CPU temperatures reaching critical levels from moving mouse?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
S

shadowsight

Honorable
Jul 4, 2012
12
0
10,520
The title pretty much explains it all. I'm using HWMonitor and it seems like every time I do something small, like open up a browser or move my mouse my CPU temps skyrocket. If I take my mouse and I keep moving it around in a circle I can make the temperatures reach over 100C.

I'm not even going to ask if this is normal because I know it's not...right? It shouldn't be. 100c from moving my mouse? I mean this is extremely inconvenient because if I can't even move my mouse then of course I can't play games or use any graphic intense apps.

At first I thought it was my GPU but I took it out and the temps don't change that much. Here are my specs:

Intel Core i3-540 3.06 Ghz
Gigabyte H55M-S2H Socket LGA 1156
G.SKILL Ripjaws 8GB (2 X 4GB) DDR3 1600
Geforce GTX-560 Ti
Corsair HX 850w
WD 500GB HDD
OCZ V4 120GB SSD

Anyone have any idea what could be wrong?
 
Solution
I
Lower-end/older CPU isn't as powerful as today's, your CPU is always doing stuff cuz of the background programs. When you move your mouse, it also creates a task for the CPU to do. My point is that, the CPU does put in effort whenever you do stuff even if it's just a mouse movement, it could be your CPU is not powerful enough for the mouse movement to be a small action if that makes sense. Modern CPUs are more powerful so you don't notice the difference in CPU temperature when moving. However, that's just my theory.

Thermal paste does dry up and gets less effective as it ages, so it's always good to replace it once in a while, maybe a year or so. I guess that was your problem, but still make sure no dust and good ventilation for the fans.
Sort by date Sort by votes
My idea is that the monitoring software doesn't like your CPU and is falsely reporting temperature.
1. Go into BIOS and there should be temperature monitoring in there also, try moving your mouse and see what temperature it says.
2. Try a different temp monitor.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Whenever I move the mouse in a circle and HWMonitor shows the temps rising, I can hear the fan increasing speed. So I don't think the sensor is wrong if the fan is increasing speed. BIOS settings are at default. I didn't just build my pc, it's been built for a year and a half now. I should mention something however.

Ok. This might be kinda long so i'm sorry but it might give a better explanation of things. I was having an issue with my video card not working in my pc. I thought it was the PCIE slot x16 so I decided to try and use the only other PCIE slot that I had which was x4. In order to do this I had to unplug a SATA cable that was in the way because I have a micro ATX motherboard which is pretty small and the card is big and takes up space. So, long story short I totally forgot that some sata cables have a little latch that you have to hold down in order to unplug them. I tried unplugging the cable and i thought it was just stuck in there really good, so I grabbed a pair of pliers. I pretty much yanked the sata cable until I ripped it out of the socket.

Now, I checked the socket and it didn't look damaged, only the cable had a little scratch on it. So I resumed plugging my GPU into the PCIE x4 socket and when I turned on my computer, all I saw was "Loading Operating System..." I turned off my pc and noticed that when I pulled out the sata plug, I actually ripped it out of the back side of my SSD. I checked it out and a piece of the plastic was broken where you plug in the sata cable, and one of the pins were bent as well.

lol . . . so i managed to plug in my sata cable on my SSD and hold it there with a piece of tape and when I turned on my pc it worked. But NOW is when I started noticing the hotter temperatures. The reason why I didn't mention this at first is because I didn't think that my SSD would have anything to do with my CPU temps. But maybe I damaged the board when I yanked out the cable? Or maybe I loosened the fan? I looked at it and felt it to see if it was loose but it seems fine.

I just wanted to get as much information as I can before I decide to take apart my computer and re-seat my CPU and heat sink again.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


I did check the BIOS one time after HWMonitor showed that my temps were at around 90c and my BIOS said 85c. So I think those are the real temps. I'll try a different monitor.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Uh.....if BIOS says you're running at 85C without doing anything....I think we got a big problem here.

1. Turn off the PC
2. Take off the case panel
3. Boot the PC and check the temperature
4. Let it sit there for 10 minutes and see what temperature it gets
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Wow, I shut my pc down, took off the side panel, turned it back on and got into BIOS. My temp was at 65 when I first got into BIOS then I saw it steadily climbing up 82, 83, 84,...etc. until it got to 94c and I was too scared to let it go any further. So I hit reset and let my computer fully load into startup, put my password in, activated HWMonitor and I saw it coming down from the mid 80's. It got down to the 60's before I clicked on Chrome in order to get into my email. As soon as I double clicked Chrome, before Chrome opened I saw the temps on HWMonitor go from 62c to 73c.

So yes, I do have a problem here it seems. If my temps skyrocket from simply clicking an app then somethings wrong. I'm gonna do what swegname said and try reseating heat sink and apply new thermal paste.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Go ahead and follow his suggestion, I would just like to add that you should also clean out dust from all the fans, cards, drives, and pretty much everything. In addition to that, I would make sure your case has proper ventilation aka the fans for both intake and exhaust are not blocked, and the rear panel too.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Well I took the mobo out and when I removed the heat sink I saw that only part of the stock thermal paste had been smeared/used, the other half looked untouched, so I don't think my heat sink was seated properly but i put my pc together over a year ago so i don't think that was the issue of the overheating.

I applied new thermal paste, seated it properly this time, used compressed air on everything and plugged everything back in. Temperatures now are steady at 29-32c at idle, down from 50-60c. So I'm happy about that, hopefully it lasts.

But I still have the problem of my temps shooting up every time I do something even small, like if I mouse over an icon I can see my two core temps rising from 29 to 32 to 36 and higher and higher until I stop and leave the mouse alone. All my fans are working, I have one intake in front, one exhaust in back, and one on top. Idk what the deal is.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Lower-end/older CPU isn't as powerful as today's, your CPU is always doing stuff cuz of the background programs. When you move your mouse, it also creates a task for the CPU to do. My point is that, the CPU does put in effort whenever you do stuff even if it's just a mouse movement, it could be your CPU is not powerful enough for the mouse movement to be a small action if that makes sense. Modern CPUs are more powerful so you don't notice the difference in CPU temperature when moving. However, that's just my theory.

Thermal paste does dry up and gets less effective as it ages, so it's always good to replace it once in a while, maybe a year or so. I guess that was your problem, but still make sure no dust and good ventilation for the fans.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom