my xp-90c messed up?

[One_Hertz]

I am getting horrid temps on my 3800 venice. Load temp is 51C and idle of 39 with an ambient of less than 30!!! and thats stock! The temp behaves quite strangely, it goes to full load temp in a matter of 5-10 seconds and does not go any higher, unless ambient increases adn cools to 39 also in about 5 seconds. At first I thought it was just my stupid neo2 reading my temps wrong, but then i got my own temp sensor and I realized that it is in fact correct. The fan I am uing is a 92mm tornado at full blast (yes, slowly going insane). It performs just horribly for what it is. My case is on its side so it can not be that I isntalled it upsidedown like other people have mentioned before. When my case is standing up the heatpipes are facing directly down. I have reseated it now 3 times with exactly the same results. Does anyone have any ideas? :confused:

I am using as5 as my thermal compound.

[Major]

Does the contact area on the base look like its making 100% contact when you remove it ??

Using enough AS5 (or too much) ?

Might want to try and reverse your fan too, try it sucking up through the XP90 instead of blowing.

The base of the XP90 and the XP120 I've had were perfectly flat, your A64 though may hve rasied edges preventing contact in the center of the IHS.

BTW: I edited the title of your post

[brandinb]

30 ambient to 39 idle and 50 loaded sounds about right to me

thats only 10 degreee delta for idle and 20 degree delta for load sounds maybe a little high but not too bad

btw what are stock temps on stock cooller?
if they are way higher even then the xp90 then i bet your cpu is a good canidate for cpu heatspreader removal because that might be the culprit