What Is Going on with My 945 Cores?

It's really F***ing overheating. It's throttling itself when on load.
By the sounds of those temperatures though, it shouldn't be that hot even if you didn't apply any thermal compound. It sounds to me more like you put the heatsink on, but didn't clip it in place, in which case there will be at least 1mm space between the HSF and CPU. But even if that isn't so, check your HSF and reseat everything. clean out any dust and apply new thermal compound.

Also, what do you mean "now im experiencing poor performance in my pc"? That's not very descriptive at all.

I went from having 100+ FPS On High settings to now 20 or lower on LOW settings. Someone said the psu I have does not have enough juice for the video card so im not sure if thats it or if its the cpu.

Your cpu is running dangerously hot and probably throttling back to prevent destroying itself. Safe operating temp is between 62C and 70C depending what model 945 you have.

Ok, My HEATSINK WAS NOT IN PLACE! I fixed it...but heres the question its ran a good few hours...everything seems to be fine, is their damage or?

Possibly, but if it was significant it would be quite obvious. Your CPU probably wont live the full 10 years it might have but since you can boot its probably not too bad.

Run prime 95 to confirm your CPU is still fine, and post your load temps, they shouldnt be above 70C.

Unlikely. I believe you have to run it that hot for a very extended period for damage to occur. It should be fine. If you really want to be sure though, you could always run a stability test on it. Prime95 or linx are good.
As for the PSU being a problem, if that were the case, your computer would not work or would shut down on load. Not a framerate drop.

Well surpisingly...the cpu was the problem...when i put the heatsink back everything went back to how it was. So im not sure, although unlike games like cod, wow uses alot more CPU the GPU so thats probably why. and temps stay at 30-40C

And thank you enzo, do you know any good brand name PSU's under $80? Like the $60-$80 area

You are misunderstanding a couple things and i wish to clear them up. The CPU was not the problem, the loose heatsink was the issue, two different things, close together in the system yes, but not the same. Overheating is rarely the fault of the CPU, its almost always the heatsink thats at fault.

The reason your CPU was over heating was because it had almost no cooling, it had nothing to do with how much or how little your game used the CPU, your temps were only changing 10C between idle and load.


What are your temps while running prime95 so your CPU is at full load, not while at idle, at idle is a far less important number than at load.

50C and No I understand what your saying, Thats why i was asking did the cpu receive damage, obviously the heatsink isnt going to get damage to it its the cpu because it wasnt bieng cooled and thats why I asked

Okay thats a good temp, you should be back up to the performance numbers you were getting before you swapped your PSU and your heatsink came loose.

Best answer selected by Obubdeno.