Taming the beast (Cooling a Palimino)

Well for anyone who remembers my first post about why my cpu temperarture was at 65C during idle I suppose I've done fairly well. I've just installed two 120mm Panflos (The 86CFM variety). One is a side intake centered over the cpu and northbridge and the other is a top exhaust. They're loud and annoying but not overly bothersome. If you trust the readings off my motherboard (which is now updated with the most recent BIOS as recommened by some helpful fourm memebers) I'm at Idle: 25C/36C and Load: 26C/41C. I'm hoping that by lapping the heatsink and using some AS3 I can drop the load temps into the upper 30s. Anyways, just a thank you to everyone that's helped me cool things off a little.

Nice drop.

very nice drop indeed, what heatsink is that on?

it can be a bios malfunc.
the different bios version may have modified the cpu temp detection.

If I remember here's what I did in the correct order more or less:

1)Antec Thermal Paste (approx. -5 to 6 degrees)
2)BIOS Upgrade to correct incorrect temperatures with my Asus A7V266-C (approx. -9 degrees)
3)Panflos (Approx -10 degrees or so)

All these are just rough guesses. I can't remember exactly how it went but the important thing is temps are a little lower. Right now it's night and that means cold air! At full load: 23C/39C. I didn't even have to do anything except wait! I am using the stock AMD heatsink and fan. One question, the side fan has caused the AMD heatsink fan to increases it's speed by about 300-400 RPM. I assume this is because the air from the side fan is pushing the heatsink fan faster. Is this bad for my heatsink fan? Will it wear it the components causes it's spinning faster?

I ran a side duct for some time and it made my heatsink fan run faster as well. The increased speed will probabally cause the bearings in the fan to wear out faster, but the percentage of the life of the fan will end up being marginal, probabally close to the percentage of the fan speed increase.