Overheating CPU?

[NightmareXX]

The CPU on my sisters PC is idling at 53 and 67 at load. That doesn't seem too safe or correct for my liking so I took the heatsink off as soon as I turned it off, touched the heatspread on the top of the CPU (Got thermal paste on my fingers too) and it seemed as cool as anything. The heatsink seems to be fitted nice and snug to the CPU as the thermal paste is all over it.

Is it a faulty thermal sensor or is it possible in the 10-15 seconds after it shutdown that it could cool from 53 to ambient room temperature?

 

[NightmareXX]

Fixed. Simple BIOS update

 

[Admiral Huddy]

How much thermal paste? Too much can be just be as bad as having none.

 

[RJC]

What cpu and what are using to measure temps.

 

[NightmareXX]

Just the AMD stock heatsink. When I took it off to check there isn't that much down and after performing a BIOS update which said something about fixing the CPU temperature, it now reports it correctly (35 idle ish).

Using speedfan in windows and it's an AMD X2 4800 AM2