Is my heatsink working right?

[IceNine]

I have an MSI K8N Neo Platinum running an Athlon 64 3200+ Newcastle, which I know the BIOS has temp reporting issues anyway, and a ThermalTake Venus 12. Both the BIOS and MBM report temps around 60 C at idle, but when I open the case and touch the heatsink it doesn't hardly feel warm at all. Is my heatsink not seated right or is this normal?

 

[cluy44]

try reseating and reapply thermal goo ie. Arctic silver 5,
also run live update and see if theres a newer bios version out, that might fix it

 

[IceNine]

I am using Arctic Silver 5 now and have the latest BIOS as well. I guess I'll try reseating my heatsink. What should I use to clean off the AS5 that's on the heatsink and CPU now?

 

[stevennoland]

Just because your heatsink isn't hot to the touch doesn't mean it's not doing it's job. Use your computer (HARD). If it freezes up or acts abnormal then reseat the sink. If not, enjoy!

 

[Degrador]

Originally posted by: IceNine
I have an MSI K8N Neo Platinum running an Athlon 64 3200+ Newcastle, which I know the BIOS has temp reporting issues anyway, and a ThermalTake Venus 12. Both the BIOS and MBM report temps around 60 C at idle, but when I open the case and touch the heatsink it doesn't hardly feel warm at all. Is my heatsink not seated right or is this normal?

MBM just reports what the motherboard tells it, which is the same as what the BIOS reports.

Also, you know not to use much AS5, right?

 

[leconc]

Are you touching the heatsink while the fan is running? Probably, so it will feel cooler. Also, where are you touching the heatsink? If you're touching it anywhere other than at the very bottom of the base, its not a realistic temp. The very bottom, side, should feel hot, around 120-140F or so. Any other place on the heatsink would feel....not very warm.

 

[BW86]

my mobo is the same, its telling me that at idle my chip is at 60c but the heatsink feels like its at maybe 40max. If your computer isnt acting wierd than dont worry about it

 

[IceNine]

Thanks for all the great posts. I reseated my heatsink using the AS5 according to Arctic Silvers website (a tiny bit of AS5 on the heat spreader of the CPU, then put the heatsink on top of that), but BIOS temps didn't really go down at all. Also if I feel around the very base of the heatsink it still doesn't feel even warm at all. My VGA card feels warmer even at idle. As for my computer acting weird, I have been having some problems, but I'm not sure it has to do with CPU temps. I am just trying to cover all my bases, see if I can find out what's up. My problems include 2 different BSOD's: one that occurs at random is a "PFN_LIST_CORRUPT" error. I have run MemTest86 on both RAM sticks together with no problems. The other BSOD I get is "IRQL_IS_LESS_THAN_OR_NOT_EQUAL". This one seems to pop up when I do a lot of network intensive things, opening a lot of connections and such, but I'm not sure this has anything to do with it.