My cpu has a temperature issue

Raspharus · January 29, 2016

Hello guys! I've been having this issue with my processor since quite some time. I have an AMD athlon II x4 740 processor, and it runs quite hot. Too hot actually. I know that generally CPU's have a max temperature where they can still operate, and mine seems to be achieving it quite a lot, especially when gaming. And this is quite unfortunate because my pc ends up restarting itself due to overheating. Now, I have taken into consideration the possibility of a faulty PSU, but it doesn't quite add up. My psu is pretty new(bought it 3 months ago). Moreover, restarts don't happen randomly, but only when gaming. I think that if the PSU would've been faulty restarts would just happen randomly regardless if I am doing CPU intensive tasks(like rendering or gaming)

Now more onto the actual issue. I used to have a stock cooler until like 6 months ago. One day I wanted to check my temperatures, without any reason. Now I have to say that before that I've never checked the temps on my CPU since I bought it. And the temperatures were quite bad. I was idling at 72 degrees C, and when I was running games, it went up to 94 C. And that's on a non overclocked CPU. Now my common sense told me that something is not right. I thought it was the thermal paste, so I changed it. But even so the CPU was still running too hot. The temps only dropped by about 5 degrees.

The next logical step would've been implying that the cooler is the problem here. It was a stock cooler after all so how good could it be? So I bought a new one an Arctic Freezer 7 pro rev.2. Now with an aftermarket cooler I thought that my temps are gonna decrease. I even read multiple reviews, and all CPU's performed relatively well using it, hitting normal temps. After I installed it however, my temps did decrease but not by a lot. Now I am idling at 50 degrees C, going up to 74 when gaming. Which is still too high. I mean my computer still restarts from time to time due to overheating. I checked the other temps, and they are all fine(40 degrees max on my gpu). I also have pretty good airflow into my case(2 intake 120mm fans and 2 exhaust 120mm fans), so I don't think that airflow is an issue. Heck I don't think that even the cooler itself is an issue, because apparently it worked good for other buyers. Could it be a faulty CPU? Or maybe another issue?

I do plan to change this CPU, but that will be only this summer. Maybe you guys can help me out, or maybe at least shed some light onto this issue.

GeorgeKellow · January 29, 2016

Try put some fresh thermal paste on, and some good quality one at that, further more check if your cooler is mounted correctly and make sure it has an even seal. If all that doesn't work I personally would say you've got a faulty CPU

JimboJambo · January 29, 2016

My buddy has similiar problem with amd a10-6700, at max temps while gaming it can get around 90 degrees and the stuttering is horrible even though he has a gtx 950. We tried putting on new thermalpaste but it did not help just like in your case. He is getting a new cpu in near future though.