Questioning my idle temperatures - c2d 6400 in p180b

[ShortFuse0001]

As the title states, I have:

Core 2 Duo 6400
GA-965P-DS3
2gb Corsair ddr2 800
EVGA 8800GTS 640mb

all in a Antec P180b

I built this computer almost a year ago, and it idled at 45-47*C with load temps at 61*C. I finally decided I wanted to do some over-clocking and cut holes in the motherboard tray so I could get proper cable management. I also replaced 3 of the Antec tri-cool fans with 120mm Yate Loon medium speeds and replaced the stock HSF with the Thermaltake Ultima 90 with a Panaflo 90mm fan.

My temperatures only dropped to 37*C. I keep the apartment around 75*F and the case is a few feet from surrounding walls to help a bit with air flow. The front fan is intake, and the back and top fan are exhaust. I have All of those case fans and the dvd-drive powered by 1 power cable coming from the PSU. Is this ok?

What can I do to improve the idle temperature? Do you think my cpu needs to be lapped? Will another intake fan in the top cage help? Do I need to help the graphics card remove its heat? I can still overclock till I reach my old idle temps, but I'd still prefer to get it lower first.

Thanks.

http://shortfuse.no-life.com/11-1/cablemanagement2.jpg
http://shortfuse.no-life.com/11-1/cablemgmtclose.jpg

 

[infect0]

I have the same issues as yourself. What does your case temps look like? I run stock HSF on my C2D in a lian-li case with a 12cm intake on the front and a 12cm exhaust in the back along with the 12cm PSU fan.

 

[Amiteriver]

For starters lap the heatsink, you will be suprised at what you see when you start lapping thermalright sinks. (have done 2 of them). I add a old northbridge sink to the top of the mounting bracket ( Ceramique between cpu sink and bracket) many will wedge in tight with little modding.

 

[ShortFuse0001]

I decided this problem was bothering me again, so it is time for a bump...

When I ordered the Panaflo 92mm fan I chose the 3 pin tail, which I assumed including rpm sensing but it didn't. Anyhow, I was messing with the fans today and now have the Panaflo plugged into pwr_fan, which is a 3 pin connector instead of 4 like cpu_fan. It moves a LOTTTT more air...I can actually feel air moving out the opposite side of the heatsink unlike before, but my temperatures only dropped 1-2*C. So, it seems maybe the cpu and heatsink aren't in very good thermal contact and require a good lapping?

Also, Is the reason the fan wasn't moving much air before because it was throttled down via the cpu_fan port even though there is no rpm sensing? If I order a new tail that includes RPM sensing, will the fan spin faster with increased demand for heat dissipation? could leave it plugged into pwr_fan but it's much much too loud. Do I have an obvious flaws in my cooling? I'd like to get my idle temp lower for stock fsb before I o/c.

Also, system temp is 38*C.

Edit: nTune says my VCoreA is 1.300, speedfan says Vcore1 is 1.28, Vcore2 is 1.90, And core temp only gives me the VID which is 1.3250v..


Ugh, and another thing. I can't get into bios because it seems USB support is turned off and my keyboard is USB. Any method for entering bios besides plugging in a ps2 keyboard to fix it?