6700k - 85% load @ 80C

[tgrmst]

Hi all,

 

I have been playing Cities: Skylines and as some of you might know, it is a CPU heavy game.

Just checked out it recently and the game itself takes up 80-85% of the CPU load, and CPU temp is at 75-80C peak.

I don't overclocked, so it is sitting at 4.2Ghz and I have a Noctua D15 cooler.

GPU is about 60-65C, so that is ok here.

 

I know 80C is 'safe', but I find it to be pretty high. I will try to clean the dust out soon, but does anyone else have any additional thoughts/suggestions?

[ProjectBox153]

Have you put fresh thermal compound on it?

[tgrmst]

Just now, Jamiec1130 said:

Have you put fresh thermal compound on it?

The thermal compound I used was from the Noctua cooler. It was built over a year ago... so it was fresh back then. I didn't remove the compound or cooler since.

[Light-Yagami]

The thermal compound sucks balls.. I have it OCed to 4.8ghz and it doesn't run nearly as hot. You should get yourself a quality TP. You'll see upwards of 20C improvement.

[tgrmst]

15 minutes ago, Light-Yagami said:

The thermal compound sucks balls.. I have it OCed to 4.8ghz and it doesn't run nearly as hot. You should get yourself a quality TP. You'll see upwards of 20C improvement.

Noctua's thermal paste sucks? This is news to me...

[Light-Yagami]

10 minutes ago, tgrmst said:

Noctua's thermal paste sucks? This is news to me...

I understood the thermal paste came pre-applied on the cooler? if not, it's a solid TP, and there are a few other options for why the CPU is running so hot.

Maybe the contact beetween the D15 and CPU is bad. Maybe the contact is good, but there is too much thermal paste? Maybe there is too little. Maybe for some reason MB pushes too much voltage through the CPU? 6700k uses insanely low vcore for stock speeds.. below 1.2v.. It should never past 65C on this cooler.. Maybe the fan isn't spinning? 

 

How far did you manage to diagnose the problem? It's much easier for you to look than it is for me to just make educated guesses..

[tgrmst]

1 minute ago, Light-Yagami said:

I understood the thermal paste came pre-applied on the cooler? if not, it's a solid TP, and there are a few other options for why the CPU is running so hot.

Maybe the contact beetween the D15 and CPU is bad. Maybe the contact is good, but there is too much thermal paste? Maybe there is too little. Maybe for some reason MB pushes too much voltage through the CPU? 6700k uses insanely low vcore for stock speeds.. below 1.2v.. It should never past 65C on this cooler.. Maybe the fan isn't spinning? 

 

How far did you manage to diagnose the problem? It's much easier for you to look than it is for me to just make educated guesses..

Sorry. I did not imply it was pre-applied. Came in the same tube you can buy (5 stars on Newegg). Not much troubleshooting, still need to dust and open to see if the fans are flowing. Just try to get some more thoughts and ideas before I go tackle it in a few hours. I also wanted to see if anyone have this issue with Cities Skylines, and that this is common. Since if it is common, then I shouldn't worry too much.

 

Other games/activities never push it over mid 60C so that's why I'm wondering if it is just going bad or the game specific...

 

Idle is about mid 30s C.

[Light-Yagami]

4 minutes ago, tgrmst said:

Sorry. I did not imply it was pre-applied. Came in the same tube you can buy (5 stars on Newegg). Not much troubleshooting, still need to dust and open to see if the fans are flowing. Just try to get some more thoughts and ideas before I go tackle it in a few hours. I also wanted to see if anyone have this issue with Cities Skylines, and that this is common. Since if it is common, then I shouldn't worry too much.

 

Other games/activities never push it over mid 60C so that's why I'm wondering if it is just going bad or the game specific...

 

Idle is about mid 30s C.

The way cities skylines works it that it utilizes 3-4 cores at max, it doesn't really care about hyperthreading either. It's very badly optimized for CPUs, even though it's super CPU intensive. Gre from Science studio did a whole thing on this back in 2016. Higher clock are more important than cores in CS. So I don't see a reason why temps would be so high..

Don't let the mid 60C mark in other games deceive you. Usually games utilize between 15 and 40% of CPU, so those temps are actually quite high.. Mine (even tho water cooled) never passes 55C even on CPU demanding games. 

 

I still think it's worth checking out. Temps shoudn't be this high.. like never.

[tgrmst]

1 minute ago, Light-Yagami said:

The way cities skylines works it that it utilizes 3-4 cores at max, it doesn't really care about hyperthreading either. It's very badly optimized for CPUs, even though it's super CPU intensive. Gre from Science studio did a whole thing on this back in 2016. Higher clock are more important than cores in CS. So I don't see a reason why temps would be so high..

Don't let the mid 60C mark in other games deceive you. Usually games utilize between 15 and 40% of CPU, so those temps are actually quite high.. Mine (even tho water cooled) never passes 55C even on CPU demanding games. 

 

I still think it's worth checking out. Temps shoudn't be this high.. like never.

OK thanks. I'll report back in a few hours.

[mockedarche]

If I was you I would (IF YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE DOING SO) reapply the paste a year a is kinda fast for it to go bad but if the contact isn't perfect it could have dried out. Have you recently changed ANYTHING in your system update mobo, changed the position of your computer, or anything like that. Me personally I have my side panel off all the time I just like to see the computer (nerd) that alone makes my temps icy.

[tgrmst]

OK done a preliminary check and running the game now.

 

So the PC itself isn't that dusty. Good ole Fractal Design Define R5 filters works wonders. Barely any dust on the heatsink or fans. All cleaned now.

 

Then I noticed that the Low Noise Adapters were on all this time. Took that out and cranked up the Fan Speed in BIOS to max speed. 

 

Before: Idle 35-40C, regular games 60-65C, and Cities Skylines was 75-80C.

Now: Idle 30-35C, regular games 55C, and Cities Skylines is about 70C (ping max 74C).

 

I could do more with reapplying the thermal paste. I'm also not sure about fan setting to stay full max speed all the time... I'm worried about leaving back to normal and it still allow temps to go up to 75+C. How should I deal with the fan situation?

[tgrmst]

4 hours ago, Ohsnaps said:

If I was you I would (IF YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE DOING SO) reapply the paste a year a is kinda fast for it to go bad but if the contact isn't perfect it could have dried out. Have you recently changed ANYTHING in your system update mobo, changed the position of your computer, or anything like that. Me personally I have my side panel off all the time I just like to see the computer (nerd) that alone makes my temps icy.

The only thing I changed recently was getting a good deal on RAM and installing them, had to move the fan on the D15 off to install the RAM, but that's working fine now. And got a new SSD.

 

Although, I'll be honest that I never actually check the temps before too much, so maybe it has been 80+C all this time...

[tgrmst]

On 9/8/2017 at 8:42 PM, tgrmst said:

OK done a preliminary check and running the game now.

 

So the PC itself isn't that dusty. Good ole Fractal Design Define R5 filters works wonders. Barely any dust on the heatsink or fans. All cleaned now.

 

Then I noticed that the Low Noise Adapters were on all this time. Took that out and cranked up the Fan Speed in BIOS to max speed. 

 

Before: Idle 35-40C, regular games 60-65C, and Cities Skylines was 75-80C.

Now: Idle 30-35C, regular games 55C, and Cities Skylines is about 70C (ping max 74C).

 

I could do more with reapplying the thermal paste. I'm also not sure about fan setting to stay full max speed all the time... I'm worried about leaving back to normal and it still allow temps to go up to 75+C. How should I deal with the fan situation?

Update - I updated my BIOS from a version 8 to 21 (didn't even know there was one since I checked not too long ago). 

 

Looks like the voltages are regulated better and the temps are around 60C (max 65C) in Cities Skylines now. So I guess this is resolved for now. I will keep an eye on it still, but it looks like BIOS updates fixed it.