AMD FX-6100 Base Clock down throttling

[NarbiusTheGreat]

My friend has been getting serious problems lately with his PC. I found out that the CPU was throttling itself to about 1.5 GHz (Pretty slow, especially for an AMD processor). I also found out that the CPU itself was overheating to quite a high temp at idle (up to 69 Degrees Celsius usually lower though at 45-50 Celsius). He replaced the thermal paste (Which was rock solid) connecting the heat sink to the processor. After that it was still getting high temps though not as high. Then he tried cleaning the mostly clean heatsink.
We got the processor to a much lower temperature (35-45 Celsius at idle still high but..). But still the CPU was throttling itself to 1.5 GHz. The CPU seems to fluctuate between full clock (3.3 GHz) and 1.5 GHz. My final conclusion would be that the CPU was broken/burned out since it shouldn't be throttling at those lower temps on idle. We may replace the CPU. Have any other ideas?

Important things are underlined or bolded for easy read

 

[DeathRabit]

In Idle CPU is going for low clock to safe energy, when you use CPU more clock go high
35-45 on stock cooler in idle is standard.

What Motherboard and PSU he have ?

 

[NarbiusTheGreat]

In Idle CPU is going for low clock to safe energy, when you use CPU more clock go high
35-45 on stock cooler in idle is standard.

What Motherboard and PSU he have ?

Hey thanks for replying!

I should probably tell you his Specs. Don't know all of them though unfortunately.
AMD FX-6100 at base clock (He didn't mess with his CPU clock at all) (older)
Stock cooler (It looks like a stock cooler which is similar to the intel stock cooler)
MSI GTX-970 4GB (newer)
550W PSU (unknown company. Looks older)
ASRock Fatal1ty Killer (fairly new)
2TB hard drive (unknown company)
16 GB Memory (unknown company)
A small old case (unknown company)

I can come back to you with the company names of all these parts. I just have to contact my friend once he is online.

Problematically he gets low framerate in games such as Minecraft. He gets around 20-30 FPS or even lower. That is certainly lower than it should be with a GTX 970 and FX-6100.

 

[GrimeOne]

It's quite normal if AMD cool and quiet is on for speeds to go up and down like that. Also if his windows power setting is set on balanced, it will clock up and down like that at idle/browsing the web to preserve power. If you set windows in performance mode, it will run at the CPU's default clock speed. So as long as cool n quiet and balanced power mode in windows are selected that will happen, same thing happened to me. When I put windows power mode to balanced the clock goes up and down based on the what the load is in real time. As for the heat, those stock AMD fan/heat sinks suck. My temps started getting high after only a few weeks with that thing with my fx 8320. I swapped it out for a Cooler Master hyper 212 evo like everyone else it seems and now I'm 16c idle and 47c-50c load....BUT what also can happen is since that stock heatsink and fan suck, it's getting hot and throttling, AMD cpu's are only rated for like 64c max, they are not like intels that can run really hot. So I would get a aftermarket heatsink if that's the case.

 

[DeathRabit]

Control temps max is 70C for your CPU better keep below, and run OCCT http://www.ocbase.com/ if during run this stress test CPU clock will no be steady and drop to 1500Mhz you need better CPU Cooler.

About CPU cooler good for this CPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4UF2DZ6565&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker,%20LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=
Or this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker,%20LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

 

[NarbiusTheGreat]

Control temps max is 70C for your CPU better keep below, and run OCCT http://www.ocbase.com/ if during run this stress test CPU clock will no be steady and drop to 1500Mhz you need better CPU Cooler.

About CPU cooler good for this CPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4UF2DZ6565&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker,%20LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=
Or this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker,%20LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

So after getting a new Heat Sink and CPU... we found the problem. There was a small wire cut that was going straight to the GPU. That meant that it wasn't getting enough power. How that small wire got cut is unknown to my friend and myself. He replaced the wire and his framerates boosted up. I still think it was a good upgrade though to get a real Heat Sink. His temps are at a safe 20-30 Degrees Celsius on idle and 40-45 Celsius in game/on load now. The temps he had before could have definitely caused damage to his CPU anyway so he got a newer one (AMD FX-8350). Thanks for the help!

We got him the Cooler Master Hyper D92 since the 212 EVO wouldn't fit in his case. Made sure to measure before we bought!

 

[DeathRabit]

Looking inside case for problems can solve many issues 😉