bought a zalman cnps7000, still getting pretty high temps

[jalapaeno]

bought the zalman cnps7000 and the temps still seem pretty high. idle is 45c and load is 60c. room temp is 26c max.
im using an is7 and a p4 2.4c, not o/c and i would like to, but not until the temps come down. could it just be that the is7 and abiteq isnt accurate? oh ya, used artic silver 5 too. any help would be greatly appreciated.

sys specs:

abit is7
p4 2.4c
hyper x pc3700 512mb
9800 pro
thermaltake 420w psu
zalman cnps70000-cu

 

[beatle]

Welcome to the forums, jalapaeno.

That does sound a bit high, but 26C translates into a 78F room, which is a tad on the warm side. My overclocked 2.6C idles @ 48-52C depending on room temps (68-72F) and gets up to 60-65C under full load. The IS7 does read a bit warm, but since you're not overclocking yet, your temps should be lower.

What thermal grease are you using and more importantly, how did you apply it? There are great instructions on arcticsilver.com that apply to most compounds as well.

How tightly did you screw the brackets on the Zalman? They should be fairly snug, but don't give it everything you have.

 

[Nebor]

Abit reports your temps high, don't worry, my temps are the same as yours. But I've seen mine read up to 69C before.

 

[jalapaeno]

im using arctic silver 5, but i think i may have made a fool of myself. on the arctic website in the installation instructions it says something about removing a thermal pad. my p4 is unaltered. so i may not have removed the pad, if there is one. obviously that would make a big difference.
im fairly confident that the zalman is screwed in tight enough.

 

[jalapaeno]

hmmmm.... the arctic silver website instructions are confusing me. from what i understand i was NOT supposed to remove the heat spreader (which i didnt). however i am absolutely positive that i used to much.

by the way. i appreciate the welcome and everyones help.

 

[DerwenArtos12]

those temp are a bit high but if the board is rading them a little high tehn those are fine. not really number I would like to see on a non-overclocked system but they are fine.

 

[jalapaeno]

i definetly want to o/c it, so i gotta find a way to get the temps down, is there a way to double check the temps?

 

[DerwenArtos12]

you would have to use an independant tempurature device. Like a thermaltake hard drive cooler. somethin like that.

 

[Nebor]

As long as your system is stable, then temps aren't really that important. Trust me, Abit reads temps high. Go over to the abit forums if you want. A lot of them turn off thermal throttling because the high temps cause premature throttling.

 

[MDE]

If you're really worried about it then reapply the Arctic Silver, but I'd start OCing now and see where you end up.

 

[RalfHutter]

I'll reiterate what's already been said several times: Abit boards over report the CPU temp by about 8-10°C. Read this thread from the Abit forums. It's one of hundreds complaining about this issue.

 

[jalapaeno]

yeah, skipped right over to o/cing, had it going at 3ghz last night, still working out the kinks, but the temps didnt change at all. apparently its just the board. thanks for your help everyone.