[SOLVED] New computer with bad CPU cooler installation causing very high temps!

[StarKiller84]

Hello, I just built my first PC yesterday, ( https://pcpartpicker.com/list/4W6d29 ) I've never built a pc before and didn't really know what I was doing, it did turn on however, surprisingly.

Anyway when it came time to install the CPU cooler I kind of messed up really bad, or at least I think I did, I bought some extra thermal paste ( https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9PV3Y38184 ) However the stock wraith cooler that comes with the ryzen 2600 already had some thermal paste on it, so I didn't end up using any.

Now call me a noob, but at first when I was installing the wraith cooler I took a screw driver and touched the thermal paste cause I didn't know if it was actually thermal paste or it was just silver, so I made a little "spot" if you want to call it, which I think means air gets under which is bad, anyway then I lined up the screws on the cooler with the holes in the motherboard and began screwing it in, I did it in a diagonal pattern to not apply to much pressure, which I was super worried about, so worried about it that I didn't even screw down the screws enough to hold the cooler in place.

To test if I screwed it in, I grabbed the cooler and gave it a little pull, unsurprisingly it came right off, only parts of the CPU had thermal paste on it, mostly around the edges, I then lined up the holes again, and re-screwed it in, a little tighter this time.

The cooler didn't come off when I pulled on it this time, so that's good, however now that the computer is on and Windows and everything installed, I downloaded Speccy to look at the temps and.... After having the computer on for a good few hours while installing some stuff, it was running 80-90c on the Desktop with only Steam and Discord open!!!

Now i'm no expert, but that's not good... The other components are doing fine running at 30-40c or somewhere around there, though I think I did put one of my fans backwards...

Anyway I turned off the computer for now and i'm using a old one right now, I would like to fix this before I try to run anything on it, don't want to burn the CPU or something!

The only things I could think of is this, or a combination of some:

1. The "hole" in the thermal paste is letting too much air in
2. The CPU is barely touching the cooler because I didn't screw it down enough
3. Speccy is just lying (Unlikely)

 

[dw27]

You may have to redo the thermal paste. You're going for a thin layer over the whole cpu. When your installing the cooler you can pull it back off and see how it spread. The cpu should only require a small dot about half the size of a pea.

 

[StarKiller84]

You may have to redo the thermal paste. You're going for a thin layer over the whole cpu. When your installing the cooler you can pull it back off and see how it spread. The cpu should only require a small dot about half the size of a pea.

Hey, thanks for the quick response, I was looking around online and found this post https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/are-these-temps-normal-for-ryzen-5-2600.3333468/

It mention that hardware monitor was bad at reading Ryzen temps, so it made me wonder if the program I was using was doing the same thing.

I just downloaded one called "Ryzen Master" from the amd website, it says i'm idle 30c which is pretty good.

The program I was using before was "Speccy" from CCleaner, I just really don't want to have to take that off again, it was a pain to get on.

Do you have any program you recommend I test on to make sure?

 

[neiler0847]

I rely on CoreTemp and HWiNFO64 for monitoring temperatures.

CoreTemp is particularly useful because you can configure it to constantly show a number in your Windows system tray.

I don't think the small mark that you made in the original thermal paste would have made much of a difference. It heats up and spreads out.

 

[StarKiller84]

I rely on CoreTemp and HWiNFO64 for monitoring temperatures.

CoreTemp is particularly useful because you can configure it to constantly show a number in your Windows system tray.

I don't think the small mark that you made in the original thermal paste would have made much of a difference. It heats up and spreads out.

I downloaded CoreTemp, it's saying generally the same or a few less (30-40c) idle then Ryzen Master, I even got another one "HWMonitor" And all 3 of them are saying about the same or only a few degrees off from eachother, Speccy is the only one saying super high temperatures.

 

[mtracy1991]

Do you have other fans involved with your system?

 

[dw27]

For accuracy I would recommend Amd overdrive. Amd cpu temp are measured differently than Intel cpu. Amd uses socket temp and thermal margin. And if you ever decide to overclock you won't need new software.

 

[StarKiller84]

Do you have other fans involved with your system?

The only fans I have are the cpu cooler, gpu fans, and 2 case fans, 1 in the front, 1 in the back, though I think the one in front might be backwards.

I decided to do some test runs on games, I played ARK: Survival Evolved on max settings and got 40-50fps depending on the area, I changed some settings to high instead of epic and got a solid 45-60fps depending on the area.
Most importantly though, temps, I had both Core Temp and HWMonitor open and both were getting into the 60c to 65c range on the cpu, however something else to mention is the GPU temps, staying consistently around 80c.
Also to mention, not that i'm disappointed by the performance, but I feel with a card at this price point I should be able to run 1080p 60fps max settings, even with how un-optimized ARK is. If I want to upgrade to a 2K monitor like I plan to in the future, this performance isn't going to be enough.
I'm thinking it's slowing down the graphics card because of the high temperatures, but i'm unsure.

I also ran Battlefield V, since this was my first time playing, it put me into the intro or tutorial thing on default settings, which was ultra with no DX12, DLSS or ray tracing.
Because it wasn't a Steam game and I don't have a program to monitor FPS I don't know what I was getting, but it seemed generally smooth and looked perfectly fine, I would estimate around 45-60fps but again, I'm unsure.
After I finished the tutorial intro I enabled DX12, raytracing and DLSS and reloaded my game so it would enable, I then went into a multiplayer match.
The server I got connected to had some ping issues, but the fps seemed generally fine, probably around 40 or 50, it seemed slightly less fps then the intro, however the game looked great, but not ultra settings ray tracing great, textures seemed... Plain? To say the least, just something about it wasn't right.
Anyway, temps, started off fairly good with around 70c on the GPU and 60-65c on the CPU, seems reasonable for ultra settings and ray tracing, but as I played for a bit more, at about maybe the hour-ish mark, the temps started to rise to close to that of ARK, reaching just below 80c and sometimes even 81c on the GPU and up to 70c on the CPU.

If you check the PC part picker list on the original post and look at the case you'll see it doesn't have the best air flow, and if I installed one of the case fans backwards that would cause temps to rise a bit, but I don't think they should be what they are, but I'm unsure.
Despite issues when I first loaded up the PC, everything is working fine as far as it seems now, but it's only been 2 days since I built it, I don't want to go 20 days down the road after my warranty ends and have my parts die on me, so I'm pretty worried.

 

[mtracy1991]

Buy three 120mm fans corsair rgb or noctia i.think the manufacturer is. I suggest now you put one fan in the front for intake. So when u put the fan inside the wires sticking out the side is considered the back along with the logo. That will pull in cool air. And keep the exhaust fa. Where it is at the back. You can set up two others in the front and a fourth for the top for exhaust and check temps then. I know its a new build but if you have the money get. The additional fans. So you have a lot of heat build up in your mid case and its building up. Try this, when your pc gets hot, take off thr side panel and read temps. If they drop from high.. You need better airflow.

 

[Karadjgne]

Speccy is primarily best for Intel. Coretemp, hwinfo64 work just fine on Ryzen.

I see 2x issues, none of which applies to idle temps, those are useless for the most part. Only load temps/max stress temp has any real meaning.

First issue is with the paste. After your first botched install, ripping the cooler off the socket destroyed the paste, only partial bits were stuck on both sides. Best bet, only option there, is start over, clean both the cooler base and cpu of any remaining paste and use the stuff you bought. Only need as much as a decent sized grain of rice, it'll spread.

Second issue is you. You absolutely need to tighten the cooler down in an X pattern all the way. You will not crush the cpu. Tighten it till the screws stop. If it's not tight hard to the cpu, you'll get OK idle temps, but load/stress temps will be off the charts.

 

[StarKiller84]

Buy three 120mm fans corsair rgb or noctia i.think the manufacturer is. I suggest now you put one fan in the front for intake. So when u put the fan inside the wires sticking out the side is considered the back along with the logo. That will pull in cool air. And keep the exhaust fa. Where it is at the back. You can set up two others in the front and a fourth for the top for exhaust and check temps then. I know its a new build but if you have the money get. The additional fans. So you have a lot of heat build up in your mid case and its building up. Try this, when your pc gets hot, take off thr side panel and read temps. If they drop from high.. You need better airflow.

I'm kind of tight on money right now, still trying to pay off the parts I bought so I can't really buy more immediately, but hopefully soon.
Also I'm not 100% sure what you mean by the wire and logo thing, the fans I have which came with the case don't have a logo on them only 1 side has RGB which i assumed means it should face inside the case, looking at it more, they were both pre-installed in the top back of the case near the motherboard ports, so I assume the RGB side pushes air our, which means it's pushing air out the front and back of my case? Or am I completely wrong?
Also as a side note, I was going to keep both fans where they came, but I had to take off the one on the top of the case because the motherboard wouldn't install if I didn't, so I can't put any fans up there.

Speccy is primarily best for Intel. Coretemp, hwinfo64 work just fine on Ryzen.

I see 2x issues, none of which applies to idle temps, those are useless for the most part. Only load temps/max stress temp has any real meaning.

First issue is with the paste. After your first botched install, ripping the cooler off the socket destroyed the paste, only partial bits were stuck on both sides. Best bet, only option there, is start over, clean both the cooler base and cpu of any remaining paste and use the stuff you bought. Only need as much as a decent sized grain of rice, it'll spread.

Second issue is you. You absolutely need to tighten the cooler down in an X pattern all the way. You will not crush the cpu. Tighten it till the screws stop. If it's not tight hard to the cpu, you'll get OK idle temps, but load/stress temps will be off the charts.

Well that's good to hear then, Coretemp is telling me good temperatures (usually idle 30-40c and 50-60c while gaming, sometimes up to 70c) on the CPU, I'd really like to test the temperatures I'm getting now a little more before I change the paste and re-installed the cooler, it was probably one of the most stressful parts of the build.
How are the temperatures I'm getting now? Do they seem reasonable to you? And what things can I do to stress test it besides playing games like ARK or BFV?
And you might not know, but what about GPU temperatures, anything to worry about there?

 

[geofelt]

I expect to see 10-15c. over ambient at idle.
I think your cooler is mounted just fine now.