Is my Motherboard overheating?

[Tenuto]

Basically my processor is throttling with no clear evidence of it overheating. According to AMD OverDrive is max out at 35degrees Celsius thermal margin and on Easy Tune I get a a max of 50 degrees Celsius before throttling. My motherboard feels extremely hot to the touch at times and my case is pretty small and only has 1 92mm fan exhaust. Is this my motherboard overheating? Thanks

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Overdrive reports on CPU thermals margin not motherboard. What is your CPU and motherboard?

 

[Tenuto]

Thanks for the reply. I have the A10 7870K running at stock clock and using the stock cooler. I'm using the Gigabyte FM2+ Ultra Durable Series A68H DS2H motherboard

 

[DonkeyOatie]

That's a low level motherboard for that APU. There are no heatsinks in the VRMs either. What are you doing with it? Gaming or browsing? Thermal throttling of the CPU due to VRM overheating on the motherboard is a definite possibility.

I'd borrow a case fan and zip-tie it in position to blow on the motherboard VRMs and see if that helps. If it does, it suggests a 'permanent' solution.

 

[Tenuto]

One final thing. It doesn't throttle when the fan is facing the VRM which you suggested (thanks). Should I get a new case with better thermals? Should I get a new motherboard? I might try to ziptie the fan but it's pretty hard to do in my Chassis. Thanks!

 

[DonkeyOatie]

What's your future? Your longer-term plans affect my advice.

That's a mediocre CPU, so how much longer do you plan to use it? When will you upgrade?

There is also another solution. Replace your CPU cooler with a big downdraft cooler, like the RAIJINTEK Pallas, and it will cool your CPU and VRM.

In general, better themals in your case will have only a limited effect. You need active cooling of the motherboard if you are going to keep it. If you have access, you can also run a fan to blow on the rear of the motherboard to cool it more or instead.

 

[Tenuto]

Basically I want to turn this into a 720p gaming rig. I might add a GTX 750ti or an R7250 and enable dual graphics. I plan on adding another fan and that's about it. A few years down the road I want to build a new rig from the ground up.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Then I'd keep the motherboard and work on how to cool the VRMs. A good downdraft CPU cooler will last a long time and is likely to be useful in another future build.

 

[Tenuto]

This is what I did. I took my exhaust fan and used zip ties and now it's cooling the VRM. Now it throttles much less. However I no longer have an Exhaust fan XD

 

[DonkeyOatie]

The lack of an exhaust fan may not matter much, and you can always get another