[SOLVED] is it time to apply thermal paste?

[Osaidaz]

Hi,
so recently, I started notice few problems with my CPU, the fans noise is getting louder, when I play games like league of legends, FPS sometimes drops to 0, and the screen freezes for few seconds, I noticed FPS drops in other games as well, didn't have this issue 3 months ago, I haven't changed the thermal paste since I bought my PC back in 2015, almost 5 years, will applying thermal paste solve these problems?

CPU : i7 4790K
GPU: GTX 970
RAM : 16 GB.

Thanks.

 

[jwcrellin]

Fan noise indicates fan failure. Get a new cpu cooler like a noctua u12 and you shouldn't have any problems.

 

[grimfox]

Some more details about the system would be helpful. Like temps via HWmonitor of both the CPU and GPU at idle (desktop) and under load(gaming).

More fan noise isn't a sign of fan failure all the time. Here if the paste has gone bad then the CPU is getting hot and that is causing it to signal to the fan to run faster...which would make more noise. If the fan is noisy even at low speeds like in the bios or when the system is idle then, yes it's time for a new fan.

Changing the paste might help and it probably wont hurt. If you are up for it then I'd say start there. Without more details and diagnostics it's hard to say what the root cause might be. Def need some idea of your temps to provide better feedback.

 

[ak195]

Check the RPM of fan first to make sure its spinning as it should.
During gaming the FAN spins fast. Noise is not a big issue, but its better to clean fan and the heatsink.
And after five years its good to apply thermal paste, but only if you are gaming often at high setting.
Make sure the cooler is properly set, then apply little oil on the fan spinning area to reduce its sound, but be careful with that, not too much.
Reinstall GPU driver and check TaskManager to see is there any other process taking high usage.
If issue persist, try another processor and check the behavior during game. The problem can be with the processor too.

 

[Rodrigodrt]

From what i understood your fan gets louder as in, spinning faster? if thats so its a clear sign its going 100% trying to cool the cpu, and freezes could indeed indicate a massive throttling, however i wonder why it didnt shutdown to protect the cpu.

in any case, if theres 0 paste, this scenario is perfectly possible, so yea, somehow it could be it, but we'll need to have you remove the cooler to check that... and as explained above, you should use a program like coretemp, or hwmonitor to check your temps and reply to us, anything above 80 isnt nice, and above 90 is BAD.