I think i have solved this now, looks like the heatsink wasn't attached securely, took it back off, wiped off the thermal paste that was on there and put some arctic silver 5 on instead, put the heatsink back on and the idle temps seem to be as follows now, is this about normal for my cpu now or is the load still too high?.

Idle 35c
Load (using prime95) 65c

Far better.

Run Prime 95 for a night and see how things work out.

I always remove the thermal pads and put arctic silver on. The less you use, the better it works.

In reply to a post by micksharpe:

I always remove the thermal pads and put arctic silver on. The less you use, the better it works.

Take that to the extreme, less and less and less until it is almost none ... that will not work too well!

If the surfaces were perfectly flat, you wouldn't need any at all.

Actually, I don't use arctic silver. Any thermally conductive paste will do, just not the putty that the cooler manufacturers use.

Edited by micksharpe (Fri 02-Nov-12 18:36:11)