PocketMatrix

How did you put the grease on? Read and follow the instructions exactly at . That's probably your problem.

Oh yeah, and another thing, you might've put the heatsink on wrong. I did when I first got it.

_____________--- <-- heatsink bottom

_______________--- <-- socket on mobo

/----v----------\ <-- clip should be oriented this way

/----------v----\ <-- not this way

I did the latter, and my temps were significantly higher than when I did it right.

I'd say your ambient case temperature is too high for a copper heatsink to work properly, as copper absorbs thermal energy quite nicely, but it takes more to dissipate the heat from copper than it does from aluminum. If this heatsink pure copper or copper core only? I've always prefered the copper core heatsinks over pure copper for some reason.

But I'd suggest you put the aluminum back on tonight the same way you put on the copper and see if it gets worse scores than what you're used to. It could be that you're using too much thermal compound between the cpu core and the heatsink. It could be that it's seated incorrectly. And it could be that your ambient case temperatures are too high and thus it can't dissipate the heat off of the copper.

LOL!

Well, since my room is on the second floor, and it faces the west, it traps all the heat there. Once I walk out of my room into the hallway, it's almost like stepping into an air conditioned room. Luckily at night, I can really cool it out with a box fan jury-rigged to the window.

Oh, Damian, thanks for the help. I took some time to actually do it properly, and it seems to be running in the range of 49-51 idle, and (my %100 CPU load test isn't done yet) I estimate the under load temp in my room conditions will be around 58-60.
Now the only trouble I'm having is my fan rattling on the HS. (I used the short holders) Is there an way to jury-rig the thing to stop it from vibrating?

hehe, didn't think about looking at his location. I just read the post and made the reply.

I bought a desktop brand new from IBM once, and it worked fine the first time I used it but the second time it wouldnt start up and shut off imediately after I turned it on...

... So I took the ram out. With no ram, the computer stayed on just fine, continuously beeping a "No Ram error code". I took a voltmeter and started checking everything, and making sure the connections are secure. I turn it off. I look around, wait untill the next day, and then turn it on again. This time, I took the whole cover off, so the motherboard was completely exposed, and not just the side flip cover.

The first thing I noticed was smoke.

The CPU had set on fire inside of it's IC chip, but because it was contained by rubber, when I turned the machine off, the mini-fire ended. Turns out the machine had a bad cooling system, including a bad heatsink. This was from shipping- I customised the computer, IBM built it for me, and sent it to me- and within 2 days of me recieving it, the machine sets on fire.

I believe the heatsink it had was copper. Since then, I've never used copper heatsinks- I feel that they're good at absorbing heat, but not good at getting the heat away from the processor.

Umm... ever realized that the known best heatsinks around are all-copper designs? Look at the SK-7, SLK-900, Volcano 11... all copper. Just because your heatsink was badly mounted doesn't mean copper heatsinks are bad.

Right now I have an aluminum heatsink with copper core, it works fine. I've never had any real need for a hardcore heatsink, so it doesnt really matter.