Zalman CNPS9700 110mm - Temps Not Low Enough?

[Matt_Prelude]

Hi,

I just put together a PC with an E8400 and Zalman CNPS9700 110mm. I'm planning to overclock to at least 3.6GHz soon.

However, I'm a little disappointed at the idle temps at stock settings. Should they be lower?

EDIT: This is in an Antec 900.

 

[blackwidow_rsa]

well they do seem kinda high to me, my cpu (see below) gets about that hot under load on an older zalman. are you sure you seated the heatsink correctly and applied the thermal paste according to instructions? what is your ambient temp? is the fan at an reasonable speed?

 

[Matt_Prelude]

I'm pretty sure I followed the instructions right. I applied an even layer covering the contact area entirely. I have the fan blowing air up towards the antec 900's top mounted exhaust fan.

Ambient temp: 21
Fan Speed: Max

Max temp at 100% load using Prime95: 41

 

[hundredislandsboy]

Your temps are fine. My e8400 w/ Artic Pro Freezer 7, runs 33 and 40 C at idle and goes up tp 56, 58 after 15 minutes of Prime 95.
These temps are just slightly better than the stock Intel HSF. However, the Artic Pro comes into play when I overclock to 3.6 GHz, play Crysis, Cod4, and the temps stay the same as when idling.

 

[hundredislandsboy]

I meant that the Artic Pro keeps the e8400 overclocked at 3.6 GHz as cool (idle and full load) as it stock's speed at 3.0 Ghz.l

 

[kyeana]

41 is an amazing load temp, nothing to worry about

 

[Matt_Prelude]

I figured out the problem. It had nothing to do with my heatsink or thermal grease.

For some reason, my Gigabyte DS3L set my vcore to 1.25 as default, even when I set vcore to normal.

My temps would jump as high as 48-50 when overclocked to 3.6

Now my temps reach a max of 45 when overclocked (usually stay near 42-43), which is decent. VCore is set to 1.125.

EDIT:

The E8400 is known to have problems reporting the correct temp:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=253276
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=545708&page=1