Just yesterday, I decided to clean my whole PC, dusting off every possible part. Naturally I took all the pieces out and cleaned them individually. So all was well and I was able to it back in again.
Then, I noticed my idle temps were at 55ºC for my CPU. The fans were working fine, so I thought I just placed my heatsink badly. And it turns out one clip was loose. I realigned the heatsink and added new thermal paste, and the CPU went fine at idle temps of 41-45.
Then, my eagerness to tinker with stuff led me to read about the proper orientation of fans for optimal airflow. My previous fan set up was as follows:
1 120mm fan in front as intake
1 80 mm fan in the rear as exhaust
1 120mm fan at the side (near the GPU) as exhaust
PSU fan as intake
CPU HSF as intake
I learned that the rear fan has to always be exhaust so I reversed it. I also learned that it is usually better for the side fan to be intake as it feeds cool air to the GPU.
After doing the adjustments, I noticed that my CPU temps are now at 50-52ºC. However, my GPU did cool from 57º to about 53º at idle. I didn't notice what my motherboard temps were before, but now they hover from 36-40º.
Right now I'm running Prime95 and temps play in the range of 65-70ºC.
Is it possible that this current set-up is actually worse for my system even if it's considered as optimal by many?
What can I do to reduce my CPU temps without spending on a new cooler?
My current specs are as follows:
Core 2 Duo E6550 Mild OC at 2.80 GHz (from 2.33)
4 x 1GB Kingston ValueRAM DDR2-800
Asus P5QL-Pro Mobo
ATI Radeon HD 3850 256MB GDDR3
Corsair CX400 PSU
BTW, ambient room temp ranges from 28-34ºC
Thanks
Then, I noticed my idle temps were at 55ºC for my CPU. The fans were working fine, so I thought I just placed my heatsink badly. And it turns out one clip was loose. I realigned the heatsink and added new thermal paste, and the CPU went fine at idle temps of 41-45.
Then, my eagerness to tinker with stuff led me to read about the proper orientation of fans for optimal airflow. My previous fan set up was as follows:
1 120mm fan in front as intake
1 80 mm fan in the rear as exhaust
1 120mm fan at the side (near the GPU) as exhaust
PSU fan as intake
CPU HSF as intake
I learned that the rear fan has to always be exhaust so I reversed it. I also learned that it is usually better for the side fan to be intake as it feeds cool air to the GPU.
After doing the adjustments, I noticed that my CPU temps are now at 50-52ºC. However, my GPU did cool from 57º to about 53º at idle. I didn't notice what my motherboard temps were before, but now they hover from 36-40º.
Right now I'm running Prime95 and temps play in the range of 65-70ºC.
Is it possible that this current set-up is actually worse for my system even if it's considered as optimal by many?
What can I do to reduce my CPU temps without spending on a new cooler?
My current specs are as follows:
Core 2 Duo E6550 Mild OC at 2.80 GHz (from 2.33)
4 x 1GB Kingston ValueRAM DDR2-800
Asus P5QL-Pro Mobo
ATI Radeon HD 3850 256MB GDDR3
Corsair CX400 PSU
BTW, ambient room temp ranges from 28-34ºC
Thanks