a7v266: old mb with newer chip = really this hot?

Let me start off by saying: I have the newest bios available for this mb.

I had this A7V266 with a 1600+ T-Bred CPU, which I never really OCed. I was surprised to see it running around 53 C ldle, stock, when I finally checked.

I told myself: "I guess the older Ahlons run hot" and I didnt really sweat it, b/c the board had lasted me 2.9 years at which it died and i got a new RMA. I wanst using it as my primary box since then, so it was rarely at load.

Later on, I decided to buy an unlocked 2600+ T-Bred, b/c that is afterall the fastest chip this MB will take, and I could find a use for the mb at around 2 ghz. I was really surprised to see it idle around 60 C, @ 1.75 volts which is both stock and the lowest voltage available to me.

Temps are normal on another mb.

I ran prime95 w/ speedfan and at load it peaked just under 70 C, and the test did fail at around 14 hours. So now I'm telling myself: "Either..."

".... my temp readings are off and/or this chip is hard for a board this old to handle,

or

"There is something wring with my mb, other than the cpu temp readings"

At these temps I dont want to run many more tests w/o another way of guaging the temps which is both cheap and reliable. After all, I dont want to spend more money troubleshooting this problem than the board is worth. I this possibe?

Asus's position is that my temps are w/in the range of normal on the hot side, and that 55-65 idle-load is the safe range.

I should mention: this is the only board i've ever seen that has the speedfan cpu temp reading as Temp4

What HS/fan are you using on this rig? If it's the stock AMD cooler w/ thermal pad, it doesn't surprise me. My Athlon XP 2100+ TBred B at stock speeds and voltage (1.65V) had a load temp of about 62C before I upgraded the HS/fan and TIM. Now with my Vcore at 1.92V and running at 13.5x172 (2.32 GHz), my load temps max out around 50C! If you have a good HS/fan with TIM, then I really don't know what the problem could be, unless you applied the TIM incorrectly or the HS is not seated properly.

sorry for the exceptionally long delay.

i should mention i got one of them thermalright si-97's w/ arctic silver. 5.

i didnt notice anthing wierd with the fanspeed in speedfan, then again i dont remember for sure if it displayed at all.

im gonna put this rig back together and try using a molex converter, in case the problem is eith the 3 pin power connector on the MB.

i promise to stay more abreast of this discussion (forgot i posted)

if its not the fanspeed, (which i dont think it is) what could it be?

I have a A7V266-E with a 1700 t-bred and the temps are in the mid 50's at idle. I did some reserch when I frist got this board years back and found most people had very high temps. I have also read that the temp sensor reads 10-20C higher than that actual temp on some Asus boards with the 266 chipset. I still use the board in a server/folder and it runs great after almost 3 years of 24/7 use so I do think it's a bad sensor.

Please post what you find out because this has always bugged me.

Furious, are you using the most recent bios for that m/b? It sounds like it's locking your voltage at the old palomino levels. No way to go any lower?