Question i7-8086k casually hitting 100c under load

[Mehve]

Hey guys, I really need some help. I've been pouring through threads and looking around for an answer to my problem. I've had this PC for over a year now and just started monitoring the temperature my components are running at and my CPU is running extremely hot. Running games like Far Cry 5, Path of Exile, Battlefield V and most things in between, both MSI Afterburner and CPUID Hardware Monitor are showing steady 80-100c temperatures. There's sharp spikes in around a second (or less) of around 15 degrees. I've been reading around and obviously this is far from ideal. I didn't do any overclocking on this CPU, but it looks like it has a built in OC to 4.3ghz. The voltage in the bios is set to what seems to be a default 1.35v.

This morning I've reset the AIO water cooler (Corsair H60), after cleaning off the old thermal compound and re applying new compound. This has seemingly had no effect on the temperature at all, good or bad. The pump appears to be working and I can feel the liquid flowing through both of the tubes. The fan on the radiator is running, but the air coming off the radiator isn't very warm. I haven't experienced any BSODs or other kinds of crashes and I have no idea how long this has actually been going on for. I've only just noticed this high temperature now because I was fooling around with my GPU fan curve and noticed that afterburner also measured CPU temps.

PC Specs:
Intel i7-8086k (4.3ghz)
Asus Turbo Geforce 1080ti
Asus TUF Z370-Plus Gaming Motherboard
PSU- 600w 80 PLUS Gold
RAM- XPG SPECTRIX D41 (3 ghz)

I'm very worried I'm hurting my CPU by having it run at these temps any time I run any games. At idle it appears to be running at around 45c. Is there anything else I can check or look for? My next best guess is to try to get a larger AIO Water cooler, but I don't have the money for that right now. Is it possible that the sensors on the motherboard are wrong, at all? There doesn't seem to be any throttling taking place that I can tell. The speed is holding at 4.3ghz and sometimes boosting to 4.4ghz. Should I attempt to try and under-volt the CPU in the bios? I'm not very good with this stuff and any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[InvalidError]

You may want to try a plain old heatsink to rule out the possibility of your AiO being clogged or having some other issue impeding its performance, though the h60 does not have that much cooling performance to begin with.

 

[Mehve]

Okay. I may not be able to do that any time soon but I can give that a shot. I spotted an old generic heatsink I have laying around in the closet, but I don't think it's working. Thank you for the tip.

I just ran a game of Battlefield V with a graph up the whole time to try and see if I could spot anything going on in the game (stuttering, lag, etc) to correspond with the temperature and I couldn't notice anything. The temperature ran at a constant 97-100c, often sitting at 100c for prolonged periods throughout the entire match. I'm scared to run anything on my computer right now. I have no idea what this temperature could be doing to my CPU.

 

[overclockertoov]

That is a extremely extremely dangerous temperature for your CPU. Make sure its not false temps, as sensors could be acting up sometimes. Check hwinfo to see if you are thermal throttling or if you are experience low frequency.

 

[Mehve]

Alright. I'll download hwinfo and see what I can find. Is there something specific I need to look at to detect thermal throttling? I'm sorry I'm not that good with this stuff.

So far I can tell hwinfo states my cpu base clock is 4.0 ghz, with a max boost clock of 5.0 ghz. While running cinnebench r15, the clock speed bounces between 4.3ghz and 4.5ghz.

Edit: Okay I think I figured out where to look to see if thermal throttling is taking place in hwinfo. I'll try to keep this running and test it as soon as I'm able to. I also looked around in the bios and noticed that an "XMP Profile" was turned on. I disabled that and cinnebench r15 is now pushing no higher than 84c. The clock speeds and everything else on my cpu seems to be the same. I don't get it.

 

[mdd1963]

Is the H60 one of the little single fan-cooled radiators? Insufficient.

Not enough to avoid thermal-runaway....(as your AIOs internal coolant heats up, it cools less effectively....; which leads to warmer temps...and even warmer coolant....etc., etc.,...)

 

[Mehve]

Is the H60 one of the little single fan-cooled radiators? Insufficient.

Not enough to avoid thermal-runaway....(as your AIOs internal coolant heats up, it cools less effectively....; which leads to warmer temps...and even warmer coolant....etc., etc.,...)

I see. And yes, it's a single fan-cooled radiator. Do you think that's the primary cause for it running so hot? I've been doing some testing with the XMP profile disabled in the bios and it seems to be peaking at around 84c or 85c. So far, at least.

I hope it's something like the cooler and not something faulty with the chip or the motherboard itself.

I've also been looking at hwinfo and there doesn't appear to be any thermal throttling, but I wasn't looking at that when I had it running at 100c for a while earlier. Man, I bet this has been running that hot for months now and I never realized. Is it possible I damaged my CPU doing this?

And thanks again guys.