Question Why would case fans kick on high when playing a game lately when they never did before?

[Jaexyn]

Hey all, hoping for a bit of help here as this is severely annoying me.

I've been playing Red Dead Redemption 2 and Red Dead Online since they came out for the PC. Up until about a week ago, my PC was running everything just fine at the game's recommended settings (most everything at Ultra), even while having a video playing on my second monitor. Now, after about 10 or so minutes in game, my fans kick on high. I'm seeing core temps in the 70s.

My idle temps are in the high 30s-low 40s, FYI (if that helps with anything).

I have a Digital Storm PC (pre-built). It has: i7-8700K (6-Core) 3.70GHz, ASUS ROG MAXIMUS X HERO , GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB (Performance Edition), 32GB ram, AIO Corsair H100i GTX, and it's all in their Lumos chassis (glass paneled). It's about 1.5 years old and has never given me any issues.

Right now, only having this window open that I'm typing in and HWMonitor up, my temps are at 48-60, with Core 1 always being the highest.

I've spoke with the Digital Storm tech guys (good group of dudes) and am waiting to hear back since the last thing they recommended I try didn't do the trick. They've had me un/reinstall AI Suite and run the Fan Xpert software, tried setting the Fan Speed Profile in the BIOS to silent, and even updated the BIOS, none of which has seemed to do anything significant.

Immediately before all this started, I hadn't done anything to my system that I feel would warrant changes like this, e.g. system updates, install new hardware or software, etc.

I have no ideas, and it seemed like they were a bit stuck too. Hoping to get a different diagnosis or treatment. Please let me know if I can provide any other info that might help.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Sgt_Anarchy]

The first core is always going to be the most used (a.k.a. the hottest) because most applications are single threaded, but how different is the first core's temps than the others? You might want to try reapplying some good quality thermal paste to the CPU. You've said that even when simply opening a web browser causes temps to rise over 50C, which isn't good. I'd recommend opening task manager to see what is consuming the most power, and also looking in the Performance Tab and linking a picture for us to see. Also, what temperature is your GPU at in these situations? A hot GPU can cause the entire machine to overheat. Your idle temps are pretty normal, and temps over 70C while gaming isn't very concerning. IF these temps reach 80C, then it is time to make some changes. However, as you've said, these new temperatures are a fairly new occurrence, so could you tell me what they were previous to this new spike in temperature? I'm also curious to know what your Windows Power Settings are as well.

 

[Jaexyn]

I'll try to address the parts of your reply in the order you asked them. Thanks for the info on the cores by the way. The difference between core 1 and the rest is around 2-7 degrees. I can certainly reapply some thermal paste as that would be an easy thing to try.

In Task Manager at the moment, Firefox is the biggest CPU hog but only at ~8-9%. Next highest would be the Desktop Window Manager itself or HWMonitor at ~1%. Here is the link for the pics of the Process and Performance tabs.

My GPU temps in the situations where the fans kick on high sit around 74. Here is a HWM shot from the exact moment the fans start to run hard.

I knew I was going to get asked when the temps were at before the fans started to run hard, but since I never had any issues before this, I never paid any attention or ran any monitoring software. Sadly, I don't have a baseline to compare these temps against.

As for the Windows Power Settings, it's on the Balanced setting right now. I've never messed with that before so it's where it's been since I got the PC.

Thank you for your questions and I hope what I've provided helps. I'm out for the night but I'll be checking back in the morning.