Idle CPU temperature insane

[quaye12]

After realising that my computers poor performance was due to the CPU overheating, i decidied to clean the heatsink/fan. I did this yesterday and the idle temp dropped to around 50 degrees. However, today it is back at around 70 degrees while i'm just looking at the desktop. I don't even know how this is possible.

This is even worse than normal, I cant imagine what will happen if I try and play a game.

I have ordered some thermal paste and updated the bios, but this problems seems possibly hardware/software related. Any suggestions?

My CPU is:

AMD FX-8150 EightCore 3.60 ghz
I am using: SpeedFan to monitor the temps.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Heironious]

You mean...you are NOT using thermal paste on it right now??? Crazy....Also you are prob using the stock heatsink and fan...

Get a Cooler Master 212 Hyper or Evo. Whichever one floats your boat and wait for your thermal paste to come in before using it. Since you might have to pull the motherboard to install it (which would be worth it).

 

[Gaidax]

Wow, that's scary. 70@idle. Is your cooler even sitting properly on the CPU?

 

[Gaidax]

If you tried to remove the cooler and did not reapply the paste after you put it back, then this is the problem.

Go fetch some thermal paste from a local PC store. Or if for some reason you have to wait for delivery or something, then you can use toothpaste meanwhile, it's a crappy solution, but it's sure as damn better than nothing at all or remnants of old paste which is even worse than having no paste at all

 

[quaye12]

The paste should be arriving today. I changed the power settings from Performance to Power saver and that seems to have helped alot when idle, but still rises to 75 deg when under strain. I will wait for the paste before i do anything. Yes there was paste on there when i cleaned the heatsink but it was indeed very old and dried up. Will report back after paste has been applied. If this fails I guess I have to look into getting a cooler.