Need help with high CPU Temps

[UltimaBoB]

System Specs:

Intel E6700 2.66 GHZ Dual Core CPU
Zerotherm CF900 Heatsink
1 x XFX 9800GX2 GPU
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L Motherboard
4 GB OCZ DDR2-800 3-3-4 Ram
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Music Soundcard
Zalman ZM-1000HP 1000 watt PSU
Samsung 2693HM 25.5" LCD @ 1920x1200
Antec P180 Mid-ATX case
Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard
Logitech G5 Gaming Laser Mouse
Creative Inspire 5.1 speakers
Windows XP Professional SP2

I have the Antec (using all stock fans) set up with 1 of the fans in my front drive blowing in. It is set on high. Then I have the two at the top back (one blowing out the back, one out the top) set on medium. I had to take the stock fan out of the PSU bay because it wouldn't fit with the Zalman there.

The 9800GX2 is set at 60% most of the time, but goes to 100% during gaming.

I idle at ~ 47 C CPU cores and 60 C for the GPU Cores. Under the P95 load for small FFT I hit about 69 C and stay there. My idle and load temps drop a few degrees if I run all the case fans on high and the GPU at 100%. But again, a bit too noisy.

At these settings, during gaming my GPUs hit about 77C and my CPUs 60C. At that point the GPU fan is at 100%. Again, these temps can drop a few degrees if I crank the case fans from medium to high.

The thing is, my CPU fan will hit a maximum of about 1220 RPM. It won't respond to speedfan. In the BIOS it is set to PWC. I think it is the culprit. 1220 RPM seems really low and the most recent newegg reviews have featured many people talking about how the paste that comes with it sucks. And that the speeds are crazy low. The tech that set me up also changed my mobo the other day and said he didn't need to remove the paste and reapply (and it was crappy paste to begin with).

I feel these temps are too high esp. since the CPU temps aren't even with the 9800GX2 also on load and blasting hot air into the case. If I set all the case fans + the GPU fan to 100% it sounds pretty noisy.

Any advice on these temps and what I should do about them? I'd prefer not to do anything too involved like swapping out all my case fans, modding my case, etc... I was thinking maybe a PCI-E expansion fan card under the GPU and a better Zalman (i'm in Korea after all) HS + top quality Thermal paste should be enough. But that 9800Gx2 might pump a lot of heat. And ideally I was hoping to get my CPU up to 3.0 GHZ as well.

Ideas appreciated.

BTW I don't care too much about noise levels - within reason.

 

[Tweakin]

It sounds like you are not getting decent air flow through the case. What is the ambient temp in the room? How much do they drop with the side off?

 

[joramhh]

While I'm not concerned about my temps yet, I have a similar issue with the CF900. I can't get the RPM's to even reach 800. I'm researching my motherboard BIOS settings (MSI Neo2-FR) to see if that's the issue. I haven't seen temps above 50C and maybe it just doesn't need to kick in but I guess I would have expected it to increase somewhat at 50C.

Like I said, I can't complain about my temps yet but don't even want to try to OC unless I'm sure the fan is working right!

 

[UltimaBoB]

If you look at the newegg comments, many have complained that the CF900 fan just won't spin high enough.

And there are posts about it on other forums. I did find that at least for my gigabyte BIOS the setting PWC let it spin higher than AUTO.

Do you think I need to replace my Antec tricools as well as my CPU heatsink? Is 3 case fans enough with that 9800Gx2 in there pumping out heat?

 

[The Bakery]

First of all, if someone isntalled a new MoBo and took the heatsink
off, and placed it on the new board without removing the thermal
compound, I'd be concerned about that.

If the compound isn't making a flush contact with the CPU and the
Heatsink, you're going to get poor performance from the heatsink.

47/69 seems hot.

I would seriously consider scraping and replacing the thermal paste
with Arctic Silver 5. I used cheap paste and Arctic 5 two times and
got a 3-5c lower temp with AS5.