hot cpu

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i have a Pentium D 920 2.8GHz. according to HP, its safe to run at upto 90 degrees C. i don't believe them.
i noticed my fan getting louder and louder as time went on. when i first got the comp i could run both cores at 100% and not hear a peep. then after a while it turned loud when encoding videos and stuff like that. last night it started to sound like a huge AC unit. the cpu was running at 88 C...
so i shut it down. today i took the fan and heat sync apart and cleaned them. i had to go buy some thermal glue. i ended up spending like 20 bucks on just bus fair going around the city where every electronics store told me they didn't sell it... i finally found some.
i got the temp down to 48 degrees. i was not happy with that because i wanted to at least be in the 30s. so i took it all apart again. this time it was in the 50s, so i did it again, and again, and again. i cant get the cpu down below 60 and when i watch the temp while the cpu s idle something it goes like 59 C. when i do ANYTHING, and i mean ANYTHING, the cpu jumps to like 65 degrees and the fan starts spinning at like 3500rpm. now i dont mind the fact the cpu is hot, i just don't want to hear the fan. the fan is quiet enough when its under like 2200rpm but i like it under 1800rpm because thats when its "ultra quiet mode"
now i want to either change the ratio of fan speed to cpu temp, such that the fan stays quiet while the cpu stays under say 80 degrees. or over clock to a lower speed. HP takes all the over clocking features out of their PCs so i dunno wtf im going to do there.
or maybe i am doing the thermal glue wrong...
i put about a pea-sided drop of silicon thermal glue on the cpu metal plate thing. i don't know what its called, but its this dispersal peace of metal to spread the heat out from just the center of the cpu. then i carefully screw the heat sync on keeping it level.
is there some way to test i put the glue on good?

I've never worked with thermal glue and heat sinks, so I can't help with that. But once I read an article about hyper-silent fans. They can be just as fast as normal ones, but they make less noise. They're more expensive, though.

But perhaps you already knew such fans existed.

Sounds like the fan is broken, replacing the fan could be a good idea, if they go bad they get loud and the fan itself can get hot. A larger heat sink also helps. Also, if you are getting into the summer months the increase in ambient heat makes your computer's cooling system less efficient. Liquid cooling is quiet so you may want to pursue that.

You can also just open up the
tower, and run it next to an
air conditioner.

There is pretty much no way it's ever going to run in the 30s. The CPU doesn't need that, so the fans and heatsinks weren't designed for it.

The right amount of silicone grease is just enough that it just squooshes out to the edges of the CPU. You want some between the CPU and heatsink everywhere they touch.

If the temperature is rising quickly (like within a minute or so of your starting up your computer), it's your CPU heatsink/fan/silicone grease that's the issue. If it's not rising until after you've had your computer running for at least a few minutes, it might be that your case isn't very well cooled. Find where the fan blows air out of your case, and feel the air. If it's very much warmer than room temperature, it might be better to focus on ventilating the case, rather than worrying about the CPU. Newer CPUs tend to run so hot that all of my cases have at least 2 fans, and the ones used for serious gaming have 3.

how dusty is the case on the inside? I've worked in a computer shop and I've done numerous cleanings because the cases were just filling with so mush dust and crap, once I cleaned it out, was ALOT better, if that's not an issue then I think ahayes has the right idea.