Yeah I'm serious. It was at 100 degrees when I first installed it, but I guess the heatsink wasn't making good contact with the CPU, causing the high temperature, and the motherboard gave me a warning.
It's been running at 80 degrees for a year or so, and it's very loud when I am running CPU intense applications and games.
I've applied some thermal compound I've found lying around, but the problems remains.
Like you suggested, I'll probably need to look at readjusting the positioning of the heatsink and fan again, but for a socket 775, it's hard getting the plastic to lock in place with the motherboard, unlike the older CPUs where the heatsink and fan is clipped onto the CPU.
ok, wow. a couple of things spark my interest here.
first 80*C is where P4's begin to throttle due to shear heat. 100*C would break your cpu almost instantly saying that it could even stand to get that high.
second,
TO ANYONE WITH A P4 HEATSINK!!!
if it is rattling, vibrating, or making any noise other that the sound of moving air its not on your cpu right at all, period.
third,
ensure that ALL 4 clips are clipped in completely, do not rush trying to get it on or your temps will be hot as hell. yes they are a pain but its worth the time being carefull getting them in correctly.
fourth,
since your sensor is actually fluctating in temps so much i.e. 70-100*C,
i would doubt that it is reading incorrectly, but, the fact that your cpu usually runs at 80*C doesnt make sense. thats a contradicting problem there, but you did say that you HSF was rattling so if its barely hangin on your cpu your temp readings could be way off.
recomendations,
look into getting a new heatsink and fan, cheap ones are bout 30 bucks.
get some better thermal compound than jsut some "laying around" lol.
and really take your time in mounting your hardware, it can be hard, but you want it reliable and not on fire!