Pre-built and pre-overclocked but something not right

[D3lirious]

I bought a pre-overclocked PC (from 2.4 to 3 Ghz) because I liked the idea of it all being warrantied as I've never overclocked myself. However I think it might be running too hot.
Whilst picking the parts for the PC I've done some reading up in the overclocking sticky. So although I picked parts which I believed would help with the overclock, I don't have any experience with doing it myself. Hopefully with some help though I'll pick this up.
The first thing I did was run orthos at priority 10 whilst looking at temperatures in TAT to see if it was stable. It went from 50 when idle to about 70 during the test which from what I can gather is not good. The test didn't give any failures but I turned it off after about 10 mins because I'm assuming it's too hot regardless. (I think someone on here mentioned throttling at about this temp)

So, as I'm new to this I was hoping that some helpful experts here could walk me through what to check that might be causing this.
I've opened up the machine and all the fans seem to be spinning as expected including the one on the side of the ninja.

Specs:

Antec P180
Corsair 620W
Asus P5B Deluxe
Core2Duo E6600@3Ghz
Corsair 2x1Gb 6400C4

 

[D3lirious]

Thanks for the quick replies. The heatsink def has a fan which is spinning so not fanless. I've written down the below from the BIOS, which gives vcore as 1.35. So I will either need to re-seat the heatsink? How do I go about this, it seems pretty big and there's no obvious clips that I can see...

AI Tuning: Manual
CPU Frequency: 333
DRAM Frequency: DDR2_833MHz
PCI Express Frequency: 100
PCI Clock Synchronization Mode: 33.33MHz
Spread Spectrum: Disabled
Memory Voltage: 2.10V
CPU VCore Voltage: 1.3500V
FSB Termination Voltage: Auto
NB VCore: Auto
SB VCore (SATA, PCI E): Auto
ICH Chipset Voltage: Auto

Memory Remap Feature: Disabled
Configure DRAM Timing by SPD: Disabled
DRAM CAS# Latency: 5
DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay: 5 Dram Clocks
DRAM RAS# Precharge: 5 Dram Clocks
DRAM RAS# Activate to Precharge: 15 Dram Clocks
DRAM Write Recovery Time: 6 Dram Clocks
DRAM TRFC: 42 Dram Clocks
DRAM TRRD: 15 Dram Clocks
Rank Write to Read Delay: 15
Read to Precharge Delay: 15
Write to Precharge Delay: 15

 

[D3lirious]

You're right of course but I don't really want to ages for them to do it. I will have a look at the heatsink tomorrow as I have some arctic silver in my drawer waiting to be used.

Had a quick look earlier but couldn't see the pins described. I'll see if any heatsink instructions came with the package.

 

[D3lirious]

OK an update to this:

I've flashed the BIOS to the latest version (1004) and restored all defaults so I'm running at stock. I've then changed all the [AUTO] settings to specific speeds and voltages to see how the temp looks and to have some known base settings to start from.

FSB: 266 (therefore CPU @266*9=2394)
DDR2-533MHz (1:1)
PCI: 33.33
spread spectrum: disabled
mem: 2.1v (I got this from the Corsair specs)
cpu vcore: 1.25
(for the next four I don't know what to set as I've no idea what [AUTO] would have been set to, I took a guess for FSB and NB but it seems to work )
FSB termination voltage: 1.3v
NB vcore: 1.45
SB VCore [AUTO]
ICH Chipset: [AUTO]

I've re-seated the ninja about 4/5 times using arctic silver, and have even cut away the part of the base plate that presses against the capacitors. Temps are the best I've been able to get now:

Idle: 42
100% TAT: 55

So I'm going to start raising the FSB. Before I do, can you give any pointers for what the voltages other than CPU should be (which I assume I raise one notch if it becomes unstable). and when should i stop in terms of max safe volts and temps? Plus are there any other BIOS settings I should change first?

 

[D3lirious]

I'm running 413x8=3304 at the moment, with vcore on 1.45.

I'm up to about 35 mins in Orthos now, but my temp is about 69. If orthos continues for a few hours without probs, can i get away with this temp? I don't think the system will cope with a vcore drop at this speed. This CPU seems to need a huge boost in volts as soon as I try anything over about 3GHz, which of course then gives me these high temps.

 

[D3lirious]

I've come down to 3.2 GHz now which has allowed me to bring volts down a few notches from 1.45 to 1.4
I'm not 100% on stability as I need to run a long test, but orthos failed after about 35 mins at the next notch down.
CPU is idling at 48-50 but it still creeps up to 70 with TAT on 100%

He is using a Scythe Ninja, looks like the IHS is concave/convex (or the heatsink).

I am getting lower temps than he was at stock clocks, with a worse cooler so something is definately up.

Yep, I've lost patience with it now so I will contact the supplier to see what they can do. They have been helpful so far - they sent out an engineer to fit an arctic freezer 7 to it. But although my temps dropped a fair amount from the insane levels they were originally, the freezer was really loud compared with the ninja, and I have got the ninja to a similar performance since I've messed about with re-seating it and modifying the plate that surrounds CPU.
As has been suggested, lapping might be the only help at this point but I'm not prepared to go that far. I guess it could also be bad case air flow although there's 3 fans in it, 1 at the top, 1 at the back and 1 at the front.
I'll let you know how I get on with supplier.