Can't get my temps down..any ideas?

i somehow doubt this but is there anyone using a quad with a stock heatsink/fan? i would like to know what temps your getting at idle because mine range from 51C to 60C at idle.. I'm either considering a different thermal solution or i'll just re-seat the hs/f after a bathe it with a healthy dose of thermal paste..=P

using a q9450

P5N-D

Well it helps to know your ambient case temperature as well. Blowing hot air across the heat sink won't help and it is summer after all. Assuming a comfortable room temperature the case should be around 27-30C, the Quad CPU around 34-44C while idle at the most.

Try reseating the assembly as I know it's hard to get a firm seating on those pinned heatsinks as opposed to the much easier AMDs. It might not be on firmly enough.

Check the fan speed with speedfan or a similar application. Might be on low throttle.

Also it's important not to use too much thermal paste. It's supposed to fill the teeny tiny irregularities in the surface, not coat it like spackle. Don't apply more than a grain of rice sized spot between the heatsink and processor, two grains if using Arctic Ceramique over Silver as it's less viscous.

that's one option that i'm still going to pursue after my pockets heal a little bit.. i ended up reseating te hs/f, using coolmaster thermal paste.. i checked the temps in the bios again to see if they changed. i saw heat fluctuate from 51c to 67c.. the numbers didn't seem accurate, especially when the ambient temp is a constant 24c.. if i remember the threshold for proc, isn't 70~80C? When this error occured before, the temp climbed as high as 112c until i shut i down myself to avoid burning out the proc.. 70~80c versus 112c and above.. no this certainly was right.. I gooled my proc & mobo combo and foundother users having the same problem.. the temps that the bios ae wrong.. I any of you ar having the same problem, download realtemp..if will not only show the temp of your proc bt all 4 cores as well. turns out my proc was actually idle at 38C and 41~43c under full load.

thank you all for helping me out