• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Can PCs overheat?

You underestimate the airflow potential of the Corsair 760T my good sir.

On a side note. NTM if youre still running the stock AF140 fans at the front... Fork out the cash for some white ML140 Pro's.... You WILL NOT regret it. I probably have them running at 1000rpm or just over and it moves so much more air than the AF fans on full while still being completely inaudible.
Not really... That isn't exactly an easy spot to get air to, honestly.. set so low like that...Also, I used to own one, but didn't have an M.2 based drive at the time.

Again, I am sure it will be fine as he isn't using the GPU through this time so minimal heat is added. Even so, the drive is being tickled by the low low interweb speed. So even if it throttles, it wont affect anything.

Are you suggesting that CPU thermal throttling doesn't exist? :confused:
He just missed the fact that it was an NVMe based M.2 drive. There are PLENTY of legit review showing some of these overheat and throttle. It really is a better idea to throw a heatsink on there, especially if its sitting under the PCIe slots and being used quite a bit.

Which, I have only seen M.2 slots on the back of the board in ITX form factor (outside of like 1-2 other boards).
 
Yea the top of that gpu does get hot so I’m thinking fans set at 100% during 4K gaming on forza 7 lol I haven’t seen it go above 70c even with the fan speeds on 100%
 
Ummm, no, sorry but not PCs. PCs do have "dynamic frequency scaling" which is, in effect, throttling, but is not for heat management. It is to conserve energy as a tree-hugging feature when not heavily tasked - not for thermal protection. It is also to slow down fan speeds to make the PC quieter. PCs depend on automated fan speed control for heat management. That is, CPU and case fans powered via the motherboard will increase in fan speed if or when the CPU and system/chipset temperatures reach a set threshold. Those speeds will drop again when the temperature drops.

Notebooks, of course do use throttling to control heat but that is because the constrained space of a notebook case makes ensuring adequate case cooling at all task levels a near impossibility.

As for downloading games, NTM2003, that is not a demanding task to start with so you very likely would do just fine with only two case fans (one in front pulling cool air in, and one in back exhausting heated air out - in addition to the PSU fan). As long as the two fans kept working.
Oh so you mean that thermal protection monitor that I have in the Bios is not for heat? And that time when i turned on a full WC system and it just throttled and shut down from heat and was also fine is just a power saving feature?

Got it.
 
Oh so you mean that thermal protection monitor that I have in the Bios is not for heat? And that time when i turned on a full WC system and it just throttled and shut down from heat and was also fine is just a power saving feature?

Got it.

Isn't that the same guy who said in another thread that Intel uses bad TIM on purpose because the processors are designed to be hotter so they can throttle to protect themselves from heat...?

I feel like this is about to go the same way as that textbook case of circular logic did, so I'm probably going to refrain from further comment on the matter.
 
I have a energy save cpu setting will the cpu goes to its lowest speed when I’m not gaming that will help I’m sure from the temps to get to high
But you are looking at it backwards. For PCs, it is an "energy save" function, not a "thermal protection" function. Because no circuit is 100% efficient, there will always be inefficiencies - loss of power in the form of heat.

So naturally, if you reduce speed to save energy, you reduce power consumption which reduces power loss due to inefficiency which, in turn, means less heat.

Now there are PCs that use mobile CPUs (All in One PCs for example). But a desktop CPU is assumed to be installed in a desktop/tower case, powered by an ATX PSU, not a battery.
Are you suggesting that CPU thermal throttling doesn't exist?
I am not suggesting anything. I am stating complete facts. Notebooks and PCs are designed and behave differently in the way they consume and conserve power and in how they implement thermal protection features.

And CPUs designed for the PC use (not mobile) do not throttle down for protection, they throttle down to save energy when not tasked. They will shutdown if overheated, however. Instead, the chipset will signal the motherboard controlled CPU and case fans to spin faster.

If you look at your PC CPU now with CPUz, you likely will see it throttle back in speed even when it is no where near heated. That's to conserve energy, not for thermal protection.
Oh so you mean that thermal protection monitor that I have in the Bios is not for heat?
Of course the "thermal protection monitor" it is for heat. But in a PC (notebook), when your CPU gets too hot, what happens? The CPU and case fans speed up. The CPU does not throttle back in speed like it does on a notebook. And if the temp keeps rising, if you have a System Speaker, it will start beeping (or a steady tone or whatever) and your computer will shutdown.

It seem folks are confusing thermal protection and energy saving features. Yes, energy saving features reduce heat, but that is a side effect.

Isn't that the same guy who said in another thread that Intel uses bad TIM on purpose
I don't know who said that but it sure was not me.
He just missed the fact that it was an NVMe based M.2 drive.
Right - well, I didn't miss it, I forgot! :oops: ;)
 
I really like the new m.2 it’s much smaller and no wires and so far it’s doing what it does I’ve definitely seen a improvement from installing windows updates and using windows apps and boot up, restart and turn off a lot faster then when I just had my HDD
 
with that connection I would of found a way to not download them again. that sucks man
 
I really like the new m.2 it’s much smaller and no wires and so far it’s doing what it does I’ve definitely seen a improvement from installing windows updates and using windows apps and boot up, restart and turn off a lot faster then when I just had my HDD
Even the slowest SSD will run circles around the fastest hard drives. No doubt you will see significant gains with a nice M.2 SSD.
 
I was going to go with the pro but I didn’t see if it were going to be faster or not but I’m happy with what I got and saved 200 bucks just about. I got it off amazon for $117.99
 
Yes they can still overheat especially when thermally saturated, thermal safeguards fail, or defect.

Or poor ambient temperatures such as deserts.
 
But you are looking at it backwards. For PCs, it is an "energy save" function, not a "thermal protection" function. Because no circuit is 100% efficient, there will always be inefficiencies - loss of power in the form of heat.

So naturally, if you reduce speed to save energy, you reduce power consumption which reduces power loss due to inefficiency which, in turn, means less heat.

Now there are PCs that use mobile CPUs (All in One PCs for example). But a desktop CPU is assumed to be installed in a desktop/tower case, powered by an ATX PSU, not a battery.

I am not suggesting anything. I am stating complete facts. Notebooks and PCs are designed and behave differently in the way they consume and conserve power and in how they implement thermal protection features.

And CPUs designed for the PC use (not mobile) do not throttle down for protection, they throttle down to save energy when not tasked. They will shutdown if overheated, however. Instead, the chipset will signal the motherboard controlled CPU and case fans to spin faster.

If you look at your PC CPU now with CPUz, you likely will see it throttle back in speed even when it is no where near heated. That's to conserve energy, not for thermal protection.
Of course the "thermal protection monitor" it is for heat. But in a PC (notebook), when your CPU gets too hot, what happens? The CPU and case fans speed up. The CPU does not throttle back in speed like it does on a notebook. And if the temp keeps rising, if you have a System Speaker, it will start beeping (or a steady tone or whatever) and your computer will shutdown.

It seem folks are confusing thermal protection and energy saving features. Yes, energy saving features reduce heat, but that is a side effect.


I don't know who said that but it sure was not me.
Right - well, I didn't miss it, I forgot! :oops: ;)

You do realize that Desktop CPUs thermal throttle regularly right? Not PC speaker shutdown... Thermal throttle...

cpu-throttle.jpg.0834d7893c82da7079f90c293a3502b1.jpg



that is an OLD video, and AMD chips now do what the intel ones did.
 
Yea back to that i keep it 72 in the house all year around maybe a little warmer in the winter but really it stays good temps in my room don’t get above 80f
 
And CPUs designed for the PC use (not mobile) do not throttle down for protection, they throttle down to save energy when not tasked. They will shutdown if overheated, however. Instead, the chipset will signal the motherboard controlled CPU and case fans to spin faster.

https://ark.intel.com/products/52210/Intel-Core-i5-2500K-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_70-GHz

Under the section "Advanced Technologies", the "Thermal Monitoring Technologies" states:

Thermal Monitoring Technologies
Thermal Monitoring Technologies protect the processor package and the system from thermal failure through several thermal management features. An on-die Digital Thermal Sensor (DTS) detects the core's temperature, and the thermal management features reduce package power consumption and thereby temperature when required in order to remain within normal operating limits.


This has been around since the P4 days. I remember youtube videos of Socket A Athlon and P4 CPUs being run without a heatsink (they removed it after Windows booted and a game was started). The Athlon blew itself apart from the temp (literally.... was fun to watch). The P4 was absolutely boring as it throttled itself and the game became a slideshow. In fact, after they put the heatsink back on it it performed as if nothing had ever happened.

Damn, was ninja'd.... in fact, that is the exact video I was mentioning! (turns out I'm still somewhat senile, no exploding Socket A proc. Can't remember where I saw that)
 
But you are looking at it backwards. For PCs, it is an "energy save" function, not a "thermal protection" function. Because no circuit is 100% efficient, there will always be inefficiencies - loss of power in the form of heat.

So naturally, if you reduce speed to save energy, you reduce power consumption which reduces power loss due to inefficiency which, in turn, means less heat.

Now there are PCs that use mobile CPUs (All in One PCs for example). But a desktop CPU is assumed to be installed in a desktop/tower case, powered by an ATX PSU, not a battery.

I am not suggesting anything. I am stating complete facts. Notebooks and PCs are designed and behave differently in the way they consume and conserve power and in how they implement thermal protection features.

And CPUs designed for the PC use (not mobile) do not throttle down for protection, they throttle down to save energy when not tasked. They will shutdown if overheated, however. Instead, the chipset will signal the motherboard controlled CPU and case fans to spin faster.

If you look at your PC CPU now with CPUz, you likely will see it throttle back in speed even when it is no where near heated. That's to conserve energy, not for thermal protection.
Of course the "thermal protection monitor" it is for heat. But in a PC (notebook), when your CPU gets too hot, what happens? The CPU and case fans speed up. The CPU does not throttle back in speed like it does on a notebook. And if the temp keeps rising, if you have a System Speaker, it will start beeping (or a steady tone or whatever) and your computer will shutdown.

It seem folks are confusing thermal protection and energy saving features. Yes, energy saving features reduce heat, but that is a side effect.


I don't know who said that but it sure was not me.
Right - well, I didn't miss it, I forgot! :oops: ;)
CPUs shut down at tcase max, right?

At tjmax, what happens?
 
Yea back to that i keep it 72 in the house all year around maybe a little warmer in the winter but really it stays good temps in my room don’t get above 80f

Run a hwinfo and check your temps from time to time. NVME drives will throttle to save themselves when overheated so it's not a huge negative. We just want to keep them NVME cool so they can sustain max speed all the time.
 
I am not suggesting anything. I am stating complete facts. Notebooks and PCs are designed and behave differently in the way they consume and conserve power and in how they implement thermal protection features.

And CPUs designed for the PC use (not mobile) do not throttle down for protection, they throttle down to save energy when not tasked. They will shutdown if overheated, however. Instead, the chipset will signal the motherboard controlled CPU and case fans to spin faster.

It seem folks are confusing thermal protection and energy saving features. Yes, energy saving features reduce heat, but that is a side effect.


I don't know who said that but it sure was not me.

What you're saying is simply untrue though... All modern CPUs will throttle themselves if heat becomes an issue. Yes, they do indeed do things like speeding up fans, and yes they do throttle to save energy as long as those features are enabled, but they also throttle. This isn't a case of confusing thermal protection with energy saving features... They do BOTH. What you're saying is wrong.

And if that wasn't you in the other thread, I apologize. Regardless, this is going to end the same way, I imagine... You're convinced of something that simply isn't true.


Damn, was ninja'd.... in fact, that is the exact video I was mentioning! (turns out I'm still somewhat senile, no exploding Socket A proc. Can't remember where I saw that)

I remember a video on early youtube of some russian (I think) guy blowing apart a Duron, that literally blew a hole in the particle board table it was sitting on.

EDIT: here it is.

Haters will say it's faked... Probably is... entertaining either way lol.
 
Last edited:
I got a question kind of off topic but can my gpu do HDR my 4K monitor is just 4K but my tv is 4K HDR? Didn’t really want to make a new post for one question.
 
And CPUs designed for the PC use (not mobile) do not throttle down for protection, they throttle down to save energy when not tasked. They will shutdown if overheated, however. Instead, the chipset will signal the motherboard controlled CPU and case fans to spin faster.

All modern CPUs in conjunction with the motherboards have mechanisms that allow them to throttle for protection against heat before they need to shutdown. I bet you can find settings in the BIOS of your own PC with regards to throttling explicitly stating that they are in fact for protection against overheating and separated, independent settings for power saving.

It would make absolutely no sense to differentiate desktop parts from mobile parts like this. Why would one throttle before shutdown and one not ? I have no idea why you believe thermal throttling does not exist but it's simply not true. Desktop Intel CPUs , for example , can throttle like mad if temperatures are not in check , why do you think the whole TIM for the IHS issue exists ?
 
Last edited:
Isn't that the same guy who said in another thread that Intel uses bad TIM on purpose because the processors are designed to be hotter so they can throttle to protect themselves from heat...?

I feel like this is about to go the same way as that textbook case of circular logic did, so I'm probably going to refrain from further comment on the matter.

I remember that thread, but as I recall he actually argued that Intel uses TIM because it "lasts longer than solder". Technically not circular logic but...

EDIT: sorry, I guess I was remembering the wrong guy
 
Last edited:
You people are totally....well...obviously not very experienced with running desktop CPUs near their thermal limits(as in TJ Max...not TCase...which is a meaningless number that refers to nothing). That's about as nicely as I can put it.

Not throttling..PNG


Desktop CPU thermal throttling? :roll:

NOT!!! And that's 1°C shy of TJ Max.
 
intel said:
What does Tcase Max and Tjunction Max mean?
intel said:
Tcase Max is the maximum temperature measured for Tcase. You can find both Tcase and the thermal specification information on the Intel website.

Tjunction Max is the maximum temperature the cores can reach before thermal throttling activates. Thermal throttling happens when the processor exceeds the maximum temperature. The processor shuts itself off in order to prevent permanent damage.
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005597/processors.html

Also....

intel said:
What is Tcase versus Tjunction?


These terms relate to Intel® Processor temperature for desktop and mobile systems. The processor must not exceed the maximum case temperature defined by the applicable thermal profile. Keeping temperature below the maximum helps optimize operation and long-term
intel said:
  • Tcase: Temperature measurement using a thermocouple embedded in the center of the heat spreader. This initial measurement is done at the factory. Post-manufacturing, the BIOS calibrates Tcase. A diode between and below the cores delivers a reading.
  • Tjunction: Synonymous with core temperatures, and calculated based on the output from the Digital Thermal Sensor (DTS) using the formula:
    Tjunction = (Tjunction Max – DTS output)

    Tjunction Max (TjMax) is different than the TCC Activation Temperature. TCC offset represents where the processor starts to throttle, relative to the TjMax value. Tjunction can be the same temperature as TCC if the TCC offset equal to zero


A proper test to show it NOT happening Mr G would be to actually hit tjmax and have a log of the cores speeds. ;)
 
Last edited:
Speaking of cooling now my cooler is not showing up on Corsair link 4 the fans are running and the led light is on but it’s not showing up in cl4
 
Did you attach it to a usb header or whatever it needs to attach to for data? If so, switch ports...

Confirm proper setup via the manual.
 
Yea everything is plugged in and running I’m thinking it’s there last update screwed something up. I can feel the liquid moving though the tubes so I’m not sure
 
You people are totally....well...obviously not very experienced with running desktop CPUs near their thermal limits(as in TJ Max...not TCase...which is a meaningless number that refers to nothing). That's about as nicely as I can put it.

View attachment 92896

Desktop CPU thermal throttling? :roll:

NOT!!! And that's 1°C shy of TJ Max.
so you disabled EIST/C-states/ Thermal Protection and now think you're the god of desktop CPUs?

Educate yourself broski
-
 
Back
Top