[SOLVED] Is cooling pretty necessary for a PC to even boot into windows 10?

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Gegemon007

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I had this big doubt for my entire life that what will happen if we try to boot a pc without a fan ?
Need help with this
 
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If you have a heatsink and no fan, sure, you can boot into Windows. Theoretically, your processor will underclock itself to stay within thermal limits. If the thermals get to high, I think it will just shut itself off.

Now, can you boot to Windows 10 without a heatsink? Probably not... it depends on how low your processor can clock itself, and how low you can undervolt it. My first PC was a 486 clocked at 25MHz with no heatsink. So I suppose if you could clock a modern processor that low with a good undervolt, it might be possible to boot without a heatsink.

But your system will run veeerrrrryyyyy ssssslllllloooooowwwwwwwwwww.........

TomsHardware did a video on this a long time ago:

View...

danlw

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Feb 22, 2009
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If you have a heatsink and no fan, sure, you can boot into Windows. Theoretically, your processor will underclock itself to stay within thermal limits. If the thermals get to high, I think it will just shut itself off.

Now, can you boot to Windows 10 without a heatsink? Probably not... it depends on how low your processor can clock itself, and how low you can undervolt it. My first PC was a 486 clocked at 25MHz with no heatsink. So I suppose if you could clock a modern processor that low with a good undervolt, it might be possible to boot without a heatsink.

But your system will run veeerrrrryyyyy ssssslllllloooooowwwwwwwwwww.........

TomsHardware did a video on this a long time ago:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoXRHexGIok
 
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Gegemon007

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Thanks but i tested this without thermal paste on my pc I7-4770, i could open 10 microsoft edge tabs with 90 degrees, but no cooling effects whatsoever
And i opened roblox just to see what happenes and in 5 mins it reaches only 99 degrees
 

OrlyP

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Being able to boot into Win10 without a fan/cooler doesn't mean you should.

90+ C might be ok if you hit it every now and then at peak loads... but allowing it to stay there or go past it will result to two things:

  1. Thermal throttling - The CPU will attempt to protect itself at the cost of extremely compromised performance.
  2. Drastically reduce the CPU's life - Silicon degrades over time and heat is one way to accelerate it
 

Gegemon007

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Feb 4, 2021
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Being able to boot into Win10 without a fan/cooler doesn't mean you should.

90+ C might be ok if you hit it every now and then at peak loads... but allowing it to stay there or go past it will result to two things:

  1. Thermal throttling - The CPU will attempt to protect itself at the cost of extremely compromised performance.
  2. Drastically reduce the CPU's life
Before for 1 yr straight i played fortnite at 100 degrees, at even the loading screen it didnt drop temps and i experienced thermal throttling. Will that decrease the life of my cpu?
 

Rogue Leader

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Thanks but i tested this without thermal paste on my pc I7-4770, i could open 10 microsoft edge tabs with 90 degrees, but no cooling effects whatsoever
And i opened roblox just to see what happenes and in 5 mins it reaches only 99 degrees

"only 99 degrees"??? 99 degrees is just below where it will thermally shut off.

You didn't damage anything out of purely dumb luck.

Again DO NOT DO THIS. THIS WILL shorten the life or burn your CPU.

But hey its your money.
 

OrlyP

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Before for 1 yr straight i played fortnite at 100 degrees, at even the loading screen it didnt drop temps and i experienced thermal throttling. Will that decrease the life of my cpu?
Yes, that is quite possible.

Granted, CPU life expectancy is very difficult to measure. But if that doesn't bother you, the loss in performance as a result of overheating should. You'd want to provide optimal cooling for the CPU to make it operate at its designed clock or frequency. You definitely don't want it to become hot enough to thermal throttle. If you're not worried about heat killing the silicon, just consider that you probably paid a hefty sum for a shiny i7, only to see it perform like an i5 or even an i3 because it's thermal throttling.
 

rubix_1011

Contributing Writer
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I don't even know where to begin with this thread.

A lot of 'Nuh uh, I can do what I want'....you are right, you can.

So, why ask for advice if you are wanting to prove everyone wrong by doing what is actually pretty harmful long term to your hardware?

It is your stuff, but sounds like this is just a trolling thread.

Thermal paste rarely goes bad, especially the compounds used on factory/OEM coolers like that. It is so thick and viscous that it remains pretty much forever. If you had told me that it had been 15 years since it was new, I could perhaps believe that.


Also, 99 degrees is 99 degrees Celcius, not Farenheit.

100C is the boiling point of water.
100F is running a mild fever for a human.

There is a significant difference.

Also: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...7-4770-processor-8m-cache-up-to-3-90-ghz.html

imbODX6.png
 
Feb 8, 2021
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I had this big doubt for my entire life that what will happen if we try to boot a pc without a fan ?
Need help with this
Windows 10 updates are regular and seemingly never-ending, and pretty much out of What's worse: if you don't reboot your PC after an update, Windows 10 eventually takes it upon itself to reboot for you. Remember, you'll still need to know the password if you're logging into the PC remotely. Cool Your Diagnostics.
 
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