Temperature problems after BIOS update

hmm.. so its stable now? does the keyboard feel hot at all? I guess you may have a sensor problem if its giving you the wrong temps, and causing the false positives.. but all in all, since you've got it running exercise a bit of caution.. like having it on a desk instead of the lap, and using a external keyboard/mouse if it starts too feel oddly warm (or turn it off..)

I cant recall or find any max allowable temps (before meltdown) for the northwood, but seeing that the Prescotts max is about 80`C, then the Northwood should be about the 60-70 range, so i think you're in the clear if you dont stress too much of the cpu all the time... try and configure speedfan to run on startup and minimised (in your taskbar) and you'll have a more or less real-time reading on your current temps...

Ok, so i guees i'll just have to watch how long i have it on for correct? Because it hasn't shown its stability yet. Yes, the keyboard it always hot. Is there a way to configure speedfan to tell the BIOS what the max temp for shutdown is? Because u have said to try to change this temp in the BIOS setup, but there are no ways to access these temps if what ur saying is true.

There should be a way.

Northwoods run pretty cool, I'd suggest 60C as a max. If you can find someway to set it. My Northwood PC is now registering 25C, and thats after overclocking. I have a pic up on techspot gallery with a screenie showing a 18C idle temp.

I'm really thinking that you have a heatsink blocked or something. Its hard to see if its blocked, I remember mis-diagnosing a blocked heatsink before, and even missed the fact that it was blocked when I specifically checked it. Not sure how you'd check for sure, but I know that I solved it when I blew the heatsink again with an aircan, a hell lot of dust came gushing out, solving the problem.

I'd still look for that max temp shutdown.

I'm afraid every bios is slightly different, especialy for OEM builds, where its customised in some way, so what its called may be different to "Shutdown temp: __`C", or "alarm at __" and some may not even have one you can alter its values..

If you're brave enough to pull apart the laptop then you can try to examine the heatsink to see if there is any blockages or not as CMH has suggested..

Regarding Speedfan, as far as i've delved into it, you can set the fan speeds and such on compatible motherboards, but thats as far as i've used it (and temperature monitoring of course), and having a breif look through just now, it doesnt seem to have anything else it can change apart from that, so temperature controls would have to be an attribute in BIOS somewhere..

Ok, i'll keep looking for it. Are there any other places i could look to change the max temp that you could think of? About the heatsink, when i blew it out w/ an air can, there was hardly any dust in there at all, it was wierd for having it for 4 years.