Question Puzzled by sudden changes in GPU temperatures.

[vivec89]

This is going to be a little odd/vague but bear with me. My pc and hardware is rather old but I’m able to play hardware intensive games just fine with low graphics settings. Normally my GPU temp sits at 88-92C when playing games, but around a week ago I must’ve done something different because during the past week temperatures were at least 10C lower than usual.
Idle temp would be in the 30s rather than in the 40s, and ingame temp would be from around 65C up to the 70s. If I remember correctly it was about a week ago that I reinstalled my nvidia driver, which I tried today but sadly it didn’t lower the temps, so it might not have been the driver reinstall that caused the temperature drop a week ago.

I was happy with this sudden reduction in temps so I kept it in sleep mode when I didn't use it, because I thought it’d go back to its old 90C temp after a reboot.
Turns out I was right because after a forced windows update reboot my pc went back to its old temps.
I ran multiple full virus scans after the reboot but nothing was found.

So my question: does anyone have any idea at all what could’ve caused this sudden drop in temperatures?
Temperatures dropped significantly even though I did nothing different, I'm really puzzled.
Thank you for reading.

 

[Ralston18]

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS.

Include PSU.

Use Task Manager and Resource Monitor to observe system performance and the resources being used.

Look for some changes that correspond with the temperatures going up or down.

Physically check inside the case. Could simply be a loose fan power connection.....

Coincidences do occur.

 

[vivec89]

Thanks for your reply.
When you say system hardware specs and OS, do you mean this? Or do you need more?

Windows 7
Version: 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601
System model: Dell XPS 8300
Type: x64
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 3401 MHz, 4 core('s), 8 logical processor(s)
BIOS version: Dell Inc. A04, 20/06/2011
SMBIOS-version: 2.6
Hardware Abstracton Layer: Version = "6.1.7601.24511"
Installed physical memory (RAM): 6.00 GB
Total physical memory: 5.98 GB
Available physical memory: 1.35 GB
Total virtual memory: 12.0 GB
Available virtual memory: 6.09 GB
Space for swap file: 5.98 GB

My PSU is 460W

Sorry if that's wrong, I don't know a lot about computer stuff.
Temperatures only go up when I'm for example watching a movie on VLC or playing videogames really.
Right now I only have chrome open and it's stable at 44-46C, but when I for example start World of Warcraft up it'll slowly creep up to around 89-91C. Weirdly for about one week I don't think it ever even hit 80C when playing WoW. It would hover in the 70s. Until the forced reboot.
Using the internet doesn't seem to affect temps at all.
I checked inside, both fans are working. They will also run faster when I'm playing games.