC running too long. Any help is appreciated.