Originally posted by: DeadMan3000
Well it looks like I won't be attempting any overclocking for a while. At least until I can get an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro on the CPU. The stock heatsink and fan was running hot so I took it off and cleaned it with some rubbing alcohol. The first thing I noticed was that there were a couple of scores along the contact of the heatsink. I probably did this myself when I first put the heatsink on not understanding just how it attached to the motherboard (Always read the instructions peeps). I had been pressing and shoving it and the plastic fasteners on the corners were not turned inwards so it was not clicking in. I did not find that out until too late obviously.
I applied some Arctic Silver 5 very thinly. Reseated the heatsink and booted to the BIOS to see what the temps were. VERY HOT! OK turned off. Took the heatsink off and re-applied the paste a bit thicker and more evenly spread this time. Back on and now I noticed as I put the heatsink back on that it's not a nice firm 'click' onto the board anymore. In fact there is a little bit of play there. My guess is all that messing about with it has made the plastic sprogs on the heatsink a little loose. It just does not sit REALLY firm like it should. To get a good contact with the CPU it needs a really firm grip onto the motherboard.
Back in Windows without Q-Fan on it sits idling at 39-40c on each core. At load using Orthos for 10 minutes it sticks at about 56c. This is with no overclocking and memory running on auto (Obviously wrong timings).
I put Q-Fan back on and set timings to their correct values. Now it's idling at 43-44c respectively. I suspect if I put it under load it will creep to 57c or maybe a little higher depending how much the fan kicks in on it.
Kinda annoyed at myself in screwing up the seating of the heatsink initially. Oh well I will look forward to putting in that Arctic Freezer Pro. I think I can fit it in if I move the swivel heatsink on my video card to one side (I like silence)
EDIT: @ 59c bordering on the evil 60c with Q-Fan on and Orthos running.