Thermalright Ultra-120 not so great?

[3.0charlie]

You could pass a credit card between the pins, to remove some of the excess paste - I know it worked when the pins where on the chip, a la S478.

[Infiniti]

Well, thanks for the help all, but now, I just went and got some contact cleaner to clean it again.

[Infiniti]

Okay, I just put in my CPU and mounted my ultra 120(lapped, washer mod). I then overclocked my CPU to 3.2Ghz.
Here are some temps:
Idle: 40C
Load: 55-60C (10 Orthoses running)

These seem better than my old temps, but they still don't seem so good.

[3.0charlie]

You may be putting too much thermal paste.

[Infiniti]

Originally Posted by 3.0charlie

You may be putting too much thermal paste.

I doubt that. I just put a tiny dab of paste in the middle of the core. When I put on my ultra 120, I took it off to inspect the paste. The paste was fine, it wasn't going off the side or anything.

[3.0charlie]

Good; what's the ambient temp.?

[Infiniti]

Hmm.. my room is about.. 30-35C.. and I have my case open, so its about the same in there. Wait, its a bit cooler than in my room actually..

[3.0charlie]

30-35C ambiant is very high; this will push your temps higher. And it cannot be cooler inside your case than your room. It feels cooler, with the air flow cooling your skin.

[Infiniti]

Ah.. I see.. I guess I should see what the temps are in the morning.

[Mibs]

35C ambient! Ouch how can you sleep! That would definitely explain those high temps. Trying to gauge temperature readings in the middle of the summer is obviously pretty tough. Lower those ambient temps and you will most definitely see an improvement. As for the paste in the socket, that contact cleaner is a great thing to use. When I had an rma board sent to me from evga once it had what looked like AS5 in the socket. I was afraid I was going to fry the entire system with that stuff in there, but I just soaked it with that contact cleaner and used a toothpick to get out the rest and it worked just fine.