Question CPU idling at 60C

Kpolla

Junior Member
Jun 22, 2022
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Hello! I’ve had my pc for about 2 years (end of 2020 and for some reason my cpu seems to be idling at rather hot temps. It fluctuates between 60c and about 64c very rarely dropping to below 60c. I’ve tried dusting the case and fans and even replacing the cpu fan (with an aftermarket fan) and thermal paste. Could it be because my room is on the hotter side or could there possibly be something else causing the high temps? I’ll list some important specs below!! Thank you so much for your help!!

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3rd Gen - RYZEN 5 3600
Fan: Cooler Master A71C ARGB
 

Thunder 57

Platinum Member
Aug 19, 2007
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That seems high. Has it always been that way? Are you sure you have good contact with the heatsink? Did you use too much thermal paste?
 
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IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
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-You need the right amount of thermal paste. Too much and it'll heat up. Too little, and the same thing.
-Check if the CPU is idling at low clocks. If it idles at high clocks, there you go.
-Proper contact with the heatsink is also important as @Thunder 57 says.

The three above are the most important things. The rest like cooler types and thermal paste quality are minor differences you address after the major ones are fixed.

I had a GPU that didn't have the fan so I had a Noctua 120mm fan over it. It was running at more than 80C. It had way too much so I cleaned it off and reapplied it. The temp differences were drastic. The paste wasn't dry or anything. 20C+ drop. No fan was almost as cool as fan before. With the fan it dropped to 60C.

I've seen a few too much paste application. I don't know what's the logic but some videos and people advise you can't have too much. Au contraire, you can. The point of thermal paste is to make up for the irregularities in contact between the two surfaces, so the amount is lot less than most think. The advice about pea-sized drop is very relevant. GPUs you need to be somewhat larger and maybe some spreading is required. We're not painting here!
 
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UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
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PBO / CPU "enhancements" enabled in the BIOS, causing the CPU to run hot?

Many motherboards have some kind of CPU boost enabled by default to squeeze out the maximum performance, at the expense of power and heat.
 
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DAPUNISHER

Super Moderator CPU Forum Mod and Elite Member
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Could it be because my room is on the hotter side or could there possibly be something else causing the high temps?
Absolutely. If it is 80F+ in your room, and the UEFI is on defaults with PBO enabled, 60c idle is believable. For example: Your board may be giving more than the standard 88W package power to the CPU right now. And that Coolermaster doesn't look like much of a step up from the wraith stealth.

I would start by disabling PBO in the UEFI and setting a more aggressive fan curve.

The advice about malware and background processes is good too. And even changing your windows power plan to best efficiency might help.
 

Thunder 57

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Aug 19, 2007
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You may be on to something.

This is a fully addressable RBG cooler, very pretty with a motherboard that has 5V 3plug aRGB functionality. It is also very low profile.

That's the end of "say something nice". As a cooler, my temps went up about 10*C without load, almost 20* under full load such as was Prime95 testing I did. It let my Ryzen 3600 get up 92* or higher (That was just the max during a single screen shot of temps I recorded). No way should this be used for anything modern, and even oldies probably not so good.

What is the cause? CAUSES, plural. First, the contact while copper will contact 50% or less of a CPU die. Second, this thing is light, it has almost no metal on it to absorb the heat of a CPU. Lastly, it's got a crappy little fan, intended to be quiet but also limits air flow to something I'd use one an old Pentium III, not a multi-core modern CPU.

Avoid it. Let Cooler Master know that while they can make a good product, they can also make some useless junk that should only be thrown away, or returned if you haven't yet used it.
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I bought this to add some RGB to my ryzen 3600 build, it actually performs 3 - 5 c worse than the wraith stealth that was included with my processor.

I returned this and picked up the higher end wraith prism for a few bucks more than this on ebay and it's much better than both of them.

You can get tower style RGB coolers too but I didn't have room for one in my small case plus I like seeing the whole fan in the case if your going for the RGB look
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Didn't end up using this as the freaking heat sink doesn't even cover the whole CPU. The outer 20ish percent of the Ryzen chip isn't covered and is just open air. Yeah the majority of heat is generated from the center of the chip but no way in hell am I going to use this, leaving a chunk of the CPU with only passive air cooling.

I wish I could give this 0 stars. I couldn't figure out why my CPU temps were spiking in the 75-80* range. So I decided to install the stock cooler, which I wisely saved, just in case. My temps dropped 10*. When I pulled the Cooler Master cooler off the CPU, there was only thermal paste in a circle in the middle of the CPU. The addressable RGB cable was too short. This is a terrible CPU.
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