I was running the stock heatsink on my processor. I just upgraded to a copper series thermaltake and got the Artic Silver Ceramique. And for some reason i am STILL running idle in the high 60s or 70s. Its driving me insane, Ive run out of ideas. The other thing that seems kind of odd, when it crashes it comes up with a windows driver error. Anyone got any ideas?

"Anyone got any ideas?" Yes...you have a driver problem. As for the temp, where are you getting the readings from, software or the BIOS? Have you checked for a BIOS update or googled your board make/model to see if others are experiencing the same problem? You may simply have temp reporting errors. R.I.P. Eddie Guerrero

Temp readings are coming from both BIOS and software. And I checked the heatsink manually, it was pretty hot. When I try to run games I go into the 85-90 C range. Ive been looking for someone having the same problem, with no luck.

You havent been playing about with overclocking your cpu have you? Check to see if all the settings are the default settings, ensuring your processor is running at the correct speed. Matt matt@bbcomputing.co.uk www.bbcomputing.co.uk

No overclocking. Speeds are normal. I wouldnt dream of overclocking a system that cant work under normal conditions. And in all honesty, if I was overclocking and didnt think of setting it back to default, Id have to kill myself for being so dumb =)

Double check your HSF installation & thermal paste application...you should have used a dab about the size of a BB & spread it thinly & evenly over the core. If you use too much, it prevents the heat from transferring properly to the heatsink R.I.P. Eddie Guerrero "Viva La Raza"

With the mentioned temperatures your driver problems might be caused by the overheating cpu. I had that years back in a Pentium133 as it's fan died. It nearly drove me crazy because I always got all sorts of strang behaviour and errors and then suddenly it worked again (alwasy after it cooled down I realised way too late! I wouldn't run the FX55 at those temperatures. I looked into a table with a lot of cpu data. The maximal temperature of the FX55 was unknown there but the old ones (FX51, FX53) said maximal temperature would be 85°C. Above that you can expect the cpu to die from overheating very soon!!!! I agree the eat sink may not be installed correctly or maybe the fan is too slow. Do you have some fan regulation over the bios activated ? If yes try to disable it. What's the temperature inside your case? Maybe the installation of the new heat sink caused some sort of disturbance in the air flow inside the case so now the air inside is heating up. with a friend I had a problem with the computer inside a special pc compartment inside his desktop. It even had a glass door in front and the only opening was the little hole for the cables in the back. That computer litterally coocked in his own exhaust heat because it's impossible to cool with hot air!!!!!