My 8400 has been idling anywhere from 45C - 50C, which I have been a little worried about, but not too much as I don't overclock really at all.

Today I ran SP2004 with both CoreTemp and Speedfan running. Speedfan reported the temp rising up to a max of 63C after about 3 minutes, while CoreTemp showed an increase in temp up to 55C and said that the cores were only recieving about 20 - 50% load (was bouncing around). This was not the case with speedfan which showed a constant 100% load on both cores throughout. Is this the jankyness of inaccurate readouts on new C2D's?

Using Stock HSF, maybe an upgrade is in order? Any suggestions welcome!

Edit: Forgot to mention, once I stopped SP2004, the temps reduced back to 50C within 2 seconds, and I started the program back up again, with the same constant heat increase taking place after only this 20 second delay.

if it reaches 70 under load, be concerned and look for a fix - if not, don't (in my humble opinion) (also, best to specify e8400, or someone who is up much later at night than they should be (e.g. me) may confuse it with an 8400 graphics card which would not be concerning at all at those temps )

lol!
what issue?

with the stock cooler and a hot day that might be normal and the cpu will last for a decade or 2 with normal usage - what issue?

Wouldnt hurt to upgrade the cooler

Yes, upgrading the cooler would definitely lower the temps. I know there are better coolers if you want to spend the money, but, for the money, I recommend an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. I use one and it has my E8500 (overclocked to 3.8Ghz) running at ~40c idle.

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br3nd064