Help with water-cooling questions- Thanks for help!

[mechsiah]

The setup:
ehiem 1046, DangerDen Maze2, Transmission Fluid radiator, 3 80mm fans
KK266 1.2ghz Athlon

The problems:
According to the MB sensor I'm at 42C, idle. I feel I should be doing better. According to the thermistor I placed about 2mm away from the core of the CPU I'm at 30C. Who should I believe? When running with a HS and Fan I was getting around 41C on the MB sensor- If its consistent then I should use a fan...

So I'm assuming my setup needs help. The Maze2 may not be level, but I am nervous about tightening it down too much. Can anyone offer advice on how tight it should be?

I have considered adding another radiator. Might that be overkill?

Big thanks for your help on this guys...

 

[Ridenow]

I would believe the thermistor over the MB probe.
The water block should be as tight as you can get it using only your fingers. It should be as level as you can get it. Tighten all of them the same time. If you do not have it tight then you will not have good thermal transfer and will have problems.

How big is your rad? What fans are on it?

 

[Thelemac]

You shouldn't believe any of those temps...you should believe the fact that you should be able to get a higher overclock, more stable system, or the ability to lower your voltage more. If you wanna have a number, get the thermistor touching the die. It *has* to touch it to get any idea of what the actual temp is.

You should also check your ambient temps, as those have a *huge* impact on your core temps. And you shouldn't check your idle temps for how well a cooler is performing, you should check full load temps.

 

[mechsiah]

Thanks for help. Tightened down snug, added second radiator (I think it was too small). Now I'm at 41C at load. Wheeeee!!!