Hi all - I have just built my first system. So far all I have done is built it and powered it on (and I am amazed it didn't go "puff" ) and gone into the bios (ie. not yet put Windows 7 on it). The system is: Intel i5-750 Gigabyte P55A-UD3 motherboard 8GB gskill 1600Mhz memory Bluray reader 2 WD Black HDDs Sapphire ATI 5770 1GB. The (retail) processor came with its own cooler which is the one I used. There wasn't any separate thermal grease in the box, although I believe there is some sort of paste on the cooler itself. So in essence, it's a standard i5-750 set up. When I powered it up, I looked in the BIOS screen at the CPU temperature. This was shown as 42C. I don't know but I would guess the room temperature would have been around 23-25C. As a noobie, I'm not sure if this is high or not or whether it will go up significantly once I get Windows 7 etc and actually start using it. Can someone suggest what temperature I should see at this stage? As far as I can tell the cooler was inserted correctly (the instructions with the CPU weren't that helpful. The plastic cooler "pins" are protruding under the motherboard as per the picture in the gigbayte book, so I believe the cooler is installed correctly. (From what I can gather, if the CPU wasn't get some cooling then it would pretty much overheat catastrophically within a few seconds?) If the above is not "normal" then can anyone give any specific recommendations? I may invest in a new CPU cooler/grease/paste. Are there any good online guides anyone can point me in that explain this to a new (and nervous!) first time builder? Thanks for any help.
Stock cooler can only just cope with the processor so thats normal for stock. Mine runs cooler than that overclocked to 3.8 on a not-the-best aftermarket cooler
It does seem a little bit high if there's no load on the processor, but the system does just generally heat up with a bit of current through everything. I presume that you removed any plastic covering the paste and that the cooler feels firmly fitted i.e. doesn't wriggle around. You could post some pics here from different angles if you want someone to try to sanity check. I think that you'd be able to tell pretty quickly if you put some load on the CPU. It should be safe enough to load windows onto it as it sounds like you have at least a half-decent fit - worst case the processor will overheat and automatically shut down ... but that is unlikely without pushing the CPU. I suggest that you install windows, download coreTemp and do a quick double-check with that, and run superPi for a short burst to see what that does to your temperatures. Most people in this forum avoid the provided cooler and use something after-market. The Titan Fenrir tends to be the recommendation, but there are cheaper ones.
Firstly congratulations on your first build ! an aftermarket cooler will do wonders for the temps of the i5 750 - if you want cheep and cheerfull get a freezer 7 pro v2 (i've got one and it easily handles an i5 " 3.6ghz) , best air cooler for an lga1156 though is a titan fenrir...
I am running a virtually identical rig but with a Gelid Tranquillo cooler. Idle core temps are 19 - 20c today (ambient temp is about the same). Have a look at this thread for related discussion on the i5 750 and coolers.
To the OP: Those temperatures are fine but you'll need to do further stress testing when you have Windows installed. To give you an idea, my CPU idles anywhere between 45-55C when in Windows and can reach temps of 85C when under extreme load on a hot day.
I have an i5-750 clocked at 4GHz and was running an arctic cooling freezer 7 pro rev2 which just couldn't cope with the cpu being taxed. Got a titan fenrir now and it's brilliant would recommend it to anyone. Especially if you're using the stock cooler. The temps you're getting are about right for the stock cooler, i'd get an aftermarket one just so your processor doesn't overheat.