Heat problem with Pentium D 840

[adairusmc]

I have a media center machine that I got through work, and it came with a Pentium D 840. The motherboard is an Intel D975XBX, has 2gigs of ram (4x512), and a All-in-Wonder X800XL video card.

The problem is, that the processor is like a furnace with the stock cooler. I took the cooler off the other day, and whoever put the cooler on must have used a whole tube of thermal paste. I got all of that cleaned off, and I installed some Zalman paste on there, still the same temps.

Yesterday I bought a Core2Duo E4300 to replace that chip, but apparently my 975XBX is a revision that does not support it, as it turned on but would not POST (BIOS was current). I put the Pentium D in there, and it booted right up again (used Zalman paste and stock cooler).

I checked the BIOS for any strange voltage settings, everything is set to Auto or is where it is supposed to be. Nothing is overclocked.

Is it normal for the temps to be that high for this chip? The BIOS says 71C while I am in the BIOS, but I am getting 60-65C in Windows Vista with speedfan. Intel's TAT utility will not run for me for some reason in Vista.

I want to get an aftermarket cooler for the thing, but even with the stock cooler I can't imagine this thing running that hot. I have an Ahanix D.vine 4 case, so the cooler I end up getting is going to have to be able to fit in there.

Thanks for any input.

 

[stevty2889]

Pentium-D's are known to run hot, especialy the 8xx series. My 830 ran at around 75c with the stock heatsink and arctic silver 5 paste, and throttled like crazy. The 9xx series runs a good bit cooler. TAT will not work with a pentium-d, it's designed to read the digital sensors that are on Core Duo and Core 2 duo, pentium-d's don't have those sensors, and I'd be scared to see what the temps read if they did have them. I used a thermaltake jungle 512 and it broght the temps down below throttling, it's about the same size as the stock heatsink, so should fit in just about any case.