[SOLVED] cpu at temperature 55 celsius on idle

[Donnyyy]

Hi, I helped a friend clean is pc, and I had the idea of cleaning the cpu fan also, so I unscrewed the legs and the fan went out with the heatsink (I guess it suppose to), I rememberd that I saw a video saying that whenever you do this you should reapply thermal paste, but I had nearly none, so I just added like a dot to what was already there, then I started the pc and went straight to bios and the cpu temp was going up rapidly and passing 80 cel, I forced a shut down and discovered that one of the legs wasn't all the way down, then I booted again and it was dancing between 54 and 55 cel, the ambeince temp was about 30 so that possibly helped also, the cpu is i3-7100 3.9GHz if it matters. (all the temperature are in celsius)

So,

Is it fine that the cpu is on 55 cel on idle?
Does this specific cpu has a bigger idle temp?
Did any of my stupid doings contributed to this?

Thank you.

(I ordered a thermal paste arctic mx-4 in the meantime)

 

[rgd1101]

1)need to clean off the old thermal paste
2)then apply new thermal paste

 

[Donnyyy]

1)need to clean off the old thermal paste
2)then apply new thermal paste

I know, didn't have enough, os I figured a dot plus what was already there is a better compromise, it's not a 10 years old pc

 

[rgd1101]

Is it fine that the cpu is on 55 cel on idle?
Does this specific cpu has a bigger idle temp?
Did any of my stupid doings contributed to this?

more important is the temp during load
no.
100%

 

[Donnyyy]

more important is the temp during load
no.
100%

I appreciate your reply, I'm pretty sure the last question is closer to 0% than 100%, I'm afraid me adding this part polluted the post, it's not that big of a deal as I made it look

 

[hotaru.hino]

If this is the stock Intel cooler, then 50C is normal-ish for idling because Intel's stock coolers are kinda meh.

Also if you're in the UEFI settings, then the CPU is likely going to hover around its base clock speeds because UEFI settings don't tell the CPU to go to a lower power state.

 

[Donnyyy]

If this is the stock Intel cooler, then 50C is normal-ish for idling because Intel's stock coolers are kinda meh.

Also if you're in the UEFI settings, then the CPU is likely going to hover around its base clock speeds because UEFI settings don't tell the CPU to go to a lower power state.

Hmm, can you elaborate on the bios thing, and how should I check it for real (I think it is stock, it has the intel symbol on it)

update:
Hi man thank you very much, I installed this app hwmonitor, and it displayed the temperatures in the os, and they were lower between 35C to 50C, but mainly in the 40C~ area, so I'm guessing everything is ok.
still gonna reapply properly the paste when I get it.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Hmm, can you elaborate on the bios thing, and how should I check it for real (I think it is stock, it has the intel symbol on it)

update:
Hi man thank you very much, I installed this app hwmonitor, and it displayed the temperatures in the os, and they were lower between 35C to 50C, but mainly in the 40C~ area, so I'm guessing everything is ok.
still gonna reapply properly the paste when I get it.

Yeah, you have to check idling temps in an OS because power states aren't mucked with in UEFI. It's likely to keep things simple and as a sanity check to ensure the processor is at least configured properly for base clock speeds.