Question Why is my motherboard temperature at 100C?

[TomScotland]

Hi all,

After playing games for about 20 minutes I start to experience FPS drops roughly every minute. I've been monitoring the temperature with Open Hardware Monitor and found the motherboard temperature #2 climbs all the way up to 100C an then starts throttling, causing the FPS drops. It then drops to about 97C before going up again.

A lot of the responses to this issue say it's temperature monitoring error but I don't believe it is as the temperature is not that high when idle (45-55C). Surely a false reading wouldn't cause throttling either. One of the heatsinks also feels very hot to the touch.

I remember having this problem a few years ago with this PC but it must have gone away for a while, I'm not sure if it's been like this the whole time.

My motherboard is an MSI 970 gaming, but just replaced it with a spare one (MSI 970A SLI Krait) I had and I'm still having the exact same issue except now the temperature goes up to 101C.

All my other temps are fine under load, CPU goes up to about 40-45C (30C~ idle) and my GPU is usually no higher than 73C (50C-60C, fans don't seem to run when idle?). I've used afterburner to boost the GPU fan and that seems to slow the time between each throttle but not significantly.

For the second motherboard it seems to be the heatsink below the CPU that gets hottest, but with the first I think it was the one to the left of the CPU. Not sure if it's relevant, but there seems to have been some sort of sticky fluid leaking from that heatsink which I noticed a while ago, doesn't seemed have caused any issues (other than this), I wondered if it's something melting?

Doesn't make sense to me how this could be happening to both motherboards.

Any help would be appreciated.

Specs:
Windows 10 64 bit
AMD FX-8350
HyperX Fury 16GB DDR3
MSI 970 gaming/MSI 970A SLI Krait Edition
AMD Radeon R9 380 4GB
Samsung SSD 850 Evo 250GB
Western Digital WDC 2TB
Corsair CS550m
Cooler Master H412R CPU cooler

 

[Ralston18]

PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition (original to build, new, refurbished, used)?

History of heavy use for gaming, video editing, or bit-mining?


What to do:

Power down, unplug, open the case.

Clean out dust and debris.

Verify by sight and feel that all connectors, cards, RAM, jumpers, and case connections are fully and firmly in place.

Use a bright flashlight to inspect for signs of damage: bare conductor showing, melted insulation, kinked or pinched wires. Browned or blackened areas or components. Loose or missing screws. Swollen components.

Find the source of the sticky fluid.

Has the thermal paste ever been replaced?

 

[logainofhades]

IIRC, those boards had terrible power delivery system, and that CPU was known to be power hungry.

 

[TomScotland]

PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition (original to build, new, refurbished, used)?

History of heavy use for gaming, video editing, or bit-mining?


What to do:

Power down, unplug, open the case.

Clean out dust and debris.

Verify by sight and feel that all connectors, cards, RAM, jumpers, and case connections are fully and firmly in place.

Use a bright flashlight to inspect for signs of damage: bare conductor showing, melted insulation, kinked or pinched wires. Browned or blackened areas or components. Loose or missing screws. Swollen components.

Find the source of the sticky fluid.

Has the thermal paste ever been replaced?

Forgot to put the PSU, it's a Corsair CS550M, original to build, about 7 years old.

History of moderate gaming, nothing else.

Already cleaned it out, swapped the motherboards so all the connection are in place, thermal paste was reapplied to the CPU.

As far as I can tell, the visual sign of damage is the fluid leak from the the heatsink, see below.

https://imgur.com/5G3SqIP

View: https://imgur.com/5G3SqIP


If a part of it really was getting to 100C, would I expect to see browned or blackened areas?

 

[Ralston18]

This motherboard?

https://us.msi.com/Motherboard/970A-SLI-Krait-Edition/support#manual

I would expect browned or blackened areas to be a sign of electric sparking or issues.

Whether or not the the temperature getting to 100 C would cause necessarily cause discoloration I am not sure about. Likely a function of the materials involved.

I can see the discoloration that appears to be spreading liquid. What does the other side of the board look like?

Use a bright flashlight and magnifying glass to take a careful look at the capacitors. Especially along the I/O panel side heat sink.

https://www.amazon.com/MSI-GAMING-DDR3-2133-Motherboard/dp/B00LUY72F6

 

[SkyNetRising]

As far as I can tell, the visual sign of damage is the fluid leak from the the heatsink, see below.

That is most likely oils from thermal pads under heatsinks.
Clean it with technical grade isopropyl alcohol.

Thermal pads probably need to be replaced.

 

[TomScotland]

This motherboard?

https://us.msi.com/Motherboard/970A-SLI-Krait-Edition/support#manual

I would expect browned or blackened areas to be a sign of electric sparking or issues.

Whether or not the the temperature getting to 100 C would cause necessarily cause discoloration I am not sure about. Likely a function of the materials involved.

I can see the discoloration that appears to be spreading liquid. What does the other side of the board look like?

Use a bright flashlight and magnifying glass to take a careful look at the capacitors. Especially along the I/O panel side heat sink.

https://www.amazon.com/MSI-GAMING-DDR3-2133-Motherboard/dp/B00LUY72F6

So the Krait Edition is the one I'm now using but the 970 gaming is the one with the leak. Can't see any other damage but the back shows the leak as well. I'll consider this motherboard a lost cause I think.

I've found a few other threads with the same leak, seems to be a bad match between this 970 motherboards and this processor, as was suggested earlier in the thread. Wish I had known about this when I built it. I guess that's why it's getting really hot on the Krait as well, even though it's in like new condition.

Not a massive issue anyway, I'm planning on selling it since I don't need it anymore, just wanted to make sure it's in good condition before I do. I wonder if there's any settings I can change to make the CPU less power hungry and perhaps that might keep the temperatures down?

 

[drea.drechsler]

So the Krait Edition is the one I'm now using but the 970 gaming is the one with the leak. Can't see any other damage but the back shows the leak as well. I'll consider this motherboard a lost cause I think.

I've found a few other threads with the same leak, seems to be a bad match between this 970 motherboards and this processor, as was suggested earlier in the thread. Wish I had known about this when I built it. I guess that's why it's getting really hot on the Krait as well, even though it's in like new condition.

Not a massive issue anyway, I'm planning on selling it since I don't need it anymore, just wanted to make sure it's in good condition before I do. I wonder if there's any settings I can change to make the CPU less power hungry and perhaps that might keep the temperatures down?

The "leak" is just oils from the thermal pad between the FET's and the heatsink. It is a sign they are aged and should be replaced. It's easy enough to take off the heatsink and replace them.

The "motherboard" sensor, though, is the real issue. Do you know where that sensor is located? Do you have a separate temp sensor for the VRM? It could be the chipset and the 970/990 chipsets are known to run fairly hot when working the GPU's PCIe slot heavily (as with gaming). The sudden high temp could be a sign the thermal pad or thermal grease has dried out. As with the VRM, it's fairly easy to remove that heatsink and replace the thermal grease.