Temperatures spiking to 80°C and higher randomly on the Intel i7 8700 K when I'm not doing anything

[phantomlimb]

I put together my first build ever, so I'm new to all of this. But my 8700K processor is idling mostly around 32-34°C, no issues. Even when under extreme load testing, I don't go much above 70°C. Yet sometimes when I'm AFK, with only my browser open, I'll come back to discover I peaked above 80°C. No idea for how long, but it's there. This is even without overclocking. Is this normal? Or should I be checking that I applied the thermal paste correctly? Or perhaps is my heatsink not good enough? (Cryorig H7 Quad Lumi). I spent a lot of money on this so I really don't want it to overheat on me. Please help!

 

[CompuTronix]

phantomlimb,

On behalf of Tom's Moderator Team, welcome aboard!

At the top of all our Forums are "Stickies" which are informative Threads permanently "stuck" in place, so they're always available as quick reference material for everyone's benefit. Near the top of the CPUs Forum you'll see this Sticky:

Intel Temperature Guide - http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-1800828/intel-temperature-guide.html

Tom's encourages Members to read the Stickies, since they often contain the answers to Member's questions. From our Guide:

" ... Intel’s specification for Digital Thermal Sensor (DTS) response time is 256 milliseconds, or about 1/4th of a second. Since Windows has dozens of Processes and Services running in the background, it’s normal to see rapid and random Core temperature “spikes” or fluctuations, especially during the first few minutes after startup, which should eventually settle. Any software activity will show some percentage of CPU Utilization in Task Manager, where unnecessary Tray items, Startups, Processes and Services that contribute to excessive or continued spiking can be disabled. ... "

" ... 6th Generation processors introduced "Speed Shift" technology in Windows 10, which responds much faster to changes in workload than "SpeedStep" due to having many more Core speed and Core voltage transition levels.

Since 7th and 8th Generation Speed Shift is twice as fast as 6th Generation, some users complain of Core temperature spikes which cause fluctuations in fan RPM at idle. Motherboard manufacturers are currently developing BIOS fixes that include separate SpeedStep and Speed Shift settings with more flexible fan curves and time delay options. ... "

All processors have Core temperature spikes in response to various workloads, however, spiking on later processor Generations is more prevalent, as described above. The most effective ways to minimize spiking are listed below, according to impact:

Delidding
Better Cooling
Minimizing Vcore
Eliminating unnecessary Startups

If you're not experiencing fan cycling problems and don't wish to implement any of these steps, then ignore the spiking as it's not damaging to hardware, and can only be minimized but never completely eliminated.

Once again, welcome aboard!

CT

 

[elbert]

The 8700k is a beast to cool and I would suggest a high end air cooler. The Cryorig R1 or Noctua D15s as it take a pretty good cooler just to keep it under 70 at stock.

 

[Charlie28]

My 7700k was giving me nightmares. Bought the Noctua D15, didn't help. Disabled hyperthreading, temps were down but still not good. Disabled turbo boost and HT, still getting over 80c under full load while gaming. Finally decided to delid and all the temperature problems went away. HT and turbo boost are back on. Overclocked to 4.8. Max temps are low 70s.

I would guess this is an Intel TIM issue again. Some chips, mine for example, are poorly put together. When I got the lid off and started scraping all the old TIM and glue off, there was barely any TIM to be found. I could hardly believe it.

 

[phantomlimb]

Thanks for the info everyone!

And to @CompuTronix I did actually read that sticky post, but I must have missed that info. I'm just glad to know the little fluctuations are normal. But also, I decided to remove my heatsink and redo the thermal paste anyway, and what I realized is that because the brackets for the Cryorig H7 Quad Lumi are... um... kinda unstable until the heatsink itself is screwed in... (no idea why they designed it that way) it had allowed the paste to be smeared a bit unevenly and somewhat outside the borders. Anyway, I tried harder to be more steady when installing and to not use quite as much paste, and to make sure it was on very firmly, and this time around I haven't thus far gone over 50°C. So the crazy peaks seem to have settled. So I think it was a little bit of both—poor installation the first time, and a really hot-running CPU to begin with. If I have too much issues with heat, then I may very well try to invest in a better cooler.

Thanks for your responses everyone, they were all helpful info.