40 C at Idle

I'm running a Zalman CNPS9500 LED With Arctic Silver 5, on a Pentium 4 530, for some reason my tempurature is average 40 at idle, is this normal?

Prescott *lol* yeah, thats quite acceptable. Be happy its that low...

Yea i upgraded from stock yesterday, i've heard this thing can go down to 30 though so i was a bit surprised to see 10 degrees up

any idea of what could be wrong?

I checked the heatsink and everything seems fine, how would i know if i installed it wrong. Also, how long does it take for arctic silver to set?

Any idea of what an average for prescott tempuratures at idle are?

80C under load on an AMD? 939? 754?...unless a bug in the temp monitor, would begin underclocking itself, then if mainting the temps would lock the system....or fail...either or.

Prescotts are notorious for heat, make no mistake. So if you under 60C under load....I'd say dont worry about it.

notorious for heat because the AMD fanboys emphasize that every time they talk about a Prescott.

it was a 939... I believe. It was a AMD FX-55 Clawhammer... and that's all there is to it.

ya once and it was misproperly placed btw clawhammer tops out at 70c under load!

Hmm, I thought the site said 200 hours for it to cure or break in.

Been awhile since I saw it, to lazy to look at it again. I just used artic silver 5 not long ago, still waiting to see it do it's magic on my P4 2.66, OC to 2.9.

I should put it back to 3 ghz to help burn it in some more perhaps, though I'm using stock cooler.

Temps with regular themal grease - 44 C idle.

Temps with artic silver 5 - 41-42 C idle.

Of course room temps are going to influence it..

Ok now considering I was one of those kids who would pile on the glue, how severely could too much thermal paste affect the temps?

If you put to much the AS would act as an insulator and not a conductor = bad

40c for your chip is fine. Dont worry, be happy. You have a great cooler, so you should also have low (comaratively speaking) load temps.

if anyone in here has aim im twodollardookie and an im would be greatly appreciated.

you're welcome glad to hear you're getting similar temps to mine 8)

I get 40 deg on my 920 at idle w/ as5 and 9500. However, keep in mind your cpu will always be running hotter than ambient...I opened my window one day and let some cold air in, and it dropped to like 32 at idle.

From what i noticed about the zalman is its great at really limiting fluctuations under load (other coolers probably do the same...) as opposed to the stock fan that would allow 30 degree shifts sometimes (in deg C). I havent seen a 50 deg temp yet with the zalman.

To those people who say they get under 30 degrees, your ambient temperatures must be lower....plain and simple. If your in a cold room (~60 deg F) or a warm room (75 deg F) youll notice different cpu temps.

Just keep in mind these factors when you blurt out your cpu temp. I mean, there are people who claim to get 25 deg C with air cooling. 25 deg C corresponds to about 75 deg F, or room temperature. Laws of thermodynamics are broken if their ambient temp is 25 degrees as well (the heat of the chip HAS to be going somewhere!!! and SOME of it will be absorbed in the immediate surroundings)

Anyways...if there is any point to all this, when people are making cpu temp comparisions, they should be giving their Room temp as well.

40 deg C for a chip is most likely normal in a 25 deg C room. However, in a 20 deg C room youll probably see temps in the low to mid 30s. Either way thats a cool chip....and the zalman is doing its job.