My E2200 is currently running at 50*C idle in BIOS, and 43*C in Windows according to CoreTemp and SpeedFan. I would like to overclock, but these temps seems way too high for me. I am using a Xigmatek HDT-S963 with Arctic Silver 5 on a Gigabyte DS3L board. This is a new build, so I assembled this out of the case using the pushpins since it is only 410g in weight.

Do I need to reseat this or is this "normal"? Most of the benchmarks for the HSF saw Idle temps in the 20s to 30s, so why are mine so high? When I run stress tests it immediately shoots up to 65+ within the first minute. Does my case have enough cooling? I only have 1 80mm intake fan at 32~ CFM, and an 80mm outtake at 70~ CFM.

When I read reviews and benchmarks of this HSF, I was expecting to have 20 - 35*C idle temperatures so what is going on here.

That Xigmatek is the one where 3 heat pipes directly contact the CPU, right? Those are a bit tricky to install from what I hear. What you need to do is apply the thermal goo across the exposed heat pipes, not on the CPU. When you mount it, the excess will fill the cracks between the pipes and you will end up with nicely contacting heat pipes. You also have to watch the orientation of the Hs relative to the CPU. The middle heat pipe should be passing it's full length across the core as shown below.

And yes, for your temps are to high. Even the stock Hs should be keeping it in the 30-35c range idle.

Also, if you can mount some extra case fans somewhere it would not be a bad idea. If you have a cheap case with out any more mounts, I would recommend getting a 4.5" hole drill or a dremmel and making some 120mm fan holes.

aren't those pushpins a bitch??,maybe you put tooo much goo twix the cpu and the cooler???
remember that some of those benchmarkx that you see on the web are done without no case...
i do not know about your e2200,,but my core2quad [q6600] is showing less than 100f across all 2 cores with the standard cooler,slightly modified of course,,so if you feel uncomfortable ,,then by all means reseat your hsf,,be careful that you do not apply tooo much t.i.m., you only need about the thickness of a cigarette paper or a little more,remember all it is doing is smoothing out the imperfections between the two surfaces ,spread it with the edge of ,,say a credit card or some such item..

So I only apply the thermal paste to the 3 copper pipes and not the rest of the base? I previously applied it to the cpu itself and yes I only used a little bit and smoothed it out with a credit card. I am certain I didn't use too much.

Also, thanks for the pictures. I have my heatsink pointed towards the rear exhaust fan, which should be right I think. I'd hate to think they'd designed this so the air had to be blown up through the Power Supply.

As for extra case fans... I would love to put some more in however I bought this case over 5 years ago and at that time it was sufficient. I did upgrade to a 70 CFM 80mm exhaust fan since it isn't wide enough to mod into a 120mm.

I have thought of adding a top fan in, but only a 92mm fan will fit. Other than that, I was thinking of going with the 120mm fan in my 3 empty 5.25" bays, or a PCI slot card fan. However, I am not sure how well any of these will perform so I'm not sure if they are worth doing. Any thoughts?

Thanks again for the infos.

the front 120mm is definately worth doing as it supply fresh air to the CPu directly. but for the temp is very high for the HDT cooler.

Odd. Today the temperatures inexplicably dropped to 36*C. Is this the AS5 sinking in? It is still too high but very unexpected.

36C for idle temps isn't bad at all, depending on the ambient.

Well it seemed the 36* was a bit of a phantom. It went back up to 46 after about an hour. At any rate, I just reseated the heatsink... which is a mega pain since those push pins are garbage.

I'm idling at 39/40 now with ambient at 45. This still seems way too high to me, what is going on. I really expected to be in low 30s at the worst with this heatsink. Is it the ambient temperature that is the problem? Would lapping a heatsink with the pipes do any good?

This sure is annoying.