I recently put in a new Thermalright Ultra-120 into my rig to help cool down my CPU which beforehand was overheating like mad, however I'm still not too happy with the temperatures of my CPU. When I put a little force on the Ultra-120, it seems to move a little bit, but not much, however I have checked that the screws are in securely and plates are fine too.
I have a Zalman ZM-F3 installed onto my Ultra-120, which is blowing air into the heatsink, or is it meant to blow it away? Directly to the left of my heatsink is another Zalman ZM-F3, which is being used as an exhaust fan on my case and directly above the Ultra-120 is a Zalman ZM-F2 on the side panel blowing air into the case, however it is extremely close to the Ultra-120 as it is so darn big! (and hard to install )
Now, here are the temperature readings:
TJUNCTION: 85~
CPU: 24~
CORE 0: 36~
CORE 1: 37~
Now, the CPU temperature seems fine, but aren't the CORES a little high for my set up?

I am not sure what you mean are they running a little high? These are idle correct? So get a program like orthos or something similar to get the heat going.

24c at the cpu and 36 c on the cores is normal, unless you are going to run your system in a freezer or something that is about as good as you can get. I have a water cooling setup with over clocking and I can't get it to go lower then that.

So yeah I would say your in good shape, everything looks about as good as you can possibly get. These processors run so cool now that unless you do a huge amount of voltage increase during over clock you don't even really need the great and wonderful heatsinks, in fact you can go with stock and save the money and you will probably get the same exact numbers, don't believe me try it out.

Can you tell us what your processor temperature was at when you say it was over heating like mad? 60c is when its going to start to get close to over heating and causing problems, but I have seen my system at one point run at around 61c and it was still stable. So please be a bit more specific.

Yes, but I thought people could have their CORES idling in the 20's? Or was I mistaken and that was really the CPU?
Well, before I changed my heatsink, I must have had a faulty stock one or something was terribly wrong as the CORES would get upto and beyond 75 degrees, which is kinda crazy..

With the cooler mounted in an Intel 775 based board, the orientation of the cooler allow for all of the hot air to directed right out the back of the case. This is where hot air should go.

when your CPU heat up to (TJUNCTION - 15) in your case 70 under load then it is too hot..
try this start Orthos this is the download link
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/385/mirrors.php
then start Small fft's -street cpu test the see the heat i recommend CoreTemp program to monitor the heat

"when your CPU heat up to (TJUNCTION - 15) in your case 70 under load then it is too hot.. "

I don't get what this means, can you explain better?

Your TJUNCTION is 85c so it is 70c (85c -15c)

by the way i have the same CPU and it runs up to 72 to 73 under real load so that is not much of a problem

What, so that's too hot, it's a problem?

crumble114, if your Ambient temperature is ~ 23c, then your temperatures are normal. To understand thermal relationships and proper C2D temperatures, please read the following Sticky: Core 2 Duo Temperature Guide http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] ture-guide

UAExDEVIL, your understanding of Tjunction is also inaccurate. Please read the Guide.

In the software utility "Core Temp", the field that shows "Tjunction 85c" is very misleading because it is incorrect terminology, is not a temperature, and does not scale. It should correctly read "Tjunction Max 85c", which is simply Intel's specification for "Maximum Junction Temperature".

Hope this helps,

Comp

I will assume that's @ stock speed. If it is, yes, is a little high (you are safe anyway, but it should be lower).

Wait, from what I have understood from that guide, the Tjunction temperature of 85degrees shown is not really a temperature, but a value which doesn't change? I'm not on my computer at the moment so I can't check if it is moving around.
Yes, these temperatures are totally stock and while idling..

Your core temps can go as high as 65c and still be within safe temps. If your core temp is at 65c (safe) then your CPU temp (Tcase) is at 55c. If you read the core 2 temp guide you'll see where it says (Tjunction) 65c safe, 70c warm and 75c hot. If I were you I'd only look at core temps from now on because there more accurate. On my OC at 3.6Ghz my CPU temp (Tcase) is idling @33c and fully stressed is 54c for Tcase and 64c Tjunction.

"CPU temp (Tcase)" -> Is this the "CORE 0/1" or "CPU" temperature? Ahh, this is too confusing.
Thank you for the help so far.

CPU = Tcase
Core = Tjunction

Ah right. Thanks!