M2N-SLI Deluxe overheating?

[qpok]

Hullo,

I'd like to know if 39-40°C idle is normal for Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe. I have decent to good airflow in my case. A64 X2 5000+ idles around 30c with Noctua NH-U12P.

A temperature sensor taped to the northbridge heatsink reports around 35°C (if the surface temp is good for anything). Asus PC Probe and Everest report +12V at 12.5V. That's a tad high if we choose to believe the software readings?

I am a bit baffled with the seemingly high idle temp and looking for possible causes/solutions. Thanks in advance! I've got great help here before.

 

[qpok]

Ok, I thought of the possibility that the heavy CPU heatsink (~800g) causes the board to bend leading to a bad contact between the chipset and its heatsink. There's most likely a thermal pad under the northbridge heatsink? So replacing the pad with thermal paste would be a good idea? Will I be able to tighten it with the plastic pins + springs? Or should I go with adhesive paste?