Temps on I7 not to great

I've got my loop up and running and am a little disappointed with temps. I have I7 920 running at 3.6 as I did with old heatsink and temps are worse. I am using XSPC 360 rad EK heatkiller 3.0 and Yate Loon med fans at 1650 rpm.
I was getting idle temps of 34 to 35 before and 65 at 100%load using prime95 and core temp. Now I sit at 38 to 39 at idle and 72 under ful load? As for cpu block,I didn't reef on it to tighten it for fear messing up cpu and board but believe it was firm.Should I try tightening a little more and could this cause damage? I added arctic silver 5 thermal paste (same as on previouse sink. What kind of temps should I be looking at? I was hoping for 30 at idle and in the 50's under load. Is that unrealistic? Any feedback is appreciated.

Thise temps you are looking to get sound realistic to me. You might pull the waterblock and look at the TIM pattern on it and the cpu. And also look for anything that might be giving you interference around the mobo socket and your wb. I have no experience with the heatkiller blocks so I won't comment on how tight to mount it to the board.

Hey, i had a similar disappointment, but dont let Idles get you down, as long as the load stays in the 60's its good. also, just cause you see 60-70 at your current settings, your loop may maintain that for more clock and voltage so even at higher settings, you may still hold the same idle and load temp, depending on how fast it dissipates the heat for maintaining the temps.

As for your block, HK 3.0, did you tighten till it squeeks? or did you pull out a ruler/micrometer and measure from top of bolt to plate for ~19.6mm? if you use a ruler, the ball park of 19-20mm is good. also, you will hear a lot of us in the "till it squeaks" club ;-)

lastly whats your voltage? mine is 1.31v for 4.0 and i am at 35 idle, 61 load... i7 920 D0

I have not raised my voltage yet and believe it is at 1.25. May be wrong as I am fairly new to this. Thanks for the info on measuring I will give it a try. I will also try the squeaking trick. Norcalsteve did you remove the washers on the front of the board for mounting I7?

while i don't have any personally experience with i7. he should see a drop using a triple rad vs air..... that's not right.

i would look at tightening it a bit more, say 1 full turn and see what temps are afterwords.

did you tighten the block in a X pattern?

Yeah, crisscrossed them. I just measured and tightened more and dropped to 36 idle. I was using a coolit dominoe self contained liquid cooling kit before. I thought I read somewhere that it can take a couple days for thermal paste to set. Is that correct? If so Ill wait and then try reapplying paste

It depends on what type of thermal paste you used. Some have longer curing times and others dont need any curing time at all but most all pastes besides a handful will perform somewhat better after some time.

It' really important to tighten the block properly. Go out and get a micrometer to make sure.