[SOLVED] CPU fans and overheating

[mulberry05]

Recently, I noticed my cpu fans running at max speed when gaming and/or when running a browser with multiple tabs open. Previously this didn't touch my fans, I rarely heard them running. Since I've had HWinfo64 running, my max cpu core temps have slowly been on the rise the last couple of days and I am not doing anything different. GPU temps are fine.

I put this pc together (probably 2nd or 3rd) about a year ago.
i5-12600k with z690
Arctic liquid freeze ii 240
edit: EVGA 850 G6. About a year old - same with other components, brand new.
No overclocking.

https://imgur.com/a/ERP8JVB

View: https://imgur.com/a/ERP8JVB
- HWinfo64 screenshot showing temps.

What should I do? Thank you.

 

[Ralston18]

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Include PSU: make, model, wattage, age (1 year ?), condition (original to build, new, refurbished, used)? History of heavy gaming use - correct?

Power down, unplug, open the case.

Clean out dust and debris.

Verify by sight and feel that all connectors, cards, RAM, jumpers, and case connections are fully and firmly in place.

Use a bright flashlight to look for signs of damage.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Double check the mounting of the water block to make sure nothing has worked itself loose at all. If not, RMA the cooler.

 

[mulberry05]

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Include PSU: make, model, wattage, age (1 year ?), condition (original to build, new, refurbished, used)? History of heavy gaming use - correct?

Power down, unplug, open the case.

Clean out dust and debris.

Verify by sight and feel that all connectors, cards, RAM, jumpers, and case connections are fully and firmly in place.

Use a bright flashlight to look for signs of damage.

EVGA 850 G6. About a year old - same with other components, brand new.
Moderate to heavy CPU but temps like this were never a problem.

I'll try the above tonight and report back. Thank you.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Pretty unlikely that dust is going to cause 100°C temps on a two year old system. Cleaning it out is certainly never a bad idea, especially if you have canned air or a compressor, but I'm doubtful of a change happening that rapidly since I assume this went from fine to not fine in a somewhat quick period of time, that would be due to dust.

Probably a lot more likely there's a pump failure or air bubble/lock somewhere. Where is your radiator installed at, front or top? If it's installed in the front, are the hoses running to the top or bottom of the radiator as it is now?

 

[Phaaze88]

Umm, possibly related to this?
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/arctic-service-kit-freezer-2-aio

 

[Darkbreeze]

Sure as heck could be.

 

[mulberry05]

Umm, possibly related to this?
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/arctic-service-kit-freezer-2-aio

You may have just saved me and a bunch of other people searching for similar criteria.

I tried cleaning it out and no change. Everything is seated properly. There was barely any dust in there to begin with.
I opened the side panel and have my dyson fan blowing on it until Arctic sends me the "self help fix kit". I will try to update this once I receive/install it.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I wouldn't run it until it is fixed. Putting a fan on it is very unlikely to have any significant effect on core temps. It may help the motherboard VRMs and graphics card but it's not going to do much for a CPU core that is buried inside your CPU under another hunk of metal that experiences swings in temperature change that may include 60°C in a matter of microseconds from one direction to another. You can easily incur thermal damage to your CPU this way.

 

[mulberry05]

I wouldn't run it until it is fixed. Putting a fan on it is very unlikely to have any significant effect on core temps. It may help the motherboard VRMs and graphics card but it's not going to do much for a CPU core that is buried inside your CPU under another hunk of metal that experiences swings in temperature change that may include 60°C in a matter of microseconds from one direction to another. You can easily incur thermal damage to your CPU this way.

How will I know if I developed any thermal damage? There are more 'red Yes' highlighted in the above screenshot seen in HWinfo.
My understanding is, in today's era, the newer components should automatically shut the PC down if it is indeed running at dangerous temps

 

[Darkbreeze]

No, that is not correct. "Dangerous" is a very subjective term.

To me, and most advanced enthusiasts, "dangerous" means any temperature at which probable cumulative degradation is likely to occur causing electromigration and VT-shift, which you can read about by clicking on the spoiler below. You can ignore the word "overclock" in the language used as in this case the fact that your CPU is running at the same kinds of high temperatures as an overclocked system might see overrides the fact that yours is not overclocked. It is still a comparable environment.

(Taken from the Intel temperature guide: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/intel-cpu-temperature-guide-2022.1488337/

Spoiler

We know that over time, excessive voltage and heat damages electronics, so when using manual Vcore settings in BIOS, excessive Core voltage and Core temperature can cause accelerated "Electromigration". Processors have multiple layers of hundreds of millions of microscopic nanometer scale components. Electromigration erodes fragile circuit pathways and transistor junctions which results in the degradation of overclock stability, and thus performance.

Although your initial overclock may be stable, degradation doesn't appear until later, when increasingly frequent blue-screen crashes indicate a progressive loss of stability. The more excessive the levels of voltage and heat and the longer they're sustained determines how long until transistor degradation destabilizes your overclock. Decreasing overclock and Vcore may temporarily restore stability and slow the rate of degradation. Extreme overvolting can cause degradation in minutes, but a sensible overclock remains stable for years.

Each Microarchitecture also has a "Degradation Curve". As a rule, CPUs are more susceptible to electromigration and degradation with each Die-shrink. However, the exception to the rule is 14 nanometer (nm) Microarchitecture, where advances in FinFET transistor technology have improved voltage tolerance.

Here's how the Degradation Curves correspond to Maximum Recommended Vcore for 22 nanometer 3rd and 4th Generation, which differs from 14 nanometer 5th through 10th Generation:


Figure 8-2

Degradation Curves are relative to the term “Vt (Voltage threshold) Shift” which is expressed in millivolts (mv). Users can not monitor Vt Shift. With respect to overclocking and overvolting, Vt Shift basically represents the potential for permanent loss of normal transistor performance. Excessively high Core voltage drives excessively high Power consumption and Core temperatures, all of which contribute to gradual Vt Shift over time. Core voltages that impose high Vt Shift values are not recommended.

A full shutdown will only happen if the system reaches thermal trip temperature which is much higher than the temperature at which sustained thermal conditions can results in permanent damage to the CPU or motherboard. While the Intel spec says that the system should throttle at a given temperature to allow the CPU to remain in a thermal range that is safe for it, motherboard manufacturers can and do alter those specifications in order to squeeze out additional performance without having the system throttle back, in order to gain advantage in review performance and general behavior but it is not advisable to consistently run any Intel Core-I CPU at temperatures higher than 85°C and remaining below 80°C is HIGHLY recommended.

 

[Phaaze88]

it is not advisable to consistently run any Intel Core-I CPU at temperatures higher than 85°C...

Uhh, I think Alder Lake is an outlier, if the i9 is anything to go by. The guide may need to be updated for that and Raptor Lake.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yes, I understand that, and Computronix is currently working on updating the guide, but this ISN'T an i9, it's an i5, and aside from what some extreme overclockers and reviewers have disclosed, basically every other source has indicated that regardless of whether Intel says these CPUs are designed to be able to run at those temps it is still a bad idea. Electromigration and VT-shift don't care about Intel looking good and trying to retake the performance crown, and perhaps ignoring the fact that such configurations might well mean a much shorter life in the long term.

Plus, we are not talking about a CPU that is seeing 100°C temperatures while running Prime95. We are talking about core clocks that are reaching 100°C with only brief loads and 0°C remaining to TJmax, AND HWinfo showing YES that throttling is active and occurring, which also means those temperatures will probably MUCH higher if no throttling was going on. So no, I don't think that applies here.

 

[mulberry05]

No, that is not correct. "Dangerous" is a very subjective term.

To me, and most advanced enthusiasts, "dangerous" means any temperature at which probable cumulative degradation is likely to occur causing electromigration and VT-shift, which you can read about by clicking on the spoiler below. You can ignore the word "overclock" in the language used as in this case the fact that your CPU is running at the same kinds of high temperatures as an overclocked system might see overrides the fact that yours is not overclocked. It is still a comparable environment.

(Taken from the Intel temperature guide: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/intel-cpu-temperature-guide-2022.1488337/

Spoiler

We know that over time, excessive voltage and heat damages electronics, so when using manual Vcore settings in BIOS, excessive Core voltage and Core temperature can cause accelerated "Electromigration". Processors have multiple layers of hundreds of millions of microscopic nanometer scale components. Electromigration erodes fragile circuit pathways and transistor junctions which results in the degradation of overclock stability, and thus performance.

Although your initial overclock may be stable, degradation doesn't appear until later, when increasingly frequent blue-screen crashes indicate a progressive loss of stability. The more excessive the levels of voltage and heat and the longer they're sustained determines how long until transistor degradation destabilizes your overclock. Decreasing overclock and Vcore may temporarily restore stability and slow the rate of degradation. Extreme overvolting can cause degradation in minutes, but a sensible overclock remains stable for years.

Each Microarchitecture also has a "Degradation Curve". As a rule, CPUs are more susceptible to electromigration and degradation with each Die-shrink. However, the exception to the rule is 14 nanometer (nm) Microarchitecture, where advances in FinFET transistor technology have improved voltage tolerance.

Here's how the Degradation Curves correspond to Maximum Recommended Vcore for 22 nanometer 3rd and 4th Generation, which differs from 14 nanometer 5th through 10th Generation:


Figure 8-2

Degradation Curves are relative to the term “Vt (Voltage threshold) Shift” which is expressed in millivolts (mv). Users can not monitor Vt Shift. With respect to overclocking and overvolting, Vt Shift basically represents the potential for permanent loss of normal transistor performance. Excessively high Core voltage drives excessively high Power consumption and Core temperatures, all of which contribute to gradual Vt Shift over time. Core voltages that impose high Vt Shift values are not recommended.

A full shutdown will only happen if the system reaches thermal trip temperature which is much higher than the temperature at which sustained thermal conditions can results in permanent damage to the CPU or motherboard. While the Intel spec says that the system should throttle at a given temperature to allow the CPU to remain in a thermal range that is safe for it, motherboard manufacturers can and do alter those specifications in order to squeeze out additional performance without having the system throttle back, in order to gain advantage in review performance and general behavior but it is not advisable to consistently run any Intel Core-I CPU at temperatures higher than 85°C and remaining below 80°C is HIGHLY recommended.

I had something like game mode turned on in bios which is a minor pre-set OC as I'm sure you know. As soon as I turned that off, my temps have not gone above 75-80 with the dyson fan blowing at moderate-high speeds when gaming. In fact, I have overwatch 2 open and my current temps are 44c-77c (loading screen vs in game). Its probably not the smartest idea, but the self repair kit should be here soon.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yeah, I would actively encourage you to NOT use ANY kind of automatic or preset overclocking features. Not even when the cooler is working properly.

If you want to overclock, overclock, but do it manually where you actually have control over things like voltage, frequency, load line calibration, ring ratio and system agent voltages, power phase control, etc. that are usually way overdone by the board manufacturer in order to err to the side of stability by using what is generally far more voltage than necessary especially on the CPU core voltage. Otherwise, I'd recommend just leaving things at the default configuration with Intel turbo boost enabled, Intel speed step enabled (If present) and Intel speed shift disabled (Unless it works properly on your system because it hasn't on ANY of the Intel systems I've worked with that had it).

Gaming on a system, or even using the system AT ALL, when the cooler is clearly not working, tells me you don't actually care about the hardware, so............

 

[mulberry05]

Umm, possibly related to this?
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/arctic-service-kit-freezer-2-aio

For anyone wondering or googling this topic, it's fixed!!!

My service kit took a few days to get here in the states (shipped from the states as well). Kit and video instructions were very straight forward. Took less than 20 minutes from start to finish. Idle temps are 20-30c now and can't even hear my fans. Thank you to Phaaze for linking me to this article. Saved!!

 

[Darkbreeze]

Super glad that solved the problem. Seems my initial answer pretty much was the correct one, however, regardless, we can't have BA's selected for our own replies. So, handed off to moderation for better resolution.