Cpu Overheats Much More when Running Programs

[belthagor]

Alright everyone I will try to keep this short. Last night I was multi-clienting flyff, which is a game. I also made a video prior to the problem, which you can see here:

Anyway. I went afk later on and to my surpise, when turning my monitor on by moving the mouse around: It had gone on standby. No Display Showed. So I pulled the plug, restarted my computer, and the resolution was basic, the way it appears in safe mode, but the computer was booting into normal mode. I went in Control panel>Display>Screen Resolution, and attempted to raise it back to 1900x1200 which is my maximum. Instead of that displaying as the max available option: the second highest available was 1920x1080, and the highest somewhere around 2150x1080 (Which is much higher than my maximum screen resolution available.) Out of... curiosity... I selected the highest option available, temporarily, the screen displayed only on part of the monitor: like so: https://imgur.com/a/c2iyLPJ Anyway I then changed it to 1900x1080, got the message about it being a not-optimal reso, and ran flyff again, one window this time, followed by a crash after a minute. Uopn rebooting, my screen resolution was back to normal 1900x1200 in the Control Panel options. I ran Speccy and realized part of the problem is that when an Intel CPU reaches 100 degrees it shuts itself off, it has a chip to do that. Speccy showed me idle temps at 54 degrees, but after a while of me being afk, idle with no programs running, it went down to 33 degrees on the cpu.

 

Now. Some friends have been telling me "clean the fan" or "replace thermal paste" but I think, although it is definitely a hardware problem which is cpu overheating within one second from 50 degrees to 100 degrees (I ran flyff window mode with speccy open and closed it before a crash to verify.) It may be caused by a software problem? Is that possible? Because the Flyff windows went horizontally past the edge of my screen size so it may have had a bug to use more resources than usual? I may be totally wrong, of course. I cleaned the fan and same thing.

• Windows 7 64 bit
• https://imgur.com/a/7GcAehx
• https://imgur.com/a/3Zraigy
• Flyff, and then control panel.
• Absolutely no error messages, but some errors in parameters of display (Screen Resolution)

[MartinKweh]

id say just repaste it and clean the system and see it from there or try to increase the mounting pressure of the cooler if you think the contact is not good enough.

[belthagor]

Just now, MartinKweh said:

id say just repaste it and clean the system and see it from there or try to increase the mounting pressure of the cooler if you think the contact is not good enough.

The only problem is that I have never done this before... where would I buy thermal paste?

[SpaceGhostC2C]

Which CPU cooler are you using?

[MartinKweh]

8 minutes ago, belthagor said:

The only problem is that I have never done this before... where would I buy thermal paste?

where do you live? buying stuff online usually solves stuff easily (Not now in my country though since lock down happened)

[belthagor]

4 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Which CPU cooler are you using?

I'm not 100% sure how to find out but... the original the computer came with... Thinkserver TS140

[belthagor]

Just now, MartinKweh said:

where do you live? buying stuff online usually solves stuff easily (Not now in my country though since lock down happened)

New York State

[MartinKweh]

Just now, belthagor said:

New York State

wait. arent you in lockdown too? if you can purchase stuff online, then do it. other wise, you have no other choice but to wait this pandemic out.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

10 minutes ago, belthagor said:

I'm not 100% sure how to find out but... the original the computer came with... Thinkserver TS140

If you never opened the chassis to clean it up, it could be an issue with dust buildup in the air intake area, and also a dried-up thermal paste problem at the CPU cooler. It's a quite old computer after all.

Your safest bet is to start with a visual inspection of the inside. Unplug everything, flip the power switch of the PSU (if present, at the back) off, and open the chassis to check ut. If uncomfortable or unexperienced with opening computers, google "Thinkserver TS140 service manual" or "Thinkserver TS140 disassembly" for more precise instructions on how to do it.

 

Edit: it looks like a standard case. Removing the "left side panel" (left side if you're looking at the computer from the front) should be enough to see something like this:

Spoiler

The small fan at the center is your CPU cooler, its thermal paste may be dry. Main air intake is in front of the 3.5'' drive area. To get a clear view of that you may need to further remove the front panel, but  just to get an idea on whether it may be clogged by dust you may not need to.

[belthagor]

17 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

If you never opened the chassis to clean it up, it could be an issue with dust buildup in the air intake area, and also a dried-up thermal paste problem at the CPU cooler. It's a quite old computer after all.

Your safest bet is to start with a visual inspection of the inside. Unplug everything, flip the power switch of the PSU (if present, at the back) off, and open the chassis to check ut. If uncomfortable or unexperienced with opening computers, google "Thinkserver TS140 service manual" or "Thinkserver TS140 disassembly" for more precise instructions on how to do it.

 

Edit: it looks like a standard case. Removing the "left side panel" (left side if you're looking at the computer from the front) should be enough to see something like this:

  Reveal hidden contents

The small fan at the center is your CPU cooler, its thermal paste may be dry. Main air intake is in front of the 3.5'' drive area. To get a clear view of that you may need to further remove the front panel, but  just to get an idea on whether it may be clogged by dust you may not need to.

I looked on youtube and thermal paste is supposed to be applied directly to the cpu chip, then the fan is put back on?

[belthagor]

27 minutes ago, MartinKweh said:

wait. arent you in lockdown too? if you can purchase stuff online, then do it. other wise, you have no other choice but to wait this pandemic out.

The thing is, and this is kind of off topic, if were all going to be working, or studying online, then computer stores would logically remain open as an essential business. It would be counter-productive to do otherwise. Of course I may be totally wrong and they may be closed. (Am I wrong?) I can easily go outside with a mask and social distancing in order to solve a computer problem, which allows me to continue studying online, no matter how many people grind their teeth at me doing so in my State.

[MartinKweh]

1 minute ago, belthagor said:

The thing is, and this is kind of off topic, if were all going to be working, or studying online, then computer stores would logically remain open as an essential business. It would be counter-productive to do otherwise. Of course I may be totally wrong and they may be closed. (Am I wrong?) I can easily go outside with a mask and social distancing in order to solve a computer problem, which allows me to continue studying online, no matter how many people grind their teeth at me doing so in my State.

you could try to do so but be extra cautious. Your state is one of the hardest hit in this time. Like i said, if you could do it, just purchase it online. its far safer.

 

6 minutes ago, belthagor said:

I looked on youtube and thermal paste is supposed to be applied directly to the cpu chip, then the fan is put back on?

yep. dont do it if you dont have a thermal paste on hand as it will make your problem worse.

[belthagor]

**Update** (Without running any cpu intensive programs, such as a game or Autocad,) I left my computer idle, the screen went off, monitor power button blinking, to show monitor is idle, I tried to turn it back on later by moving the mouse rapidly, and pressing keys on the keyboard, but nothing happens. The monitor does not show any light or even a lit (digital) dark color screen, the screen appears black as if the monitor is turned off through the button. I pressed the power button (for the computer, not the monitor, sorry should have specified) to turn it off, turned it back on, and it is working, but each time I go idle and screen shuts off I am unable to use it.

 

edit: Opened Speccy: Cpu upon pressing power button and turning it back on at 37 degrees. I don't think it had reached 100 degrees and before I turned it off just now.

 

I think it's going into a sort of non-wakeable hibernation due to problems.

[belthagor]

***Update Number 2***

 

I tried running a Flyff client on another server, a Private Server, and my apologizes if mentioning P. servers is not allowed for some reason. My cpu is only 2 degrees higher than it was on idle. Whatever the reason for the cpu instantly heating from 33 degrees to 100 degrees when running Flyff on the official server is, it is linked to either the server or some kind of setting I am not familiar with when the game client opens, which was activated from me multi-clienting. The patcher itself, before loading the client, does not affect my cpu much. It is clear that this is a very specific problem, and I look forward to your input on it. The private server client is using about the same amount of my cpu as the official game client uses. 20% compared to 25 on official, but it's not overheating. What could be the problem??

[belthagor]

****Update number three**** my cpu temp had jumped up to 50 degrees again. I immediately opened task manager, and saw the cpu usage is way more than 20%, from Flyff only 20%, but from other programs 50% total. So I closed flyff private server. It is jumping 0%, then 50%, between different programs, the highest spiked being on firefox 49% usage. I think my cpu was overheating not so much because of dust, or thermal paste, but simply because of some kind of massive cpu drain from something. I virus-scanned and no viruses found.

[belthagor]

*****Update number four, final update*****

 

I closed everything except my antivirus, it's solid and never uses much cpu. I opened task manager, and speccy, and quickly opened and closed flyff official server while looking at the processes in task manager. Flyff client, not-logged-in-yet was only using 1% cpu, but another process, linked to the client called gamemon.des, not 100% sure of exact name, was using 49%, and overheating it, I end tasked it and temps went from 100 degrees back to 50, and then slowly to 37. This is the process that is mostly responsible for overheating, not the flyff client. Firefox, when taking up 49% of cpu also overheats, but only by 10 degrees. Something is wrong with this process, and reinstalling flyff did not help solve it.