SPCR

Well got me bits together for new PC, just threw the cpu, mem and mobo together last night - no drives yet. Just booted it up into bios to confirm it was working and the health monitor in the bios reckoned the CPU was only 7°C!

Its an Intel E7200 with stock fan in an Asus P5K-VM mobo. Room ambient temp was about 20-22°C. Machine was just booted into bios so had no load at all yet and cover was off case.

Plausible or something wrong somewhere?

I'd make sure I had the most recent BIOS on there. Other than that, I dunno. Enjoy it while it lasts?

Achieving temperatures lower than ambient is physically not possible with air cooling. Think about it. If 20C air is cooling your CPU, how can the CPU be lower than 20C? The CPU is releasing heat, adding to the 20C, so there's no way it could get below that.

Most than likely the sensor is incorrect.

It is possible for there to be a reduction of heat if accompanied by an increase in dissorder.

Yeah that's what I figured. I'll double check everythings wired up right and what not, then see how it is once fully setup with an OS and given some load.

Been delayed a bit, wanted to reuse my old PATA drive and DVD on the single PATA interface, but can't physically do it, due to position of drive bays and distance between plugs on IDE cable. Gone and ordered a WD Scorpio, so shouldn't be long now.