Ive just replaced a shuttle xpc of mine that was stolen with all the same componants. As before i used arctic silver between the cpu (pentium 2.8ghz prescott) and the heatsink. My problem is that Ive noticed "motherboard monitor" is displaying a cpu temp on average 10c lower than is displayed in the bios. I cant tell which one is correct and its the difference between an overheating system and non overheating system. I presume mbm uses the same sensor as the bios. I double checkedthat i had selected the correct motherboard is the settings.
All the on-die temp sensors are usually very inaccurate, so don't go by them for definite. You can buy special probes/sensors that would do a much better and more accurate reading.
Actually Waffle not "ALL" on-die temperature sensors are wrong. - Infact i'd say the majority are correct. Since Motherboard Monitor is reading the details from the exact same place your BIOS will be reading them from this would suggest that perhaps the version of your bios is not calibrated to read the temperatures as accurately as it could be. I would recommend flashing your bios to the latest version.
If you want to know accurate temps for your motherboard, CPU and hard drive(s) then I would recommend Everest Professional, it gives a good indication of heat levels in both C and F degrees. Once installed follow the icons to Computer -> Sensor. The second group down should say temperatures and list the temperatures of the mobo, CPU and any HDDs you have. Not to mention telling you what the RPM is of your CPU fan.
