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Just realized thermal paste isn't always the fix for high CPU temps
Last week I was sweating over a client's Ryzen 5 that kept hitting 95°C under load. I been doing this 10 years so I knew all the usual stuff - repaste, check cooler mount, make sure fans are spinning. Did all that. No change. Then I noticed the BIOS was set to some aggressive overclock profile the client's kid must have turned on. Reset it to default and temps dropped 20 degrees. Saved me from pulling the cooler again. Anyone else fall for the paste trap when it's really a software setting?
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ellis.robert1mo ago
Did you catch that Gamers Nexus video from a few months back where they tested a bunch of high end coolers and found almost half the performance loss was from motherboard auto overclock settings? I had a similar issue with an Intel build last year where the board was pushing 1.4 volts on default because of some "gaming" profile. Spent two days swapping coolers and paste before I just reset the CMOS. These boards ship with such weird defaults now, it makes you wonder if they're selling paste companies stock or something.
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casey3931mo ago
Oh man, that video is EXACTLY what I've been screaming about. I built a new rig last month and the board was pushing 1.45 volts out of the box on some "auto" setting. Like, come on, that's just lazy engineering right there. It's honestly ridiculous how these manufacturers ship stuff tuned for benchmark scores instead of real world use. Makes you wonder if they even test their defaults on air cooling anymore.
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