Question My Ryzen 3600 runs too hot on basic dekstop tasks (I've tried everything)

[Juan Bonnett]

My problem is very simple.

Idling on Windows desktop my Ryzen 3600 doesn't go below unnecesary 3.6Ghz, and using basic programs it's always betwen 3.5Ghz and 4Ghz. Doing office stuff, my PC is runing at 60º Celsius or more. I don't mind warming my room when gaming, but when doing normal office stuff it runs too hot and my room obviously gets hot as well around my desk.

I've googled it many times and I have tried all the solutions proposed and nothing works:

I've tried. Disabling and enabling stuff on the bios setup.
Updating the Chipset and Bios driver so I can use Ryzen Power Plan.
Changing minimum processor usage on Ryzen Power Plan.
My PC is dust free, I've cleaned it and I'm using a new Thermal Paste I bought.

The only thing that keeps my processor at Around 40+ Celsius is to select the WINDOWS POWER SAVER PLAN, which keeps my processor at around 2,2Ghz or less at all times. But it will Obviously decrease my gaming experience.

My Board is an entry level ASUS Prime A320-K
The Processor is the Ryzen 3600
And I bought this aftermarket cooler shown in the picture below.

Any idea how can I keep my processor at around 2Ghz on dekstop apps but when gaming it goes to its full potential? It shouldn't get that hot by just editing a word document.

 

[CountMike]

My problem is very simple.

Idling on Windows desktop my Ryzen 3600 doesn't go below unnecesary 3.6Ghz, and using basic programs it's always betwen 3.5Ghz and 4Ghz. Doing office stuff, my PC is runing at 60º Celsius or more. I don't mind warming my room when gaming, but when doing normal office stuff it runs too hot and my room obviously gets hot as well around my desk.

I've googled it many times and I have tried all the solutions proposed and nothing works:

I've tried. Disabling and enabling stuff on the bios setup.
Updating the Chipset and Bios driver so I can use Ryzen Power Plan.
Changing minimum processor usage on Ryzen Power Plan.
My PC is dust free, I've cleaned it and I'm using a new Thermal Paste I bought.

The only thing that keeps my processor at Around 40+ Celsius is to select the WINDOWS POWER SAVER PLAN, which keeps my processor at around 2,2Ghz or less at all times. But it will Obviously decrease my gaming experience.

My Board is an entry level ASUS Prime A320-K
The Processor is the Ryzen 3600
And I bought this aftermarket cooler shown in the picture below.

Any idea how can I keep my processor at around 2Ghz on dekstop apps but when gaming it goes to its full potential? It shouldn't get that hot by just editing a word document.

Windows power saving plan is not going to decrease your gaming or other performance as long as Maximum processor state is 100%., minimum state is only for idle a,n could be as little as 5%.
60c at load is very good, it will not throttle below 70-ish and will shut down at 95c so you are far from limits.

 

[Juan Bonnett]

Thanks man. What I wrote is that 60º is the temperature when idling or working with basic office programs. When gaming or stressing it it will go above 85º.

Plus, I've tested it, Windows Power Saving, with the max processor usage at 100% will decrease my gaming experience in a lot of games, such as GTA V, where I will get half of the framerates i get with a balanced plan. Other games, like Assasssins Creed Odyssey for some reason make it work at 4Ghz on power saving plan. I don't know what's happening then.

 

[CountMike]

Thanks man. What I wrote is that 60º is the temperature when idling or working with basic office programs. When gaming or stressing it it will go above 85º.

Plus, I've tested it, Windows Power Saving, with the max processor usage at 100% will decrease my gaming experience in a lot of games, such as GTA V, where I will get half of the framerates i get with a balanced plan. Other games, like Assasssins Creed Odyssey for some reason make it work at 4Ghz on power saving plan. I don't know what's happening then.

Minimum power saving setting is not going to decrease performance but high temperature can, over 70-75c will cause it to throttle down. Needs to be kept at 62-65c for best performance boost.

 

[Flayed]

That is very strange my 3600 idles somewhere between 400 and 1,000 Mhz it jumps around alot
Have you updated the bios to the latest one?

 

[RodroX]

A few questions, for now....

1. Did you made a fresh clean install of Windows?
2. What program are you using to read the temp? (I like hwinfo, ryzen master, and while gaming msi afterburner)
3. What is the brand and model of the aftermartk cooler you got?

 

[logainofhades]

Is your bios up to date? Double check your cooler's mounting. Make sure you didn't over tighten, or under tighten the screws, for its bracket. I have an AIO, but I had heat issues, due to me over tightening the screws, when I put my Ryzen 3700x, into my rig.

 

[Juan Bonnett]

I'm watching the temperatures with different programs, but not all of them at the same time, obviously. I have Ryzen Master, CoreTemp and HWinfo.

I'm gonna remove the cooler, clean it deeply and replace the thermal paste and make sure it's place properly. And comeback.

 

[Juan Bonnett]

Ok,

I added a new exshaust fan,

Deep cleaned the PC (there was no that much dust anyway, I clean it and blow it every 2 months at least)

Replaced the dose of Arctic Silver 5, I have two other brands of thermal paste but they seem to be those generic brands that come with old coolers I've had in the past.

Made sure the paste was all even across the cooler base and its 5 pipes (just a very very tiny line of paste per pipe)

With the case open, with no side panel on, my temps Browsing are around 52º celcius. Room temp is around 25º celsius maybe.

I still think 52º si too high, so I'm thinking to replace my board for one that allows me to lower the voltaje but keep 4.2Ghz stable.

 

[RodroX]

52°C while broswing is not a weird thing for Ryzen. Im not an expert on cooling but removing the case side panel will affect the performance of the case fans and thus the airflow.

Also is importanmt to notice if those 52 are a steady reading or if it goes up and down every few seconds, if thats happening then I belive thats normal Ryzen behavior. (I was really surprised when I saw my own ryzen going up to 54~56|C while using firefox or chrome, or watching a video in youtube).

What about if you put the side panel ON, and you go play a game or run Cinebench R20 multicore test for example?, How is the max temp reading then ?

I usually use the latest version of Hwinfo64 Sensores Only for this, since I can start the test and/or game, clear the values using the littlebutton on the bottom of the app. and then hwinfo will keep the track of the Max readings.

If games/cinebench temps are below 80°C I would not worry.

 

[dorsai]

"Idling on Windows desktop my Ryzen 3600 doesn't go below unnecesary 3.6Ghz, and using basic programs it's always betwen 3.5Ghz and 4Ghz. "

It sounds like you've messed up the power plan settings. My 3600 consistently drops the cores to "sleep" while doing minimal tasks like browsing these forums. I would reset the power plan(s) to stock and run the Ryzen balanced plan...any time you mess with c-states you're running the risk of messing up the chips ability to idle properly.

 

[GarrettL]

Try just a dab of thermal paste no larger than the size of a pea placed in the center of the cpu heat sink.

 

[cryoburner]

I don't mind warming my room when gaming, but when doing normal office stuff it runs too hot and my room obviously gets hot as well around my desk.

The temperature of the CPU cores is not necessarily directly related to how much heat they are putting out. This is because there are two factors going into a processor's temperature, how much heat the cores are generating, and how quickly that heat is being drawn away from the cores.

In the case of a Ryzen 3600, the actual heat being put out by the processor should be fairly low, as they are rather efficient as far as desktop processors go. Even with a heavy all-core load utilizing all threads, the processor shouldn't be drawing much more than 65 watts, and as such, the heat output will be roughly comparable to that of a typical incandescent light bulb at most. Any cores not being actively used for processing should be drawing significantly less power, and in turn putting out significantly less heat, even if they are not downclocking at idle as much as they should for whatever reason. Even if a Ryzen 3600 is overclocked to always stay locked at 4.2GHz on all cores, that should only raise total system power consumption by around 5-10 watts or so at idle compared to typical stock settings, as the cores won't be expending much energy when not actually processing anything. Likewise, underclocking it to 2GHz isn't actually going to reduce power consumption or heat output all that much.

The main reason you are seeing higher idle temperatures than some other processors is because the cores in a Ryzen 3000 processor are all contained on a tiny chiplet about the size of the fingernail on your pinky finger, and separate from the rest of the processor's IO functions, which are contained on a separate, larger chip. As a result, any heat the cores produce must be transferred to the processor's heat-spreader through that tiny contact area, resulting in the cores staying somewhat warmer, even if their actual heat output is relatively low. And of course, at idle the cooler's fans will likely be running slower, which will further affect heat dissipation. So, the processor is not likely warming up your room to an excessive degree, just the chip itself is staying warmer due to its compact size. And actually, turning up fan speeds to reduce CPU temperature would just result in additional heat being put into your room, as the fans would be generating more heat, but the processor's heat output would stay the same.

By comparison, your 2060 SUPER can draw nearly 200 watts while gaming, and in turn should put out nearly three times as much heat under load as a Ryzen 3600 does when processing a heavily-multithreaded workload. At idle, or when doing efficient tasks like decoding video, a 2060 SUPER should draw no more than around 10-15 watts though.

If you are interested in a rough idea of how much heat your various electronics are putting out when under various levels of load, you should look at how much power they are drawing, not temperatures of components, and an electricity load meter like a Kill-A-Watt would be able to tell you that. Chances are, your entire system (not counting the monitor) is probably not drawing all that much more than 60 watts at idle for all components combined. Even including your monitor, the entire setup is probably only around 100 watts or so during typical desktop tasks. If you are still using any incandescent lightbulbs for lighting the room, swapping one of those for an LED bulb would make more of a difference to room temperatures than optimizations to your CPU's clock-rates ever would. Of course, shutting off the system or putting it in standby when it's not going to be used for hours would help too.

 

[Juan Bonnett]

The temperature of the CPU cores is not necessarily directly related to how much heat they are putting out. This is because there are two factors going into a processor's temperature, how much heat the cores are generating, and how quickly that heat is being drawn away from the cores.

In the case of a Ryzen 3600, the actual heat being put out by the processor should be fairly low, as they are rather efficient as far as desktop processors go. Even with a heavy all-core load utilizing all threads, the processor shouldn't be drawing much more than 65 watts, and as such, the heat output will be roughly comparable to that of a typical incandescent light bulb at most. Any cores not being actively used for processing should be drawing significantly less power, and in turn putting out significantly less heat, even if they are not downclocking at idle as much as they should for whatever reason. Even if a Ryzen 3600 is overclocked to always stay locked at 4.2GHz on all cores, that should only raise total system power consumption by around 5-10 watts or so at idle compared to typical stock settings, as the cores won't be expending much energy when not actually processing anything. Likewise, underclocking it to 2GHz isn't actually going to reduce power consumption or heat output all that much.

The main reason you are seeing higher idle temperatures than some other processors is because the cores in a Ryzen 3000 processor are all contained on a tiny chiplet about the size of the fingernail on your pinky finger, and separate from the rest of the processor's IO functions, which are contained on a separate, larger chip. As a result, any heat the cores produce must be transferred to the processor's heat-spreader through that tiny contact area, resulting in the cores staying somewhat warmer, even if their actual heat output is relatively low. And of course, at idle the cooler's fans will likely be running slower, which will further affect heat dissipation. So, the processor is not likely warming up your room to an excessive degree, just the chip itself is staying warmer due to its compact size. And actually, turning up fan speeds to reduce CPU temperature would just result in additional heat being put into your room, as the fans would be generating more heat, but the processor's heat output would stay the same.

By comparison, your 2060 SUPER can draw nearly 200 watts while gaming, and in turn should put out nearly three times as much heat under load as a Ryzen 3600 does when processing a heavily-multithreaded workload. At idle, or when doing efficient tasks like decoding video, a 2060 SUPER should draw no more than around 10-15 watts though.

If you are interested in a rough idea of how much heat your various electronics are putting out when under various levels of load, you should look at how much power they are drawing, not temperatures of components, and an electricity load meter like a Kill-A-Watt would be able to tell you that. Chances are, your entire system (not counting the monitor) is probably not drawing all that much more than 60 watts at idle for all components combined. Even including your monitor, the entire setup is probably only around 100 watts or so during typical desktop tasks. If you are still using any incandescent lightbulbs for lighting the room, swapping one of those for an LED bulb would make more of a difference to room temperatures than optimizations to your CPU's clock-rates ever would. Of course, shutting off the system or putting it in standby when it's not going to be used for hours would help too.

Awesome explanation man. Seems like it improved by around 7º - 10º when I replaced and better applied the thermal paste, I don't know if the extra top exhaust has something to do.

If I want it to run cooler I suppose I have to buy a board that allows me to lower the voltages but keep them enough for stable high frecuencies.

 

[RodroX]

Awesome explanation man. Seems like it improved by around 7º - 10º when I replaced and better applied the thermal paste, I don't know if the extra top exhaust has something to do.

If I want it to run cooler I suppose I have to buy a board that allows me to lower the voltages but keep them enough for stable high frecuencies.

Lowering voltage is not the best approach for me with Ryzen. In my motherboard I have an AMD Overclocking sub-menu, on which I can set a PPT value. PPT is Package Power Tracking ( more or less, the amount of power the socket is allowed to draw from the volatge rails. More info here -> https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3491-explaining-precision-boost-overdrive-benchmarks-auto-oc).

For 65 Watts CPU like the Ryzen 5 3600, stock PPT is 88 Watts.

So I played around some months ago with values going from 45watts ~ 88watts. In short by setting that value to for example 63watts I can keep the single core max boost to 4.2GHz while the all core frecuency will be lower: around 3500MHz ( for Prime95-SmalFFT-AVX ON) ~ 3850MHz (for Games/CB R20 All core test).

With this lower PPT value I lose some all-core boost (about 200 MHz) but I can keep my 4.2GHz single core and keep lower temps, and voltage and current under control. You don't need to set such a low number, you can start by taking a few watts (I don't know something like 78Watts), and see what the results are. I tested with a few games, Cinbench R20 and Prime 95 using hwinfo to read the values.

Cheers