Question 3 weird issues: HDD not recognized, unusual CPU temp spikes, USB port malfunctioning

[K-tm]

Later edit: updating the BIOS firmware to the latest version (F65b) fortunately solved the first issue: now the HDD is recognized when connected to the SATA port.

Heya

So I got a second-hand computer (I'll write the specs at the end) and I installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 and after a couple of days I encountered/noticed 3 weird issues with this system and they might be related somehow, or maybe not:

1. The main drive in this computer is a Patriot Burst SSD and I wanted to add a secondary drive, a Seagate Momentus HDD. I connected this HDD on different SATA ports (I have 6 ports) , I tried different PSU connectors, I bought new SATA cables, but whatever I do the computer doesn't recognize this drive. It doesn't show up in BIOS (and obviously it doesn't show up in Windows as well). By the way, the BIOS firmware is up to date (v. F63b). Later edit: actually the BIOS was not up to date, the newest version is F65b.
BUT if I put this drive in a USB3 enclosure then it shows up and it works just fine, so there's nothing wrong with the drive. Also, if I connect another SSD on any SATA port, that SSD is recognized and it works just fine, so it seems that the SATA ports are not the issue. In other words: both the SSD and the HDD are recognized when connected thru the USB enclosure but only the SSD is recognized when connected thru the SATA ports. Very weird.

2. I'm using a TP-link USB wi-fi adapter to connect to the internet. Normally I have this adapter inserted in one of the two USB2 ports at the front of the case and it works just fine. BUT if I connect an external drive (or that USB enclosure containing either the SSD or the HDD) to the USB3 port also at the front of the case then the internet connection is lost (the computer is still connected to the wifi network but without internet access, and if I try to disconnect and reconnect to the wifi network I get some message saying that it cannot connect to the network). If I then disconnect the external drive the internet access resumes and works just fine. Also, if I connect the TP-link wi-fi adapter to one of the USB ports at the back of the case I don't get this issue and i have internet access even with the external drive connected to the front USB port. In other words: I don't have internet access when both the wifi adapter and the external drive are connected to he front USB ports. Again, very weird.

3. A couple of days ago I noticed a strange behavior of the CPU temperature, and I'm pretty sure this didn't happen before: the temperature jumps suddenly to a higher value then drops steadily to a lower value, then suddenly jumps again, and so on. The temperature graph looks exactly like a sawtooth:

This is the CPU temperature graph when the computer is idle (around 0-1% CPU load). Those sudden spikes happen at a 10-15 seconds interval while the CPU fan stays constantly at the minimum speed (around 870rpm). As far as I know it should be impossible for the temperature of the CPU to jump suddenly (in a couple milliseconds) from 35 to 45 degrees. Really weird, isn't it? And what's even stranger is the behavior of the temperature readings when the CPU is not at idle. It looks like this:

As you can see, when the CPU load is constantly around 15% (and the CPU fan stays constantly at around 1050rpm) those weird spikes appear way more randomly, sometimes there's almost a minute between two adjacent spikes and sometimes 10 seconds.

So, what do you guys reckon?

Here are the specs:
GIGABYTE B450 GAMING X
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
Sapphire RX 570 Pulse ITX Mini 4GB
2x8GB DDR4 A-Data SDRAM
Patriot Burst 480GB SSD
(Later edit) nJoy Titan 600 600W PSU
Windows 10 Pro 22H2 64bit

Cheers!

 

[Lutfij]

You forgot to mention the make and model of the PSU and it's age. Where did you source the installer for your OS?

B450 Gaming X (rev. 1.x) Support | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

Lasting Quality from GIGABYTE.GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ motherboards bring together a unique blend of features and technologies that offer users the absolute ...

www.gigabyte.com

F63b is not listed on the support site, meaning it was pulled for having issues. You might want to reflash the BIOS to the latest, then clear the CMOS and then see if the issue persists.

 

[K-tm]

You forgot to mention the make and model of the PSU and it's age. Where did you source the installer for your OS?

Yes, you're right, I forgot to specify the PSU model. It's a 600W nJoy Titan 600. I'm not exactly sure about its age because I bought this system second-hand , but I don't think it was in use more than a year. I installed Windows from an old installation USB stick and then I let it do all the updates.

F63b is not listed on the support site, meaning it was pulled for having issues. You might want to reflash the BIOS to the latest, then clear the CMOS and then see if the issue persists.

You're right again. I don't know why I was so sure the F63b is the latest BIOS version but it seems I was wrong, the latest version is actually F65b. I'll update the firmware and I'll get back to let you know if it managed to fix the issues.

Thanks for the help! 🤗

 

[K-tm]

So I updated the BIOS firmware to the latest version (F65b) and fortunately that solved the first issue: now the HDD is recognized when connected to the SATA port. Yeyyy!

But it made no difference to those other two issues: the weird CPU temperature spikes are still there and the USB ports are still malfunctioning (in certain situations). It looks like the USB ports are under-powered (especially the front USB2 ports when there's an external HDD connected to the front USB3 port).

 

[hotaru.hino]

That's normal for Ryzen (and really any processor with single core boost that's much higher than the base clock)

There's still background tasks to do. Those tasks are easily doable with one core. The max boost speed is only for a single core workload, and since there's one core doing work all of a sudden, it gets the max boost. Tdie is the measurement of the hottest thing in the CPU, guess what got hot all of a sudden? The single core doing work.

You can't get rid of it other than to disable boosting.

 

[K-tm]

That's normal for Ryzen (and really any processor with single core boost that's much higher than the base clock)
There's still background tasks to do. Those tasks are easily doable with one core. The max boost speed is only for a single core workload, and since there's one core doing work all of a sudden, it gets the max boost. Tdie is the measurement of the hottest thing in the CPU, guess what got hot all of a sudden? The single core doing work.

Really? Hmmm.. So you're saying that a 10 degrees temperature rise in a fraction of a second is normal? Cause to me those spikes look completely unnatural, they look more like some misbehaving sensors, but I might be wrong. And how do you explain the fact that those spikes appear very regularly (one every 10 seconds or so) when the CPU is idle but completely random and much more sporadically when there's constant load on the CPU (look at the second graph I attached)? Again, it doesn't make any sense to me.