Zalman CNPS9700NT

[Natamanchuk]

I have an Zalman CNPS9700NT fan over my CPU (Q6600). I got it with the idea that i could get some great cooling out of if I decided to overclock. Unfortinetly so far i have gotten less then expected results. At stock settings Speedfan reads the CPU core temps to be all about 75 C while the machine is idling. I have checked and the fan is going at it full tilt near it's maximum rpms. I am not sure if this is normal, Could i have installed the fan wrong? what should i be looking at for core temps?

[Jake_HT]

Try using realtemp to monitor temperatures

Real Temp - CPU temperature monitoring

Report back with what realtemp gives you... sometimes speedfan gives silly readings

[Natamanchuk]

Ok real remp says pretty much the same things as speedfan...well actually a little worse. highest core is at 82 C and lowest is at 75 c . If these temps are accurate then does that mean the fan wasn't installed properly?

[Jake_HT]

That's really high.... especially for an idle temperature... uhh, did you put any thermal paste between the CPU and heatsink when you installed it? Definitely check your heatsink installation.

[Natamanchuk]

Yes, my Fan came with some thermal past and a little foam applicator, looks like a little whiteout applicator, i applied thermal past to lightly cover the surface of the cpu. Is that tow much?

[Jake_HT]

Try re-seating it but place a little bead of paste in the center of the CPU, the size of a BB or so (little smaller than a pea) and place the heatsink downward onto it, and mount it on and let the pressure of the mount push the paste to spread evenly...

Give that a try, however your temperatures are quite high for a simple bad mount... so I'm not sure this will drop your temperatures THAT much to make it normal, but it's worth a try..

There could be other factors too, like bad temperature sensors, that give off a false reading... How's the airflow in your case? Ambient temperature?

[Natamanchuk]

Ok so i have now cleaned and re applied some Thermal past and re seated the fan on the cpu. For some reason, when I finally booted the pc back on it tripped half the breakers in my apartment.
Anyway real temp shows a highest temp of 50 C for the cpu cores and a lowest of 43 C, while this is better then before i still think this might be a bit on the hight side.

[Chilly]

Strange, I think your mounting it wrong somehow, not enough pressure, bad thermal paster, or etc. Sounds like bad thermal contact. The Zalman 9700, while not the best cooler, is regardless still decently good.

[Natamanchuk]

My Overclock seems to be running fine now, ran Prime95 over night and it came out fine. Have it stable at 3.0 ghz with a 1:1 ram ratio, and pci-e set to 100 mhz. Vcore is at 1.265, i gave the ram a .1 increase in voltage to smothen things out. So far no issues
The fan does seem a to be attached lightly but screws holding the tension down can not be tighted any further nor can the screws holding the mounting bracket. I just used the thermal grease that came with the fan.