high idle temps in bios

[glo]

Is it normal for a BIOS to report higher than normal idle temps? I'm currently sitting at 38c~ while just in the menus (on a sandy bridge processor). I had read that CPUs can't enter low power state modes in the BIOS, and that it will only do that when there is an OS present. I'm not sure if that's relevant any more, but I want to know for sure before I do all of my cable management and such. Would rather tear down a partly put together build than a fully put together one.

Thanks!

[Calz]

My i7 920 is sitting at 41c in bios and 35c in Windows.

[vesseblah]

I had read that CPUs can't enter low power state modes in the BIOS, and that it will only do that when there is an OS present. I'm not sure if that's relevant any more,

Exactly this.

Neither SpeedStep/Cool'n'quiet (lowering multiplier based on actual load) nor TurboBoost (shutting down unused cores and running less cores at higher speed) works in BIOS/UEFI. For example i5-2500K processor will always run at 33 multiplier in BIOS/UEFI, but slows down to 16 when idling on Windows desktop.

[glo]

So those temps are normal? I tried popping on the side of the case and it shot up around 44 after 15 minutes. When I seated the heat sink on originally, one of the pins popped up without me knowing and I had to peg it back down 20 minutes later. That means the built-on thermal paste may have been exposed, but I didn't think it would cause much of an issue.

[vesseblah]

My i5-2500K runs at about 42C with stock cooler when idling in UEFI, so that 44C sounds right.

Planning on doing few upgrades and testing stability of this thing now after it came back from repair before putting in better cooler.

[glo]

Went ahead after your post and finished up with cable management and installed Windows. To my surprise, I'm idling @ 26c on the stock cooler once I'm in Windows. Ambient room temperature is 70F. This is blowing my mind how low it is!

[glo]

Yeah, after toying with the BIOS I got up to 46 as a high. As soon as I log into Windows though I'm at 26-27. It's a pretty weak chip (g620), but it's still awesome to have such low temps. I'm able to max WoW with v-sync on and only hit 40~. I stress tested a little bit ago with sysmark and I only hit 47 under full load. Another odd thing is that my 6750 is always lower than my CPU on the temperature meters. I don't get it, I didn't do anything special with my case, just a 120m in the front, on the side, and exhaust in the back.