Question New PC Build - Only CPU Overheating

[bobbyt1997]

Hi Everyone,

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide. I've recently put together a PC and have run into an overheating issue. Although the PC will be used for light gaming, I do not intend to overlock. For the past day, I've reinstalled windows and reseated the heatsink three times. At first, I suspected that I may have installed the heatsink the wrong way so I removed it and put it back on. I also thought that the AMD's stock thermal paste was causing the issue so I wiped it off and put on the Artic MX-4 paste. This has not helped with the overheating issue.

To check temps, I installed Speccy and HWMonitor. Speccy indicates that my CPU is running at 78-98 degrees C upon start-up, when there are no applications running. On the other hand, HWMonitor measures CPU temp at a normal range between 38-50 degrees C. Since this was such a large discrepancy, I also installed Core Temp, which read the temps of each of the cores at an average of about 35 degrees C. After being on for about 10-15 minutes, the computer would freeze and all I can do is use the power switch to do a hard shutdown.

Besides reseating heatsink and reinstalling windows, I've removed the graphics card and tested with onboard hdmi port and I still get the same cpu overheating problem. I've removed and reinstalled my RAM into different slots. I've checked Event Viewer after every hard shut down with no critical issues besides the notification that the pc has gone through a hard shutdown. I also suspbected a faulty motherboard so I've exchanged it but it did not help whatsoever. The BIOS has been updated and drivers installed. After some research I realize that the list of parts may not help much but I'll add it below just in case you guys are curious. Once again, thank you and I hope to hear from someone soon.

CPU: Ryzen 5 2600 w/ Stock Cooler
Motherboard: B450 AORUS M
Graphics Card: ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 570 Gaming OC Edition
RAM: Patriot Viper 4 Blackout Serious 2x4GB
PSU: EVGA 500 W1 , 80+ White 500W
OS: Windows 10 Home installed on SSD

 

[jimmysmitty]

Have you used AMDs Ryzen Master Utility to verify processor temperatures? I have read that most third party applications have issues reading the temperatures properly.

When this is happening can you see the CPU fan spinning?

Does it sound very loud?

The system freezing is a bit odd for an overheating CPU. Typically with an overheating CPU it would throttle and if it still isn't meeting thermal requirements eventually shut the system down. All CPUs have this type of protection built into them.

Is this a clean Windows 10 install for these parts?

 

[logainofhades]

If you want accurate temp results, for Ryzen, Ryzen Master is probably your best bet. I would not be surprised if the PSU is your problem, with the shutdowns, as that is a junk HEC built unit.

 

[Swarzenegger]

Hi man,

Sucks to hear, in my experience this will be caused by a bad contact between CPU and the heatsink.... Maybe try to instal the heatsink out of the case again, and make sure there is a tight contact between the 2 (read the manual again maybe? But normally you should be able to install a the stock cooler easily...).

U can also try to put the power plan of your pc to power saver, until you find a fix. I've heard some things about the high performance power plan boosting your clock at idle for some reason...

If possible, try another AM4 cpu to see if it's a faulty cpu, but that is worst case scenario imo.

If you have trouble doing anything on your pc, try going in the bios and lower the CPU voltage. It should still boot at 1.0-1.1V, but I don't have a lot of experience with that.

 

[bobbyt1997]

Have you used AMDs Ryzen Master Utility to verify processor temperatures? I have read that most third party applications have issues reading the temperatures properly.

When this is happening can you see the CPU fan spinning?

Does it sound very loud?

The system freezing is a bit odd for an overheating CPU. Typically with an overheating CPU it would throttle and if it still isn't meeting thermal requirements eventually shut the system down. All CPUs have this type of protection built into them.

Is this a clean Windows 10 install for these parts?

I've had the desktop open during all of these tests and the cpu fan actually doesn't throttle at all. The CPU temp in the BIOS shows 30-34 Degrees C. I manually put the CPU on full speed just to see if it would make a difference and it hasn't. So unless I manually increase the fan speed, there's really not much noise coming from the machine. I have downloaded the Ryzen Master but have not yet tried to check temps with it. I'll do that as soon as I can and report back results.

 

[bobbyt1997]

If you want accurate temp results, for Ryzen, Ryzen Master is probably your best bet. I would not be surprised if the PSU is your problem, with the shutdowns, as that is a junk HEC built unit.

I will definitely check out the temps using the Ryzen Master App. But when you are saying it could be a PSU issue, do you think I have insufficient wattage? The whole PC shouldn't use more than about 400W so I didn't think that could be an issue, however, I was considering just exchanging the PSU as I'm starting to run out of reasons for why this is happening.

 

[bobbyt1997]

Hi man,

Sucks to hear, in my experience this will be caused by a bad contact between CPU and the heatsink.... Maybe try to instal the heatsink out of the case again, and make sure there is a tight contact between the 2 (read the manual again maybe? But normally you should be able to install a the stock cooler easily...).

U can also try to put the power plan of your pc to power saver, until you find a fix. I've heard some things about the high performance power plan boosting your clock at idle for some reason...

If possible, try another AM4 cpu to see if it's a faulty cpu, but that is worst case scenario imo.

If you have trouble doing anything on your pc, try going in the bios and lower the CPU voltage. It should still boot at 1.0-1.1V, but I don't have a lot of experience with that.

Grateful for any help. I've tried reseating it a few times. I actually took the fan off of the heatsink just to make sure there wasn't anything in the way when I screwed it onto the mobo. After I had it on tight, I put the fan back onto the heatsink. I felt stupid looking up how to put on the cpu cooler lol but I didn't have any other ideas. These videos ended up being very straightforward with no differences in the way I was doing it.

Unfortunately, I don't build PC's often so I don't have another CPU lying around.

 

[Swarzenegger]

Ryzen Master should be your key now. if it shows normal temps, the fault probably is your PSU or maybe even RAM. The freezing part shows that the problem is probably not only CPU, as others have stated.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

Definitely report back after ryzen master. You may also want to try and resest bios to default, just in case the crashing is not temp related. Sometimes an xmp profile can just not work resulting in crashes. If bios and ryzen are reporting good temps, check load temps as well, as mentioned I'd start looking elsewhere for issues.

The psu as stated is a bottom tier evga unit. While your system may o ly use 400w underload, the psu may not be able to deliver it cleanly. Resulting in problems you're having.

Also curious how you checked cpu temps without a gpu. The 2600 has no igpu.

 

[jimmysmitty]

I've had the desktop open during all of these tests and the cpu fan actually doesn't throttle at all. The CPU temp in the BIOS shows 30-34 Degrees C. I manually put the CPU on full speed just to see if it would make a difference and it hasn't. So unless I manually increase the fan speed, there's really not much noise coming from the machine. I have downloaded the Ryzen Master but have not yet tried to check temps with it. I'll do that as soon as I can and report back results.

If the fan is not spinning up its most likely not a overheating CPU and something else.

I agree the PSU might be the issue. Lower end PSUs cut corners and while they can be "enough" they might not be able to supply all the voltages properly.

HWMonitor should be able to read the voltages for the 3.3v, 12v and 5v rails. Can you tell us those or post a screen shot of the HWMonitor page with those?

 

[bobbyt1997]

Definitely report back after ryzen master. You may also want to try and resest bios to default, just in case the crashing is not temp related. Sometimes an xmp profile can just not work resulting in crashes. If bios and ryzen are reporting good temps, check load temps as well, as mentioned I'd start looking elsewhere for issues.

The psu as stated is a bottom tier evga unit. While your system may o ly use 400w underload, the psu may not be able to deliver it cleanly. Resulting in problems you're having.

Also curious how you checked cpu temps without a gpu. The 2600 has no igpu.

I apologize. I don't know what I was talking about there. I actually just removed the gpu just to eliminate that it wasn't the one causing the freezing. But I'll try to use Ryzen Master just as others have directed. If these temps are normal, I'll go ahead and switch the PSU to something more reliable, I'm reading lower reviews mentioning that it's causing overheating in cpu.

 

[bobbyt1997]

If the fan is not spinning up its most likely not a overheating CPU and something else.

I agree the PSU might be the issue. Lower end PSUs cut corners and while they can be "enough" they might not be able to supply all the voltages properly.

HWMonitor should be able to read the voltages for the 3.3v, 12v and 5v rails. Can you tell us those or post a screen shot of the HWMonitor page with those?

I've already mentioned this in another reply but I'll check temps with Ryzen Master and consider purchasing a more reliable PSU. Reviews on amazon for the current PSU being used indicate that it has cause cpu overheating/computer shutdown for others as well. Currently, I do not have the PC available but will post screenshots when I get a chance. Thank you again for helpinng out.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

PSU is a piece of junk. Not good for a nice setup like you have.

 

[bobbyt1997]

@logainofhades
@Swarzenegger
@jimmysmitty
@Dark Lord of Tech

Hey everyone, it turns out that the PSU isn't the issue. I just exchanged the PSU for Corsair and not even 10 minutes in and the computer froze. I did, however, get a chance to take a look at Ryzen Master and it says that the temperature of the CPU was 25 degrees C. At this point I believe it could be a faulty CPU because I've already eliminated every other possibility. Could it be a RAM issue? Would RAM cause everything to freeze? The freezing I'm getting stays until I shut down the computer myself.

The next thing I will probably do is exchange the CPU, unless you guys have any other ideas you would like me to try out.

@Gmoney06ss Everything in the bios is already default. The machine was freezing was the reason why I decided to flash the BIOS in the first place.

 

[jimmysmitty]

I would go RAM over CPU. In my life I have seen only a handful of faulty CPUs, only 2 personally with the rest being on here. I would go for everything but the CPU first. They are very hard to kill.

It could be the GPU or RAM. Best thing to do is test the RAM outside of Windows using something like Memtest 86+. I typically give it at least 8 hours to run mainly because the tests will get more complex as time goes and may take longer for a failure.

If memory passes then I would look at the GPU. Check its temperatures, clock speeds etc and then run a test like FurMark for a few hours also checking the temperatures while its doing that. FurMark is pretty intense on a GPU and should cause a failure if its the GPU.

If all else fails then look at the CPU. You can run tests like Prime95 to fully load cores and stress the CPU. Keep an eye on temperatures as well but if it fails with this and passes everything else then it could be CPU or motherboard.

 

[Third-Eye]

The power supply was released sometime back in 2013/14 so it might be old stock if you just bought it new and could possibly be close to 6 1/2 years old by now. It's white rated as well so it was already low quality. I would just get a new 550 watt bronze or gold rated PSU.