AMD FX-8350 at 78°C; Computer Shuts Off

arubamon

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Aug 15, 2014
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My computer has been just turning off on me from time to time, sometimes once or twice a week, and other times, several times a day. I get BSODs occasionally, but when I say turning off, it just immediately turns off. I just ran CPUID's Hardware Monitor PRO v1.19, I let it run for about 10-15 minutes, and it's telling me the max temp for my AMD FX-8350 was 78°C and the max temp for my NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti was 70°C. After reading a couple of the threads here regarding max temps for my cpu, from what I read, I didn't see anyone who had a max temp that high. Since my computer is mainly just turning off and I'm not getting BSODs very often, it's leading me to believe that it's a temperature problem. When I monitored the temps, I wasn't running any cpu intensive programs, and according to Windows Task Manager, my cpu was only fluctuating between about 10-25% cpu usage and less than 6gb out of my 16gb of ram were being used at the time. The case I'm using has a couple small fans on the back and one on the front, but other than that, the entire case is closed in. I mainly want to determine if the cpu temp is indeed the reason my computer is shutting off, and if so, what I can do the fix this problem. I would hope that getting a case that has additional fans, like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119160, would fix the problem, but I wanted to see what y'all thought first. Thanks
 
Solution
Are you planning to do any overclocking? If not, you have no reason to look at liquid cooling. And to get into any kind of liquid cooling that actually offers a benefit over air, you're looking at 80.00 and up.
Is your current system a pre-built system? If so, what is the model? If not, what is the model of your current case and what size fans are you running. Have you looked inside to see if there is crud built up in the processor heatsink and fan? The power supply full of dust? Blow it all out with compressed air. If you have access to an air compressor, great, if not you can buy compressed air cans to blow it out at most office or computer supply stores or places like Walmart. It could be a power supply issue. It kind of sounds like it might be but without knowing more about your system it's hard to say. Make sure all fans are running, including the processor fan.
 


No, it's not a pre-built system, the mobo is a Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 and the psu is a 730w Raidmax RX-730SS. I used the rest of the compressed air I had the other day and blew out a bunch of dust, and it seemed like I about got it all, but I didn't visually inspect it that closely. Also, I believe all the fans are functional; I'd have to look better to make sure, but I'm almost positive they are. I thought about the psu, but if that were the culprit, would my machine just "randomly" shut off the way it is? Also, regarding my cpu and gpu temps, aren't those much higher than they should be? I know it's not a software issue, since I multi-booted another version of Windows and the same thing happened. It definitely didn't sound like it was, but I wanted to at least rule that out.
 


I'm not sure the model of the case; it's a full tower metal case. And the three case fans are only either 80mm or 120mm. Also, I'm not positive which cpu fan I have.

 
Update:

I've let CPUID's Hardware Monitor PRO run for the past two hours, and my cpu's max temp has reached 85.5°C, with a min temp of 44.3°C and a current temp of around 54°C.
 
Yeah, pretty sure it's hardware and not software related. That 85.5c temp is pretty high if you were not load testing at the time. Were you? 80mm fans are awfully small for case fans but were common on much older systems. How old is this case? It may be time to upgrade to a new case if that one has 80mm fans or some modification to upgrade it to 120mm fans. It's not too hard. It would require removing the board, power supply and drives though so you could dremel or cut larger holes in the case to accommodate the larger fans.

You can get pretty good fans for about 10-15 dollars each or good PWM case fans for between 10-20 dollars each. This would really, really help temperatures. I can't imagine the cpu is in need of a repaste since the 8350 can't be all that old so I wouldn't that that's the issue but depending on if you're using the stock cpu cooler and heatsink, those may be in need of replacement as the motors in the stock coolers are not high dollar, are very susceptible to accumulated dust and age, and may be getting weak and not gaining the needed RPM's necessary to keep the cpu cool under load.

Also, if there are no fans or vents in the top of the case you might want to mod that and add at least an area roughly the size of a 120mm cooler that has evenly spaced holes drilled like you would see in a case that comes that way and at best, do the same and add an exhaust fan there. The better option if all the above seems like too much work would be to buy a decent entry level case for 50-60 bucks along with an aftermarket cpu cooler and call it a day.

Depending on the width of the case you might have to get what's known as a top down cooler, which is configured with the fan on top of the heatsink like the stock style cooler, as the case might not accommodate a tower style cooler. Are you overclocked at all on that cpu or just running at stock speeds? Is the turbo feature enabled in the BIOS or through a 3rd party utility like AMD overdrive?
 
I meant to say earlier that no, neither my cpu nor gpu are overclocked. Also, the case is a very old case I got from a friend, extremely heavy due to the fact that 90% of it is metal of some sort, but I liked it because of the size, so I moved everything over from a slightly smaller case I was using to this one. And no, I wasn't load testing, just using it normally, with, as before, my cpu usage being between only about 10-25%, and less than 6gb out of my 16gb of ram being used. That link to the case I posted above, which is a case someone I know bought, seems like a really good one, but the cost just seems ridiculously high to me. I guess I should just shop around for similar, less expensive cases. Also, this is the first time I've used this forum, and I was going to post a couple of screenshots in my initial post, but I haven't found a way to do so. Edit: It appears I have a Waterfox addon that's preventing me from modifying or adding anything but basic text. Okay, I see where to add a picture now, but it's asking for a url, not a local filename.

I appreciate your feedback.
 
Okay, I just opened the case with the machine still on. All I can tell you, until I turn it off, is that the cpu fan is made by Cooler Master, and that it and the three case fans are all working. I am seeing a considerable drop in cpu and gpu temps though. The cpu is running between 44-60°C and the gpu is down to 46°C.
 


With the panel off? If so, leave it off for now. It's definitely an airflow issue and what you need to do is mod that case for bigger fans or get a different case. I'll find you a good case that's relatively cheap. How much could you afford for a case?
 
I'd like the lowest price possible but one that can at least cool my system sufficiently. That Cooler Master I posted above seems to be an awesome case, but $150, and even $125 or so with a discount Newegg had before, seems insane to me. I'd say $50-60, maybe $80 at the most. Also, I don't know anything about liquid cooling; is that something I should look into? I've been using PCs since the early '90s; my first one was a 486/DX2 running Windows 3.1. I know a great deal about computers, and I'm not the one that normally needs assistance, but there are some things I've yet to look into, and I really appreciate your help.
 
I basically like a full tower case to allow me to add additional hdds if I needed to. Also, wouldn't a full tower case have more/bigger fans for cooling, or do you not think that's necessary?
 
Here's a couple of decent choices but by all means you're welcome to research them yourself.

This is the one I actually am currently using:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119240

Here are a few others I would recommend:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119257

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139008

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146092

And here's a half decent full tower for around the same price:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146114

 
Mid tower cases have can have just as large of fans, and many of them do, couple of the mid tower cases I recommended actually have 200mm fans which means they cool better and have a lower RPM which means less noise. Most of the mid tower cases can hold 4-5 hard drives so that's not an issue either. If you plan to have 5-10 hard drives, then you probably want a full tower case.
 
Number and size of optional and included fan locations (Two intake and two exhaust, one in the rear at the top and preferably at least one in the actual top with two there being better so you CAN upgrade to liquid cooling later if you decide to, or to just run two exhaust fans there.), cable management so you can keep things tidy inside the case which greatly affects airflow. Bottom mounted power supply location. Side window so you can keep an eye on things without having to undo anything (And they look good too). Overall width of case (Anything less than 7.5 inches is poo poo and 8 is better.) so you can use a tower style heatsink and fan cpu cooler if you decide stock cooling isn't cutting it, and I highly recommend that you do use an aftermarket cooler but it doesn't have to be a tower style. I can recommend some top down cpu coolers that work fine if you're not overclocking but are far more efficient than the stock cooler and more reliable. Brand trustworthiness. Cooler master, NZXT, Corsair, Thermaltake, Lian Li, Fractal design and Bitfenix are all good brands, but not all cases made by them are good choices as with any kind of product manufacturer they make good stuff and cheap stuff.