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PC temps keep shooting up to over 100C in around ten minutes, even though I reapplied thermal paste twice and resat the heat sink thrice. It has reached a high of 110C as of this point. CPU usage is at 5% and below.
These temps are according to HWMonitor, though it was legitimately hot when I checked it the first time. As the fan is running right now it's just warm despite the absurd temps.
Is this the time to buy a new CPU cooler, or can the problem be lying elsewhere?
Extra probably unnecessary info:
When the crash first happened I was running youtube, visual studio, UE4, and MS Word. Right now I'm running just Chrome and an idle VS and temps are at around 106C.
Specs:
- CPU: AMD Phenom X4 9550
- Fan: Stock fan
- Paste: Ceramique 2 (I've overheated once around a year or so ago--this worked fine)
idlackage
Posted 2015-12-08T00:38:55.480
Reputation: 165
what cooler are you using and what CPU? Is it a 3rd party cooler or the stock head sink + fan? – Mike Diglio – 2015-12-08T01:00:26.267
How much paste are you using? Too much paste can cause thermal problems too. First clean off the heatsink and chip with alcohol swabs and let it dry before applying the paste. I always use a straight edge from a store discount card or better yet a razor blade and get a very thin but well covered amount on the chip. – Eddie Dunn – 2015-12-08T01:06:19.643
@EddieDunn I'm using a normal amount of paste--when I took off the fan I could see that it was spread in a thin layer and covering 99%. Always heard that one isn't supposed to be manually spreading the paste though. Is that a myth? – idlackage – 2015-12-08T01:14:25.620
I have never had a problem and really good results using a straight edge and that method. I have gotten GPU cards to run 7-10C cooler just by taking them apart and re-applying a small amount but in a thin and dense layer all over the chip. Takes a little practice. I just start from one corner and work across or in the middle and spread out. – Eddie Dunn – 2015-12-08T01:18:58.903
Just spitballing - can you try to rotate the heatsink 90 degrees? Some retention clips for heatsinks/fans don't sit right on the CPU if they are oriented differently than normal.
You may have to rotate the bracket in order to try this but see if you can just do the heatsink first. – Junkiebev – 2015-12-08T01:49:50.023
Interesting. Unforunately there's a bunch of wires connected to the motherboard that are somehow unremovably hooked around the heatsink such that its length allows me to orient it in only one way, but just out of curiosity, would rotating it achieve better results due to clip position, or is this just in case I had set it down wrong to begin with? – idlackage – 2015-12-08T02:27:00.323