Pentium D940 temperature issues?

Hi folks. I've recently bought P4 D940 (3.2GHz), 2GB DDR2 533MHz RAM and put it on Intel D945GNT board (i945 chipset + integrated gfx).

I'm somewhat concerned about the temperatures though. I'm using the supplied Intel HSF and temps go as high as 80C under load (which is ridiculously high even for dual core CPU IMO) and stay in upper 60's in idle. Also the MB has 2 sensors - currently they show 54 and 51C respectively - I'm currently stresstesting with 2 instances of Prime95. In idle those two temps stay at low 40's.

I was thinking it's bad air circulation/ventilation, but adding 2 rear fans had practically zero effect on the temps plus read below.

I'm bit hesitant to believe these readings, because CPU temp wouldn't go below 60C and ambient below 36C in idle with open case (both sides and top). Could it be the MB reading so damn wrong values? Btw room temp. is at approx. 25C

Anyone else experiencing this high temps? The system seems stable so far (running about 12hrs of Prime95 now, will let it run for a day or two), but even if the system was rock stable, I'd be worried about how much these temps (if true) would decrease the life of the CPU.

Shameless anoyed nitpick: And they said they improved thermal characterictics since the 90nm version.

Pentium D950, SP-120 w/120mm fan, AS5

temps 38-42c idle 55-60c under load

First, I would suggest making sure the BIOS is completely up to date. Sometimes, temperature sensors can be inaccurate due to older BIOS revisions. Second, it may seem like a dumb thing to suggest but just make sure all your fans are blowing in the same direction, (e.g., make sure rear fans are blowing out if front fans are blowing in), etc. Same goes for side fan, if it exists. Third and lastly, make absolutely sure that all four pins audibly clicked down the entire way when you affixed your heatsink to the CPU. Aside from that, there are probably a few other things to try but that's a pretty good start as far as I know.

Download a program called thottle watch which can be found here Then run it during your prime test and see if the CPU throttles, because if those temps are true then that CPU is throttling as its limit is like 68c.

Also you might want to check on the voltage, it should be in the 1.2's usualy when installing a CPU in a board the board will over volt the CPU if its on auto, this would cause some overheating pretty quick.

Thanks for the responses.

Neilyos - BIOS update is on my list of 'to-do', as for fans - there are 2 rear fans blowing out. CPU seating was the 1st thing I've checked - still I might try reseating the HSF again.

adeoliver - thanks for the link, I completely forgot about throttle watch CPU voltage stays at the default value (1.2V), so no overvolting going on.

Hm, throttle watch didn't show any throttling and bios update didn't help. I think I'm going to blame the MB for incorrectly reading the values as it's impossible that there would be ambient temp of 50C in idle.
I will post an update if I have any luck finding out what's causing it.

I had very high temps, both my cpu heat spreader and heat sink were concave big time. After lapping I brought my temps down by about 15 degrees C