CPU Overheat or MB issues?

[Rmckeon926]

I'm currently building a computer for my cousin and I came across a CPU overheat issue.

Currently, when I turn on the computer (even if it has been setting all night and completely cooled down), I can go straight to the "PC Health Status" menu in the BIOS and the CPU Temp will always read about double that of the case temperature. For example, this morning I turned it on and the case was 26C and the CPU was 48C. Currently it's idling at about 32C (system) and 58-62C (CPU). I understand these temps are high, but I don't believe they're true. I applied the proper amount of thermal paste and everything but the temps are still reading high. The heatsink doesn't even seem that warm when I touch it after it's been running. It seems odd to me that the CPU would actually heat up that much that quickly after only a few seconds of running. I figured the BIOS must have been reading it wrong and needed an update...so I flashed the BIOS with the latest version (after which my video card stopped working and I now need to use the onboard video) but it still reads the same high CPU temp. I changed the power supply figuring it may have been the generic PS putting out crappy power, but that didn't change anything. All the fans are running fine...the CPU fan is at about 3,000RPM.

I'm currently typing this on the system and it seems to be running stable. When I first tried to install Windows on it the system would shut down because I had set the BIOS setting to shut down when it reached 70C, so it must have at least got that high. Any suggestions relating to the CPU overheat issue or the graphics card failure after BIOS update will be highly appreciated. By the way, I did the "Load Optimized Defaults" in the BIOS after the update as well and the card still didn't work. Here's what I'm running:

ECS "Elitegroup" C51GM-M v.1.0 Motherboard (Latest 1.3v BIOS update)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800 (new 65Watt version)
256MB Chaintech Geforce 7300GS PCI Express Graphics Card
512MB G.Skill DDR2-800 Ram
Seagate 160GB SATA HD
Sony DVD-R/RW DL

Thanks to whoever can help me with this. My biggest problem is trying to determine which part(s) to send back to Newegg.

-Ryan

[Rmckeon926]

Update: I downloaded 2 different temperature monitors and ran them...they both say that the voltages of the cores are as follows:

Vcore1: 1.22V
Vcore2: 2.48V

I don't know much about the dual-core processors but it seems that they should be running at the same core voltage. Still though, with the processor supposively at 55 degrees Celsius, the heat sink should be putting off some heat, which it isn't.

[Foosa]

What heatsink are you using?

What case are you using?

Fan set up?

I suggest taking and cleaning the cpu and heatsink with high % rubing alcohol, and re-apply thermal past.(use only a half a rice sized drop). I know you said you did it right, but to much or to little will raise temps way high.

You may want to try and re flash your bios, something may have been forked up with the new one. I could be wrong tho.

[newbuilder14]

I think it's a possibility that the heatsink is not attached tightly. I ran into this problem myself.

[Rmckeon926]

The case is a generic case and the heatsink is the manufacturer's that came in the box. I have a case fan in the back and on in the side panel...the back one blowing in and the side one blowing out. I already pulled the heatsink twice and cleaned it with denatured alcohol and put 3/4 rice-sized thermal grease on it. The heatsink is on correctly, but I can't really tell if it's on tight enough. The core voltages are making me wonder though, are they supposed to be different?

[jfk]

The monitoring programs typically only measure one core temperature (the first value). The same is true of CPU voltage settings as well.