R5 3600 getting way too hot.

[aexel05]

I know that Zen 2 is supposes to run quite hot, but mine is even hotter than expected.

I only use the stock-cooler to cool the R5 3600 but that should be enough to at least adequately cool it. Apart from that, I installed 5 low-budget Arctic F12 PWM PST fans while migrating to a new case to ensure good airflow. 

Unfortunately, while playing Gears 5 right now Afterburner warned me about my CPU measuring 92°C although being utilized by only 36%(see picture below) . In previous AAA games I played the temperature reached about 80°C, which I think is too much already but not as bad as this time.

I even replaced the pre-applied thermal paste with some MX-4 a few weeks ago, but that didn't help either.

 

Is there anything I can do besides buying a different cooler?

I know that even investing 50€ would "solve" the situation, but I think my CPU runs too hot regardless of the stock cooler.

Right now while writing this (with Gears 5 in the background the CPU measures 91°C

[Pikatchu]

Can you download hwmonitor and check voltage? Stock 3600 with stock cooler should max out at 70C.

[jaslion]

3 minutes ago, Pikatchu said:

Can you download hwmonitor and check voltage? Stock 3600 with stock cooler should max out at 70C.

Not really. They do run quite hot.

[aexel05]

3 minutes ago, Pikatchu said:

Can you download hwmonitor and check voltage? Stock 3600 with stock cooler should max out at 70C.

Yeah that why I'm wondering too.

According to HWMonitor Voltage seams normal. I tried undervolting some time ago, but that didn't help that much. Right now its in stock settings.

[RONOTHAN##]

Have you tried replacing the thermal paste, and made sure that it covered the entire chip? IIRC AMD stock coolers come with pretty bad thermal paste, or if you did swap it out, it may have been that you didn't use enough/it didn't spread out enough. It should be somewhere in the 70s, low 80s at the most

[aexel05]

1 minute ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Have you tried replacing the thermal paste, and made sure that it covered the entire chip? IIRC AMD stock coolers come with pretty bad thermal paste, or if you did swap it out, it may have been that you didn't use enough/it didn't spread out enough. It should be somewhere in the 70s, low 80s at the most

Tried once, but I can try with some more again. 

I think I will try replacing it again.

 

When replacing the pre-applied thermal paste distaster almost happened. When getting off the stock cooler the CPU was stuck/"glued" to it (although I heated it up before) and came out if the socket. Luckily, nothing broke but that was quite frightening. I disconnected the Cooler by heating it with a hair dryer xD

[RONOTHAN##]

1 minute ago, jonahadami said:

Tried once, but I can try with some more again. 

I think I will try replacing it again.

 

When replacing the pre-applied thermal paste distaster almost happened. When getting off the stock cooler the CPU was stuck/"glued" to it (although I heated it up before) and came out if the socket. Luckily, nothing broke but that was quite frightening. I disconnected the Cooler by heating it with a hair dryer xD

It coming out isn't the problem, it's what happens when it comes off that is. A good idea is to twist while taking it off. I did have one come out once, and of course that was when the stock cooler got stuck coming out, and the pins got bent when I getting it off the latch. They did bend back, but it's not a fun experience.

[Applefreak]

1 minute ago, jonahadami said:

Tried once, but I can try with some more again. 

I think I will try replacing it again.

 

When replacing the pre-applied thermal paste distaster almost happened. When getting off the stock cooler the CPU was stuck/"glued" to it (although I heated it up before) and came out if the socket. Luckily, nothing broke but that was quite frightening. I disconnected the Cooler by heating it with a hair dryer xD

What you want to check is the fan speed / fan curve on that cooler. Also make sure you have top and rear fans exhausting. You want an equal amount of intake to exhaust to allow for quick dissipation of internal heat. The R5 3600 does not run that hot, the 5600 (Zen 3) does though. If the case airflow and ambient temperature is fine, the stock cooler should be sufficient for that processor, although any decent aftermarket cooler would do a better job. What I would check is the thermal paste application as well as the fan speed. You want to set the fan speed to max once you reach 70C on the cpu. Same goes for the case fans, once the cpu gets hot, those fans need to be maxed out as well. If you feel the fans are not pulling enough air into the case, try removing the dust filter or the entire front panel.

[aexel05]

11 minutes ago, Applefreak said:

What you want to check is the fan speed / fan curve on that cooler. Also make sure you have top and rear fans exhausting. You want an equal amount of intake to exhaust to allow for quick dissipation of internal heat. The R5 3600 does not run that hot, the 5600 (Zen 3) does though. If the case airflow and ambient temperature is fine, the stock cooler should be sufficient for that processor, although any decent aftermarket cooler would do a better job. What I would check is the thermal paste application as well as the fan speed. You want to set the fan speed to max once you reach 70C on the cpu. Same goes for the case fans, once the cpu gets hot, those fans need to be maxed out as well. If you feel the fans are not pulling enough air into the case, try removing the dust filter or the entire front panel.

I use the "performance" setting of the software for my MB (Gigabyte Smart Fan 5) which maxes out at 65°C.

2 of my 5 120mm fans sucks in air through the mech front, 1 at the back and 1 on top blow out hot air. The last one blows into my Graphics Card (which really works well). Therefore airflow should be sufficient and about equaled out.

[Pikatchu]

45 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Not really. They do run quite hot.

Really? My friends 3600 runs max 65C under stock cooler with stock settings. His case is one of those glass cases with restricted airflow too.

[jaslion]

26 minutes ago, Pikatchu said:

Really? My friends 3600 runs max 65C under stock cooler with stock settings. His case is one of those glass cases with restricted airflow too.

They do vary a fair bit.

[Tautedorus]

I had the same problem when I bought my Ryzen 5 3600 (technically still have). Unfortunately, I've tried all the things mentioned above to no avail. In the end decided to slap a beefy cooler on top of it and call it a day.

 

You can try undervolting it but I really doubt you will be able to do it without a significant performance loss (especially single-core performance) and stability issues.

[WoodenMarker]

What case are you using and what rpm are your fans running at?

[aexel05]

9 hours ago, Tautedorus said:

I had the same problem when I bought my Ryzen 5 3600 (technically still have). Unfortunately, I've tried all the things mentioned above to no avail. In the end decided to slap a beefy cooler on top of it and call it a day.

 

You can try undervolting it but I really doubt you will be able to do it without a significant performance loss (especially single-core performance) and stability issues.

I know that I could "solve" it like that but the R5 3600 shouldn't really need an aftermarket cooler. 

 

Right now I undervolted to 4GHz and 1,0 Volt. This worked best for me when I tried some time ago. "Solves" the problem, but only temperarely, as I fear performance loss just like you said.

[aexel05]

6 hours ago, WoodenMarker said:

What case are you using and what rpm are your fans running at?

The cheapest mesh front case I could get. I dont care about RGB bling-bling and dont see the point in spending lots of money for the "mointing point" of my components. 

It's an SilentiumPC SPC Signum SG1.

The fans aren't running at a specific RPM, I set up a costum fan curve for my *correction* 6 fans which definitely creates enough airflow.

[Chiyawa]

Does your case has fan mounting at the top? If you can mount your top fan as an intake, it might help you a lot with CPU temps.

[Jeppes]

90W:s for stock cooler is just too much. Just get a decent 20-30€ tower for it like Arctic Freezer 34, SilentiumPC Fera 3 etc.

 

Although if it is a new purchase, you could easily just try to oc it manually to 4.1GHz with 1.2...1.26V in Ryzen Master.

[WoodenMarker]

5 hours ago, jonahadami said:

The fans aren't running at a specific RPM, I set up a costum fan curve for my *correction* 6 fans which definitely creates enough airflow.

Have you tried seeing how temps are affected with the side panel removed?

[aexel05]

 

7 hours ago, Chiyawa said:

Does your case has fan mounting at the top? If you can mount your top fan as an intake, it might help you a lot with CPU temps.

Before I had 3 fans in front for intake, I now adjusted according to your suggestion like this.

[aexel05]

Now, after both repasting with definitely enough thermal paste and changing the fans around idle Temps seem lower. Right now its somewhere in the 50s.

 

Maybe it was really just bad pre-applied thermal paste and then too few MX-4. 

 

While playing the same mission, but not the exact same scene temps seem lower now. Looks like something worked.

[WoodenMarker]

8 hours ago, jonahadami said:

Before I had 3 fans in front for intake, I now adjusted according to your suggestion like this.

The graphics card fans intake towards the pcb. 

[Chiyawa]

8 hours ago, jonahadami said:

Before I had 3 fans in front for intake, I now adjusted according to your suggestion like this.

Oh, I see. Still, I should clarify to make all top fans as intake.

 

Anyway, because you are using down draft cooler (means the CPU fan blow downwards to the motherboard), it is highly recommended that you set the top fan at the CPU side as intake to bring more cool air in. You don't really need the top front fan (see the picture) actually.

 

 

But I guess if your CPU temperature are under control, I guess your fan configuration is working, able to cool your component off.

[aexel05]

14 hours ago, WoodenMarker said:

The graphics card fans intake towards the pcb. 

 

Of course, you are right.  The card's got an solid metal backplate, so obviously there's now air flowing directly through the card. BTW is an Gigabyte 2080 GAMING OC 8G. 

13 hours ago, Chiyawa said:

Oh, I see. Still, I should clarify to make all top fans as intake.

 

Wouldn't that result in a highly positiv air pressure?  From what I heard before about equaling out air pressure is best. But I really don't know a lot about cooling.

 

Additionally, I don't think the 3rd front fans makes that much sense in my case (pun not intended) as its blocked off by a drive cage. 

[Chiyawa]

10 hours ago, jonahadami said:

Wouldn't that result in a highly positiv air pressure?

Indeed. However, one thing that I know (after experimenting a lot of configuration) is that balance pressure and positive pressure works well in every cases I created, so it's okay to have positive pressure as this only generate a little more noise as the air is forced into the case. However, air turbulence causes the stale air to circulate, as the air that exhaust would likely to end at the intake fan, so I don't really recommend you to set intake and exhaust fan side by side. I would strongly avoid negative pressure because all your component fans will be competing for air to cool off themselves.

 

With that said, however, there are no one true way to set your fans. You really need to experiment with different configuration and adjust them to fit your scenario. I learned that many (if not most) recommend you to set your top fan as exhaust. This is true if you have a tower cooler that exhaust the hot air upwards to the top of your case, but will impact somewhat if your cpu fan exhaust to the rear. Down draft fans like the one used by stock coolers will have problem competing for air if the top and rear fan are set as exhaust.

 

So, I would like you to experiment which airflow gives you the best cooling. Oh, one tip I learned: you can set your fan to run at different RPM. For instance, I set my front intake fan to full so I can cool my GPU area. My top intake fans I set to about 35% (the lowest the fan can go), and my rear I set at maximum. I found that this configuration works best in my situation, even though it creates a high positive pressure in the case.

[aexel05]

5 hours ago, Chiyawa said:

So, I would like you to experiment which airflow gives you the best cooling. Oh, one tip I learned: you can set your fan to run at different RPM. For instance, I set my front intake fan to full so I can cool my GPU area. My top intake fans I set to about 35% (the lowest the fan can go), and my rear I set at maximum. I found that this configuration works best in my situation, even though it creates a high positive pressure in the case.

Thank you for your long and detailed answer. 

I will additionally try to adjust the fans accordingly and experiment a bit.

 

Unfortunately, due to my cheapness, I bought the cheapest AM4 B450-board with one or more m.2 slots which only has 2 fan headers. Therefore my fans are daisy chained and I cant control them individually. Not that I had demand for that before. It's a disadvantage my cheap me is willing to accept.