Question High CPU temps

[bishy76]

Hello,

So, over the last few days I noticed I am having extremely high CPU temps and my fans are running really loudly. Idle they are normally sitting at around 30c but within the last few days I have noticed they have doubled that. While gaming it can get up into the mid 90s for no real reason. I have a Ryzen 7 5800x with a Noctua NH-D15 cooler. I have been running this setup for roughly a year and have had no issues up to this point. I clean my PC regularly and it is not overly dusty with the air filters being mostly clean at the moment. I also checked all of the fans and they are spinning. I am currently doing a virus scan to make sure that is not the issue (just in case), but I do not do anything stupid on my PC so my guess is that it will come back fine. After I complete the virus scan I will replace the thermal paste. I would very much appreciate any suggestions as I am really not sure why this could be happening.

Thank you for the help!

 

[Lafong]

Have you checked temps with more than one monitoring tool?

Idle was 30 and is now 60 with all fans appearing to work?

If accurate, obviously a major issue.

I would repaste the Noctua and take special care to ensure it is mounted correctly.

 

[bishy76]

I have not checked the temps with a different tool. However, I can feel the heat coming out of my computer and it is rather warm.

 

[Nighthawk117]

What thermal paste did you use? Has anything about your PC changed recently?

Also do you have full specs?

 

[bishy76]

What thermal paste did you use? Has anything about your PC changed recently?

Also do you have full specs?

I do not know the exact brand of thermal paste that I am using, if I had to guess I think it may be arctic silver. It has been about a year since I put it together so I don't remember exactly. As for specs, I am using a Asus tuf gaming 3080 GPU, a off brand 16gb set of 3200mhz ram that I do not remember the name of, I also do not remember what power supply I have as I purchased it over 3 years ago, and my motherboard is a TUF Gaming x570-Pro (WI-FI). Sorry If there is any other part I missed that you need to know. Also I have not physcially changed anything about my PC within roughly a year.

 

[Nighthawk117]

I do not know the exact brand of thermal paste that I am using, if I had to guess I think it may be arctic silver. It has been about a year since I put it together so I don't remember exactly. As for specs, I am using a Asus tuf gaming 3080 GPU, a off brand 16gb set of 3200mhz ram that I do not remember the name of, I also do not remember what power supply I have as I purchased it over 3 years ago, and my motherboard is a TUF Gaming x570-Pro (WI-FI). Sorry If there is any other part I missed that you need to know. Also I have not physcially changed anything about my PC within roughly a year.

When it's hitting 90C, what game are you playing and what refresh rate?

The 5800X is a hot CPU, 90C is not uncommon, but mid 90's for a high end cooler does seem far too high. The fact it wasn't like this before does suggest something significant is wrong. From my experience Ryzen tends to idle high, in the 40's and up to low 50's but your temps of over 60 do seem too much.

As @Lafong said, I would check your temperature readings with another monitoring tool. If your using HWMonitor then download the latest version of HWInfo and see if that reports similar temps at idle.

Your best bet though is repasting the cooler just in case there is something wrong with the thermal paste. I know you mentioned Artic Silver, but if it wasn't an it was actually Artic MX5 then they had some bad batches just over a year ago that degrade quickly.

You will also want to make sure the cooler is making proper contact with the IHS too. I'm sure you know this but be careful not to pull the CPU out with the cooler, I normally give it a very gentle twist in each direction. Though that maybe difficult with a NH-D15 while the GPU is installed.

 

[bishy76]

When it's hitting 90C, what game are you playing and what refresh rate?

The 5800X is a hot CPU, 90C is not uncommon, but mid 90's for a high end cooler does seem far too high. The fact it wasn't like this before does suggest something significant is wrong. From my experience Ryzen tends to idle high, in the 40's and up to low 50's but your temps of over 60 do seem too much.

As @Lafong said, I would check your temperature readings with another monitoring tool. If your using HWMonitor then download the latest version of HWInfo and see if that reports similar temps at idle.

Your best bet though is repasting the cooler just in case there is something wrong with the thermal paste. I know you mentioned Artic Silver, but if it wasn't an it was actually Artic MX5 then they had some bad batches just over a year ago that degrade quickly.

You will also want to make sure the cooler is making proper contact with the IHS too. I'm sure you know this but be careful not to pull the CPU out with the cooler, I normally give it a very gentle twist in each direction. Though that maybe difficult with a NH-D15 while the GPU is installed.

Earlier today I was idling in the main menu of Valorant for roughly 2 hours and when I came back I noticed the fan sounds were very loud, I checked the temps and that is when I noticed it was mid 90s. My main monitors refresh rate is 165hz but I normally uncap FPS even though I likely should not. I do not believe the thermal paste would be from the bad batches I purchased it 4 to 5 years ago when I built my first PC.

 

[Phaaze88]

Check the paste. Oil and the rest of the compound may have separated over time.

 

[Nighthawk117]

Earlier today I was idling in the main menu of Valorant for roughly 2 hours and when I came back I noticed the fan sounds were very loud, I checked the temps and that is when I noticed it was mid 90s. My main monitors refresh rate is 165hz but I normally uncap FPS even though I likely should not. I do not believe the thermal paste would be from the bad batches I purchased it 4 to 5 years ago when I built my first PC.

Surprised for Valorant, but running modern games at very high frame rates is going to make the CPU hot. Mid 90's though still too high, I would still look at repasting just to make sure there's nothing wrong with the cooler installation.

Do you know what clock speed your running at on all cores when gaming?

 

[bishy76]

Surprised for Valorant, but running modern games at very high frame rates is going to make the CPU hot. Mid 90's though still too high, I would still look at repasting just to make sure there's nothing wrong with the cooler installation.

Do you know what clock speed your running at on all cores when gaming?

While gaming it fluctuates between 4.3 to 4.7ghz with some cores dropping in to the high 3s.

 

[Nighthawk117]

While gaming it fluctuates between 4.3 to 4.7ghz with some cores dropping in to the high 3s.

I was just wondering if you running at a higher than average all core boost, sounds pretty normal though. The game can't utilise all those cores, it will be running on the highly clocked ones.

 

[bishy76]

I was just wondering if you running at a higher than average all core boost, sounds pretty normal though. The game can't utilize all those cores, it will be running on the highly clocked ones.

I do not have a overclock set, always been to scared to try, so it just runs however it wants to. Also as an update on the virus scan I did end up having a virus. I removed it and my cpu package temps are now around 50c idle with them getting up into the 70s or 80s while gaming. I'm not sure how I ended up getting a virus, but removing it seems to have helped a little bit. It still feels higher than normal though so when I get some free time tomorrow I will re-paste and re-seat the cooler.

 

[Nighthawk117]

I do not have a overclock set, always been to scared to try, so it just runs however it wants to. Also as an update on the virus scan I did end up having a virus. I removed it and my cpu package temps are now around 50c idle with them getting up into the 70s or 80s while gaming. I'm not sure how I ended up getting a virus, but removing it seems to have helped a little bit. It still feels higher than normal though so when I get some free time tomorrow I will re-paste and re-seat the cooler.

You do have PBO though, and that can still boost beyond the official specs if you have good cooling. Ryzen has relatively high idle temps, so 50C is actually fairly normal. It does have a somewhat eccentric boosting algorithm, merely watching the CPU with a monitor like HWMonitor causes it to boost and raise the idle temperature. Some apps like Steam running in the background can cause this too.

70's and 80's doesn't sound out of the ordinary either if your playing something fairly meaty, only thing that stands out is the fact you say it used to be cooler. You could always undervolt the CPU with Curve Optimiser, that could bring your temps down a little bit.