Does this temperature look right?

Soldato
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7 Oct 2003
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Sorry for having to ask but I've not dabbled in PC's for the last few years but my son has just built his first PC which consists of I7 9700k, asrock z390 pro4 and coolermaster masterliquid ml240l rgb. He says his idling temperature in bios is at 40 to 42 and says it's too high.

What temperature should it be and what besides applying new thermal paste can I do to bring it down?

Thanks
 
It does seem rather high for idle but what are the load temps like? Is MCE (multi core enhancement) activated in the bios? Is the cpu overclocked? Early bios versions can apply too much vcore so it may be worthwhile updating to the latest bios which is version 4.30 (cpu-z will tell you what bios version it is currently running). I know my Gigabyte Z390 boards first few bios revisions were terrible but it's finally stable.
 
Usually stock voltage are a but more than the necessary, and cause slightly higher temperatures as side effect.
I would be more concerned about load temperature, thought.
 
This seems like a reasonable explanation for the higher than normal bios temps.

When you are in the UEFI your CPU is not idle, at least one core is being utilized constantly with monitoring and other UEFI tasks. So when you see a difference between your UEFI temp and your in OS idle temp it only makes sense that idle temps will be lower.

Operating systems are optimized to minimize CPU usage when "idle" to reduce power consumption and decrease heat output from the CPU/GPU. The UEFI/BIOS is not optimized in this way, it would require a lot more code and likely larger ROM chips for the BIOS itself.

To give an idea, I watch my CPU temps on my Z170 Pro4+ 6600k jump from 29c idle to 56c just by opening Libre Writer. It spikes up there briefly then drops to the mid 30s. If just one, rather lightweight app can cause this then it is easily understandable that the UEFI could cause the temps we are seeing. Yes, I said we, my board reports the same/similar BIOS temps.

At the end of the day, the temps are well within threshold for any CPU and go down to normal idle levels in the OS. This is not a problem, more of a misunderstanding about how the UEFI works.

What are the temps like in Windows?
 
Thanks guys, went around to my sons to take a look and the daft lad hadn’t connected the cooler properly, it was literally loose and he was very lucky not to have caused damage but it’s all sorted now
 
Thanks guys, went around to my sons to take a look and the daft lad hadn’t connected the cooler properly, it was literally loose and he was very lucky not to have caused damage but it’s all sorted now
Happens, glad no damage occurred.
Few aftermarket coolers don't actually feel firmly fitted.
 
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