Q9550 very high temps?

that's one amazing chip for it's time. You should include what cooler you're using for that chip because everyone is going to ask anyways. It's the starting point for how to cool down a CPU. lay that AS5 thin, make sure the heat sink is firmly on the chip, and consider the case you're using. good air flow?

My favorite CPU of all time. I can promise you that when you reapply thermal paste, that you didn't put the heatsink on correctly. Re seat the heatsink again and make sure it's in there tight.

I'm not at home so I'm going off of memory from what I've seen the last few days. I keep core temp running in the system tray and have a sidebar applet that displays core temp's readings so even though I don't closely monitor them I see the numbers frequently enough that I remember
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"Idle" for me is a few explorer windows open, FF open with a bunch of tabs, and usually a video file playing in media player classic or lately streaming from Amazon Prime in a second FF window. IIRC CPU usage is usually pretty low when doing this but I'd be guessing if I threw out numbers, maybe 10% per core or less most of the time

ambient air temp in the room is usually in the mid 80s Fahrenheit in the summer

"Idle" temps for the cpu will be in the mid 30s up to around 42 or 43 Celsius. Been a while since I've done any folding or anything that would push it to 100% for any length of time due to that room being warm in the summer so I might be wrong but I think I've never gotten above the high 60s Celsius even in summer

ZALMAN CNPS9900ALED 120mm for my cpu heatsink. it is positioned to blow towards the rear case fan so the heat gets out of the case quickly, there is also a top case fan near it.
Front of the case has two intake fans so I get decent air flow through the case

when I get home I'll double check the numbers

edit: 85F in my computer area, idle temps are 38C on all 4 cores
ran folding@home for a few minutes, cores are 49,48,50,49 although I did see 51 come up for a moment on one of the cores but it didn't stay there. Cores are not pegged at 100% usage though, they'll be 100 for a bit then drop into the high 90s for a second or two and go back up. I don't have prime 95 currently installed to test with
Edited by mikehunt - 8/6/12 at 10:02pm

It is not good, but it seems to be better. Are you using the stock Intel cooler? That sounds like 70c could be accurate for stock heatsink on Prime95. I know when I overclocked my Q9550 to only 3.4 Ghz with the stock cooler, I was getting into the 90's. I would just go and get yourself an aftermarket heatsink, because it does not sound like yours is mounting correctly if you have to push it down. If you let us know what you are willing to spend, we can suggest the best for your budget.

It is not good, but it seems to be better. Are you using the stock Intel cooler? That sounds like 70c could be accurate for stock heatsink on Prime95. I know when I overclocked my Q9550 to only 3.4 Ghz with the stock cooler, I was getting into the 90's. I would just go and get yourself an aftermarket heatsink, because it does not sound like yours is mounting correctly if you have to push it down. If you let us know what you are willing to spend, we can suggest the best for your budget.

With this cooler those temps are too high. It can be that you are putting too much TIM - go around this site and you will find excellent guide how to replace TIM. Also check again site of manufacturer of cooler how to properly mount this cooler. Check surface of bottom -> should be with no any prints and scratches and smooth like mirror (if not - lapping will help) .

that looks somewhat similar to my Zalman and I have no complaints about mine. I also had a different style of zalman on my pentium 4 desktop and it worked well
people with more knowledge might be able to suggest other brands but I've had good luck with the zalmans I've used