You cannot just look at 40C and say it is too hot. For example my CPU idles around 45C. Is that too much ? Nope. There is a trade off between system noise and temperatures. I choose to have much less noise at cost of a bit higher idle temps. Same can be the situation in your case - your system is optimized more for silence and less for idle temps. Plus you have a small and cramped case, which is optimized for noise - again it is probably reason for the bit higher idle temps. Two 800RPM fans will not push a lot of air.
wasn't sure about my last statement, did a little CPU stress test. It is cold tonight, looks like my stock 2600k goes to around 50c at load and idles at around 30c, this is my sig rig, Define r3 case and Thermalright Mux 120 cooler. I am looking at your reported temps and can say they are well within normal operating parameters, if there was a very bad contact with your heatsink it might not even boot windows, the core temp would just ramp up toward throttle and stay there (something like 90c like the posters above said), it certainly is not doing that. Try a cpu stress test, monitor the cpu temps with Core Temp then download prime95 and do the prime95 small FFts test for about half hour, it should stabalise at at your high load temp well before throttling occurs (core temp should show your max clock frequency throughout the test otherwise it is throttling) otherwise you may have a problem with the cooler, either it is not good enough to cool stock clock loads (very unlikely) or maybe there is a slight issue with the cooler install, however like I said it is installed well enough to keep it sufficiently cooled under light load. Common errors for cooler installation are overly generous thermal paste application and poor cooler contact in general. The easiest ones to install badly imo are the brackets that screw down the coolers in only 2 positions, like the Arctic Cooling Freezer brackets, where it is easy to screw down one side too little and have only half the cooler in good contact due to uneven pressure or push pins where the pin looks like it is pushed in but is not, again meaning uneven pressure and uneven contact, try and make sure there is enough pressure evenly across the mount, but do not overtighten the screws as this may damage the cpu. Some nice thermal paste may improve a couple of c, I can recommend arctic cooling silver and am currently using thermalright chill factor 3. I hope you can see there is nothing inherently wrong with air cooling
@ Gary, thanks i was aiming for a high (ish) spec pc compared to anything iv had before so i can play games properly on a pc and it worked out great and enjoyed doing it @ Bungletron, reading your last post yes i may have put a little too much thermal paste on (Noob error lol) how much is about right to apply? just a small layer just to cover the cpu to make contact with the cooler? also while wer on the subject... fans? im thinking of upgrading the quite 800RPM fans which come with the case to something with a higher CFM rating for intake and exhaust but dont know where to look, will need 2 intake and 1 exhaust all 120mm fans will report back after stress test with results thanks everybody else for all the advice
just ran prime 95 and core temps as you said bungletron but only ran for 5 minutes and core temps of core 0 hit 85C core 1,2,3 hit 96C so i stopped the test as i was worried about damaging anything i think i need some better intake and exhaust fans as air flow isnt great in my case, noise doesnt bother me too much, im looking at getting a fan controller and 3 new fans, as said above, not sure what controller or fans to look at though, noise isnt a big concern as when running high stress games the sound will be loud
