Random CPU Temperature Spike While Idle

[XCaedisX]

Okay, so while this isn't really giving me any issues, I'm paranoid and tend to watch my CPUID HWMonitor like a hawk. And I've noticed a temperature spike exclusively on my CPU that's bugging me. I understand varying a few degrees while idle is normal, but this is different.

Seemingly at random, my CPU will jump about 9-10 degrees upward, instantaneously. IE: Going from 34C to 43-44C, skipping all numbers in between. I watched my task manager at the same time and the CPU usage isn't going any higher during these spikes, and staying at about 3-4%. I also closed most of the things I had open--I've only got a handful of browser tabs left, a couple messengers, CPUID, task manager, and Steam left.

It drops back down normally, one degree at a time, to about 34-35. It'll stay there for a bit and then jump back up again. It seems to do this endlessly. It only seems to do this while relatively idle, not while under load from games.

Is this something I should be concerned about? I'm not sure how long it's been doing this for, but like I said, I'm paranoid about this sort of thing.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600
Cooler: Wraith Spire Cooler
Mobo: MSI B350 Tomahawk

 

[Sedivy]

Ok, open task manager, but go into tab that says details. Sort by cpu usage. Or alternatively, go under Performance tab, and on the bottom, click on Open Resource Monitor and then watch the processes. Most commonly when this happens to me, it's trying to do some sort of windows update in the background. Also antivirus updates sometimes, and sometimes caching. Watching the resource monitor for processes and services, sorted by cpu usage should give you a pretty good idea which of these is happening.

 

[Eximo]

Or any random work the CPU needs to do. This is perfectly normal.

An idle computer isn't really idle anyway. Plenty of things for the system to do when you aren't actually using it. It can trim or wear level the drive (SSD), defragment (HDD), clean up the swap file, run updates, etc. Basically everything is waiting for you to take action.

You should only be concerned if the CPU was going to 100% when 'idle' Or had a constant load on a single core. Usually the sign of some malware or netbot.