Why are my temps high?

[n64man120]

My Radeon 9700 videocard has a Zalman heatpipe with the separate fan on it. I placed a temp sensor from my aerogate II near the gpu of the card and its just sitting by card laying on the heatsink on the bottom. The sensor is reading 40C when not under load and I have the case door off. This seems a high, any suggestions on how I can improve the cooling? Or is having the temp sensor lying on the lower half of the heatsink sandwhich a poor reading?

 

[Deadlierchair]

Unless you have the sensor mounted correctly you can't really get good readings. And even then some sensors aren't reliable. Assuming you are getting good readinds, 40*C isn't too bad. Test how hot it gets under heavy gaming (full load). As long as that temp is safe I wouldn't worry.

If the temp is bad, I'd make sure I have the heatsink mounted correctly (remount it with some good thermal goop) and undo any overclocking that may be overheating it.