CPU extremely hot... why?

lilmike2 · Mar 12, 2016

Hi,
I have had this machine for several years now, and it is my music/audio production machine, so it has 24 gigs of ram, 2x core-i7 3.4 ghz, and (now) and SSD hard drive. Recently I installed windows 7 ultimate because I needed it to use all of my 24 gigs of ram, and then my audio went very crackly and my computer became very slow. Not having time to delve into it myself, I sent it off to a repair shop. They told me that my hard drive was going bad, and recommended I have it replaced with the SSD it now has. So I did that, and when I got it back it's still acting strange (and quite a bit slower than it should be, meaning it sometimes takes a few seconds to open something as simple as the task manager). I checked everything basic, including using speccy to check the "vitals", and found that (at least it claims) my CPU temps were over 90 degrees c! So I went to checking what could be causing the CPU to be so darned hot. I replaced two fans (an exhaust fan right behind the CPU and the CPU fan itself), that brought the temperature down just a few degrees, enough to let it run, but not well. I checked the voltage, which is somewhere around 1.23 v (I believe), which looks right for the 3.4 ghz CPUs. So now I'm at a loss. I've bought some thermal paste, but haven't looked and tried to re-apply it yet, because my gut tells me that can't be it, because when I was checking to see if the CPU was hot (before using speccy), I touched the heatsink, and it was hot, but not *that* hot-- I mean at that temperature my hand should have caught fire or something. So my question: What could cause the CPU to be so freaking hot outside of the issues I've described that look correct?
Thanks,
-Michael.
P.S. One other thing of note is that all of the processes on my machine use very erratic amounts of CPU, going from 75% to 15% and back up and around. And it's not one using all of that, it's each process using just a little bit (1-5%). I'm guessing this has something to do with the overheating CPU, but just figured I'd throw it out there.

X79 · Mar 12, 2016

Maybe you've got malware. It didn't happen to be a pirated Win 7 did it? Just so we can rule that out.

You could also try boot into safe mode and see if it still goes hot. With and without networking enabled.

Also, what PSU and motherboard do you have?

lilmike2 · Mar 12, 2016

X79 :

I will post the psu and motherboard info when I can get to it, but I'm almost certain it's not malware (and no, it's not a pirated copy of windows). The reason I don't think it's malware is because before I replaced the broken CPU fan, it would go so hot before even getting through post that the 8-beep high low sequence of beeps would play and it wouldn't even boot.
-Michael.

lilmike2 · Mar 12, 2016

Hi,
Right now I can't get the particular psu/motherboard, unless it's in what I'm pasting below, as I'm blind and all the people who could "be my eyes" are currently away. Anyway, I found this listed on my receipt from when I purchased it, I know it contains a little bit of what you're asking about the psu and motherboard, but not sure how much.

Workstation Quad Pro Zalman Z9 mid-tower case Antec 500 ADK LGA 1155: 2x 16X PCIe, 2 PCI dual channel DDR3 1600 Intel Core i7 2600 3.4 GHz Quad ADK Extreme Silence CPU cooling ADK Acoustical Sound Treatment Mushkin 4gig 2x2 GB DDR3 1600 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit Paragon Backup & Recovery DVD Seagate 500G 16 Meg Sata 600 2 Seagate 1TB Sata 600 32 meg Plextor DVD-RW Dual Head Video AMD ATI Radeon 1Bg fanless NIC included but not wireless Microsoft Cordless KB & mouse Standard 1 yr Warranty

-Michael.

lilmike2 · Mar 18, 2016

*bump*... Any ideas? I have no clue what could be going on lol.

GhislainG · Mar 18, 2016

Install Intel XTU and report back on what the temperatures are and if the CPU throttles. Enable all hardware monitors.

lilmike2 · Apr 3, 2016

@GislainG

I installed intel XTU, and for the life of me could not figure out how to turn on temperature monitors. It showed all the diagnostic information like CPU brand, model, speed, etc, but I could not find anywhere that mentioned temperature except in the benchmarking section which didn't run for me. I tried a stress test on the CPU, and it said it passed.

I also looked at Speccy, which claimed my CPU temperature was at 95 C, and the graph showed it maxing out at 95 C all the time. It also showed the fan as going at 669-693 RPM, which I know is not high enough to cool a CPU that hot, and is definitely not the fan's maximum speed.

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
-Michael.

lilmike2 · Apr 3, 2016

Update:
I also tried with real temp, as I had heard about some people experiencing wrong temperature readings with speccy, it also reported 90-98 degrees on each core. Two were consistantly labelled "log", was one labelled warning or log, and the other was labelled ok, warning, or log.

I now know which motherboard and cpu my computer has in it, thanks to speccy and real temp: CPU: intel i7-2600 (I thought it was a dual-cpu setup, but maybe I was mislead). Motherboard: intel dp67bg.

Thanks,
-Michael.
P.S. I opened up the case when the computer was running to see what heat the air from the fan was, and it was not overly hot, so that's why I'm thinking it has to be the heatsink/thermal paste. Now if I could only figure out how to get the darned heatsink off to check -- it doesn't seem to be the standard push and click type.

GhislainG · Apr 3, 2016

Post a picture and we may be able to help. There aren't that many ways to install and remove a CPU cooler.

lilmike2 · Apr 3, 2016

Hi,
I actually got it, there were little bolt-looking nuts on the back of the motherboard holding the backplate in place, and once those were removed the heatsink just slid right out. The hardest part after figuring out which part was screwed into the heatsink was one of the screws had something wrong with it so when you turned the hex-wrench on the nut it simply spun the screw round and round. Now I'm just going to have to get it back in, though I'm thinking of getting a smaller cooler anyway, because this one blocks off one of my ram slots for tall ram, and I have a 4th stick I'd like to put in.

I'll report back with what the thermal paste does for me!
Thanks,
-Michael.

lilmike2 · Apr 3, 2016

Hi,
I just put the new thermal paste on the heatsink and put it back on. The temperature is dramatically improved, standing at around 50-65 c. This, however, is when windows should be basically idle. However, looking in task manager, it's not. Several programs are using just a bit of cpu usage each, adding up to anywhere from 30-50%, seemingly randomly. And it's not the same programs using the same amount all the time, one second it will be my screen reader, one second it will be task manager, and then it will be something else. NVDA (my screen reader) and task manager are the most common that I've noticed.
Thanks for any help,
-Michael.

lilmike2 · Apr 3, 2016

Oh also, when in safe mode it doesn't seem to do this.
-Michael.

GhislainG · Apr 3, 2016

Most tasks don't run in safe mode. In normal mode, the system should stabilize a few minutes after it was booted. Background programs usually run for a very short time and then they go back to sleep; they also use a low CPU percentage, including Task manager that uses less than 1% if left open. I have a different CPU, but its utilization under normal operation with a few Chrome windows open averages 3%.

Guest · Apr 3, 2016

I didint read all the information you wrote, neither all the answers (sry, don't have time right now) but the same thing happened to me on my old notebook. from my experience, you didint even had to replace your HardDrive. why? most IT stores want to make money. correcting your HDD is a cheap thing, they dont want that, they want you to purchase things. so, at first glance, a new HDD needs to be replaced, RAM, even your motherboard. here is what I did: had a problem with windows not starting. replaced my HDD, they said it was impossible to make it work again. than, put it as external HDD, cleaned it's errors with windows and voilá, the HDD is working at 100%... but this is not the answer you seek, this is just more kinda of an advise.

the answer you seek is maybe hidden inside you computer. open your computer (dismount it, disassemble it) and identify the processor and GPU. I don't know how desktop computers work, but on notebooks you NEED to apply a thingy called Thermal mass (google translate, the name can be different on your country). the processor and GPU can disassemble and when you disassemble them, you will notice like a glass or some metal that reflects. on that metal, you need to apply thermal mass. processor and GPU are usually attached to the heat sink (google translate again). the thermal mass has the job of transfering the heat to the sink, so that the coolers than can take that heat out of your computer. the problem you have and the way it's described, seems like you need thermal heat because I suffered with the same issues when my computer ran out of mass.

again, all I said apply to notebooks, I dont know how desktops work, they maybe dont even need thermal mass. it's a question of going to a trusty IT guy and asking.

lilmike2 · Apr 3, 2016

@GislainG
Right, but in this case cpu usage is a constant but unpredictable 30-50% all the time windows is on. Sometimes the computer gets unbearably slow, sometimes it's almost, but not quite fast as it used to be... It just depends. And this computer, as you probably can tell from the specs (3.4 ghz quad core i7, 24 gigs of ram, ssd) is nothing to sneeze at, but still, sometimes it will take up to 10-15 seconds to just open task manager and have my screen reader start speaking the items when it's under "heavy" load (why though, I don't know).
-Michael.

PreevBR · Apr 3, 2016

lilmike2 :

Please download Open Hardware Monitor or Intel Diagnostics Tool and check if the processor speeds are going down when your computer slows. Also, please open task manager, click in processes, click 'CPU' (So the processes will be listed according to their CPU usage) and name here the first 5 of that list.

GhislainG · Apr 3, 2016

lilmike2 :

What tasks or services are running? Right-click any busy svchost.exe and then click Go to Service(s) to see what's running. Is the CPU running at full speed when needed? When a system is slower that expected, I like to keep Intel XTU running in the background with all monitors enabled and logging set for for 1 hour; it allows me to see how hot the CPU gets, the frequency, check if it throttled, etc.

lilmike2 · Apr 4, 2016

The odd thing is that most of the programs using CPU are things like my screen reader, task manager itself, explorer, etc. And these programs use anywhere from 6-13% or so each. I will look for busy svchost processes, though I'll probably need to get some help from someone to read the task manager as the usages change really, really fast sometimes, sometimes too fast for me to follow with my screen reader.
-Michael.

GhislainG · Apr 4, 2016

What CPU and what frequency does it run at? What screen reader are you using? It sure sounds like it uses a lot of resources and it may contribute to the abnormally high CPU utilization. Task Manager normally uses very little CPU; as an example, it uses 0.3% maximum on my i5-4590 desktop running Windows 8.1. Several Explorer windows use less than 1% total. 6-13% for all programs is normal if they are not busy, but 6-13% for each is not normal.

lilmike2 · Apr 6, 2016

It is a core i7-2600 at 3.4 ghz quad core. speccy reports and running at 3.8 or so gigahertz there, and like I noticed, it doesn't do this in safe mode that I can tell. I'm thinking this could have something to do With that and no, the screen reader should not use very much resources at all.

PreevBR · Apr 6, 2016

lilmike2 :

One thing that may sound strange, but did you uninstall all your drivers then tried reinstalling them again, because when I first mounted my signature computer it were running very slow, would only be fast on safe mode and after installing Chipset and Graphics drivers it went smooth once again, bad thing I didn't check task manager, maybe it would help you more if I had that info.

Good luck.

lilmike2 · Apr 6, 2016

Thanks for that suggestion, I had read about that being a possible problem, I just hadn't got around to trying it yet. I will let you know if that helps.

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CPU extremely hot... why?