Help cooling down cpu temp

[PCTechie316]

My 2 year old gaming pc, seems to have a cpu temp issue, ever since I put it together.

I have a intel core 2 duo - 6320 that is 1.86 GHz stock.

With Evga 680i sli tr motherboard.

I also dumped the stock cooling for a zalman fan.

It seems like my cpu idles anywhere from 35 - 40 C. When I just tried overclocking from 1.8 to 2.8 i noticed the cpu was jumping to about 70 - 76 C, on 100 percent load.

The only thing I can think of is my problem when I put thermal paste on. I can never seem to do it right. Does anybody have any tips? On how to cool this thing down.

 

[EXCellR8]

idle temps are fine... i would try some Arctic Silver 5, Tuniq TX-2 or OCZ FreeZe compound. The Zalman grease (if that's what you ended up using) is okay but I've had better overclock temps using other solutions. The cooler itself should be fine just check that the fan is spinning at the correct speed under load.

if you're having trouble applying the thermal, take a look at this: http://www.arcticsilver.com/ins_route_step2intelas5.html

 

[PCTechie316]

I probably did do it wrong then. It seems like the instructions tell you to put a small line, and do not spread it. I believe i did use silver 5, but not sure where I put the tube.

I'm probably gonna picking up a tube of OCZ FreeZe. Do you apply it the same way as those instructions? Their instructions said to put a drop the size of a grain of rice.

My problem with the zalman was, it such a pain to get on. Cause where you need to screw it in, the fins of the cooler stick out past it, so you need to like try and screw it in on a diagonal. And by that time, you already spread the thermal all over the place from moving it to much.

 

[PCTechie316]

Ok, cool thanks for your help. I got some ocz freeze. I put in the line form direction. Tossed the heatsink back on. Now its running at 27 - 30 Idle, and 34-35C at 100 percent load.

Thanks so much. Thermal paste has always been a nightmare, as I have always thought the entire cpu needed to be covered. And im sure i put to much on last time.

 

[EXCellR8]

Glad to hear temps are well within acceptable range, good job.

For future reference, you do apply most thermal pastes the same way as in the AS5 instructions, but Duos and Quad procedures are different. There is no need to spread the paste over the heat spreader since it's so big... you had to with some of the older Intel and AMD chips but with Core 2 processors you let the cooler itself distribute the thermal equally. My guess is that by spreading it yourself you caused too many little air pockets where heat would get trapped.

Keep that .pdf handy... just in case you forget the direction of the bead

 

[PCTechie316]

well so far, i just about overclocking from 1.86 to 2.8 - and running at 70 - 90 percent load, and the temp is anywhere around 36 c to 39 c.

So i think that is a much rapid improvement in cooling. And i shouldn't have to worry anymore.