Q6600 G0 runs extremely hot @stock

[christophocles]

Make sure you have all of the pushpins COMPLETELY locked down and the paste is spread evenly. If you do, then RMA it.

Well at first I was using the Thermalright Ultra 120, which is kinda foolproof. You just put the backplate on and screw the heatsink clips in until they stop. The Scythe uses the same clippy things as the stock cooler, and the last couple of times I checked the underside of the board and made sure the pins were going through all the way. I also varied the amount of thermal paste each time.. I've never put this much effort into seating a heatsink and had this big of a problem. I usually just set it once and it works and I forget about it. Like I said in my original post, I tried the E6600 one time and got decent temperatures right off the bat. So I'm pretty certain now that it's the CPU's fault.

What I'm REALLY wondering now is, what if I was using the plain old stock cooler on this cpu?? Ultra120 gives 15-20*C temp reduction over the stock cooler in my experience, so if I was using stock, I'd be running 70*C at idle?? That's insane. This processor is defective and it's endangering my motherboard and other components. I'm gonna RMA it first thing on Monday.

Thanks for helping to convince me I have a bad processor. Now let's hope Intel doesn't give me any crap about wanting a new one...