Thermal Paste for CPU and GPU

UrBaN963 said:
I believe what you've circled is the CPU socket itself - the CPU seems to have maxed out at 60.1. Still very close to max but not quite there. Also, hitting MAX shouldn't cause an instant crash, but you are running very close to the edge. Fresh thermal paste may help with that.

As for the GPU, the hot spot temp is high but your average temps are okay. It is hitting it's thermal limit though, so definitely needs to be addressed. I'd use something like MSI afterburner to adjust the fan curve, make it a bit more aggressive to get some extra cooling sooner.
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How do you know that the GPU is hitting the limit? Is it because the hotspot temp is higher than 79.5c?

Did another quick test. Not too hectic is seems as the CPU didn't go up too high. But the GPU went up again. However it looks like the GPU is limited because of voltage limit. Would that be a problem?

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CPU temp and GPU temp are hitting highs, I mean my 3070ti only hits 80 playing God of War at ultra + 1440p on a rather warm day outside, the reason the performance limit is being reached if because of temp, it's throttling to stop the card from popping.
What case do you have? How many fans? Their configuration blower, pusher?
 
Lupus said:
CPU temp and GPU temp are hitting highs, I mean my 3070ti only hits 80 playing God of War at ultra + 1440p on a rather warm day outside, the reason the performance limit is being reached if because of temp, it's throttling to stop the card from popping.
What case do you have? How many fans? Their configuration blower, pusher?
Click to expand...

Here's the current system:

- AMD FX-8350
- EVGA Superclocked GTX970
- Team TLBD38G1600HC9DC01 Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1600MHz DDR3 CL 9 240 1.5v Desktop Memory
- Kingston ValueRam DDR3 1600 - 8GB DIMM
- ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 AMD 970/SB950 Socket AM3+ ATX Desktop Motherboard
- WD Blue 500GB SATA3 NAND SSD
- Super Flower SF-750F14MG Leadex 750W 80 Plus Gold Certified Fully Modular Desktop Power Supply
- COOLER MASTER CM690 III (has two case fans. front and rear. front sucks in air and rear pushes out air)
- LITE-ON 24X SATA

Originally built in Jan 2014:
- AMD FX-8350
- ASUS-HD7870-2GB- DDR5 (two in Crossfire) (traded them both for the GTX970 above about a year later in 2015. I needed a GPU that also worked in windowed mode. Crossfire didn't.)
- Team TLBD38G1600HC9DC01 Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1600MHz DDR3 CL 9 240 1.5v Desktop Memory (needed more RAM by 2019 so added the 8GB stick. I know not in dual channel but it's fine for me)
- ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 AMD 970/SB950 Socket AM3+ ATX Desktop Motherboard
- SEAGATE BARRACUDA - 2TB (added the 500GB SSD in 2019. This 2TB drive also failed around 2020 so I took it out of the system)
- CORSAIR VS650 - 650W (This power supply started giving issues in 2015 about a year later so replaced with the 750W Super Flower)
- COOLER MASTER CM690 III (has two case fans. front and rear. front sucks in air and rear pushes out air)
- LITE-ON 24X SATA

So not much has changed since 2014/2015. Just added RAM and an SSD in 2019 and took out the HDD.
 
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My son is using an old CM690 and it actually has amazing air flow, but he's is equipped with 1 front, 1 rear, 2 top and 1 side, it keeps the 2060 super in there at a decent 70, whereas on my Phantek it was hitting 80.
You said there was dust? Did you give it a through cleaning? As removing the cooler on GPU's aren't easy, the CPU is. Though it could be time for an upgrade? That machine wouldn't really be able to play much anymore.
 
Lupus said:
My son is using an old CM690 and it actually has amazing air flow, but he's is equipped with 1 front, 1 rear, 2 top and 1 side, it keeps the 2060 super in there at a decent 70, whereas on my Phantek it was hitting 80.
You said there was dust? Did you give it a through cleaning? As removing the cooler on GPU's aren't easy, the CPU is. Though it could be time for an upgrade? That machine wouldn't really be able to play much anymore.
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I mostly play older games. There's still so much stuff I haven't played so the power is fine for now.

As for the dust, I just open it up and use the vacuum cleaner in reverse to blow out any dust. So not super strong blowing power. There's hardly any dust but it seems to help so I do it if the PC starts crashing more than once in a day. Usually like once a month this year. I have never removed the CPU heatsink (since 2014/2015 when first building the PC).

The GPU heatsink looks easy enough to remove based on this video. Saw this before considering redoing the thermal paste on the GPU as well.

 
Forum Reader said:
Ihave never removed the CPU heatsink (since 2014/2015 when first building the PC).
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Paste is gonna be rock hard after that long.

Clean all the dust out, you can run the heatsinks under a hot tap + soap and water, dry properly. Repaste the CPU & GPU, you should see a noticeable improvement in temps.
 
Could also be the CPU fan bearing that is a bit dry so it doesn't spin fast enough but once the grease warms up it spins faster then it keeps cool enough not to shutdown.
 
The_Ogre said:
This is a SO-DIMM...
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Ah yeah, I posted the wrong one. Should be this. Will edit:

Kingston ValueRam Memory DDR3-1600 - 8GB DIMM​


I remember it being hard to find a single stick of DDR3 RAM around the end of 2019. Initially placed an order but realized it was a SO-DIMM before paying and cancelled. Got the Kingston on Takealot.
 
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I use this paste:-Cooler Master MGY-ZOSG-N15M-R2 MasterGel Pro High Performance Thermal Paste

www.wootware.co.za

Cooler Master MGY-ZOSG-N15M-R2 MasterGel Pro High Performance Thermal Paste

Buy Cooler Master MGY-ZOSG-N15M-R2 MasterGel Pro High Performance Thermal Paste at Wootware with fast shipping & superb service.
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Forum Reader said:
Ah yeah, I posted the wrong one. Should be this. Will edit:

Kingston ValueRam Memory DDR3-1600 - 8GB DIMM​


I remember it being hard to find a single stick of DDR3 RAM around the end of 2019. Initially placed an order but realized it was a SO-DIMM before paying and cancelled. Got the Kingston on Takealot.
Click to expand...
Speaking of memory. have you run Memtest yet?

My gut feeling here is that it's your PSU
 
Got the paste and alcohol but my PC hasn't crashed again for about two weeks. The last time it happened, I opened it up and applied a bit of pressure to the CPU and GPU heatsink so that it pressed into the old paste.

Will wait for it to start crashing again before redoing the 8yr old paste.
 
An update on this. I redid the thermal paste on the CPU which dropped the temp by about 5c on average. The old paste was like pieces of cement.

This wasn't causing the crashing though as I still had crashing afterwards. So I installed MSI afterburner and checked the GPU. Noticed that the fan speed doesn't go up much so I tested what 40% fan speed sounds like. It sounded louder than I can remember in recent history. For some reason, the default fan profile didn't increase the GPU fan speed much, even though the GPU was reaching max temps and crashing the PC. This issue started when I installed Windows 10 about a year ago and got worse over time so maybe that had something to do with it. Seems like the GPU fan didn't ramp up in any way and only did so enough to stop crashes after the PC crashed the first time for the day.

So I set my own fan profile, 10% min and then slowing going from 40% to 100% from 40c to 80c. Now the GPU temp doesn't even go above 64c (in todays JHB heat) and no more crashing. Didn't redo the GPU thermal paste as seems like it's still good.
 
Think I found the real source of the heating issues. Took off my case front panel to check if the intake 200mm fan was spinning. It's not spinning! Connected it to another 3pin slot on the motherboard but it still doesn't work. Maybe the fan is just broken?

It's the COOLER MASTER CM690 III front panel 200mm fan. I don't see it in BIOS too. Just the CPU fan and the rear exhaust fan is listed.

Edit: So I just tested the front panel fan in a 3 pin slot that I know works. It's still not working. The rear panel fan does work in the other 3 pin motherboard slots (which the front panel fan does not work in). So either the front panel fan has broken or the fan cable is broken. Not sure what could have caused it as it still looks fine and spins freely.

Edit2: I'm going to put in 4 new case fans. 2 to replace the front panel one and 2 more for the top exhaust. That should be enough. Could also do the side panel but the side doesn't have an air filter.
 
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I removed the hard drive cages as they seemed to be blocking airflow from the front. So have two 120mm fans blowing in air from the front and two blowing out air at the top. Plus the standard one blowing out at the back.

I also redid the thermal paste on the CPU as I didn't screw it on properly. So took off and washed the heatsink then redid it properly. CPU temps now rarely go above 40c whilst gaming and max I've ever seen is about 48c. So I actually decided to overclock it a bit and it's working fine for a few days. Running with a boost clock of 4.6Ghz from the 4.0Ghz stock. This gets me about 20% better fps in Elden Ring. Max temp I've seen after the overclock was 52c so maybe it can go even higher.

Edit: Max it can go is 4.8Ghz it seems. Will leave it at there and game to check for issues. System failed to boot into windows at 5.0Ghz. Temps are still good at 4.8Ghz. Reached only 44c in Elden Ring.
 
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