Weird Temp Readings

BloopBucket · September 11, 2017

(CPU: i7-6700HQ, GPU: GTX 1060) So a while ago I made a post regarding the strangely high temps of my laptop when doing any task. Just to see if it'd work I reapplied the thermal paste, and got some weird results. Originally while idle both the CPU and GPU were sitting at ~50C, after reapplying the paste they dropped to ~40C. I figured this meant that I was successful in reducing the temperature until I fired up a game. Originally when playing Overwatch the temps for CPU+GPU started at 70C each and slowly climbed from there. A few times after about an hour of gameplay my GPU would hit ~90C and then my computer would freeze, forcing me to shutdown. Now, after the change, it took about 5 minutes for my GPU to climb to 80C and my CPU to 90C. At first it seemed that this entire experience was a complete failure (despite temps actually being better when idle) until I left it running for a while longer. While before the temperature would steadily climb, now after those first 5 minutes the temps basically flatlined. My GPU stayed at 80C and had a maximum range of 78-81C while I had the game running, even half an hour later. The CPU was a similar story. Later I tried R6:S and everything remained the same, except this time the CPU was reading 98C with a range of something like 96-100C (keep in mind 100C is supposed to be the most it can handle). I thought that this was incredibly concerning until I noticed yet one more layer to this mystery. The top of my laptop is made of aluminum, so it conducts heat well, and when it froze due to overheating in the past I very nearly burned myself trying to turn it off. This time, however, even though the CPU was supposedly 100C my laptop was only pleasantly warm to the touch. Is it reading these temperatures incorrectly? If it is, why is it reading temperatures lower than before when idle? How could changing the thermal paste do something like this? While I didn't actually check the clock speeds of either GPU or CPU I didn't get a lower framerate than normal, so I have to assume that they were more or less the same. Note: the maximum loads for CPU + GPU were 93 and 100% respectively.

dj_ripcord · September 11, 2017

How much paste did you apply? And are you 100% sure you fastened down the heatpipes correctly? You may find that even if there's a few thousandths of an inch between your heatsinks and the CPU or GPU that heat can still be conducted. Not much, but enough to describe the problems you're experiencing. When you replace the paste, only use very little. Especially for laptops. A good amount of paste should be about the size of a pea. Maybe even smaller for laptop chips.

I had a similar issue with my desktop PC when my water block's paste evaporated from the chip. The cooler wasn't actually making contact with the CPU, but the temps were only marginally high.

BloopBucket · September 11, 2017

4 hours ago, dj_ripcord said:

How much paste did you apply? And are you 100% sure you fastened down the heatpipes correctly? You may find that even if there's a few thousandths of an inch between your heatsinks and the CPU or GPU that heat can still be conducted. Not much, but enough to describe the problems you're experiencing. When you replace the paste, only use very little. Especially for laptops. A good amount of paste should be about the size of a pea. Maybe even smaller for laptop chips.

I had a similar issue with my desktop PC when my water block's paste evaporated from the chip. The cooler wasn't actually making contact with the CPU, but the temps were only marginally high.

I used as little paste as possible while still being able to properly coat the heatsink's surface (used card to spread it evenly across whole surface before sticking it back on) and I'm pretty sure I actually made it a little tighter than before (to the point I was almost concerned for the safety of the board). Far as I can tell neither the amount of paste used nor how tightly the heatpipes were fastened should be an issue though if this persists I may as well reapply the paste again, see what happens.

dj_ripcord · September 11, 2017

18 minutes ago, BloopBucket said:

(used card to spread it evenly across whole surface before sticking it back on)

Spreading the paste is not necessary. And it's possible this may be your issue.

When you put new thermal paste on, you should just place the pea sized dot on the chip, and then place your heatsinks on. They will spread out the paste on their own as you screw them in. You should also fasten them down in a star pattern to prevent uneven pressure on the chip.