• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

i5 4690k (Haswell) running too hot? (100 Celsius)

Biggilus

Biggilus

Biggilus

Associate
Joined
14 Aug 2009
Posts
197
As title says.

Running Witcher 3 pretty much maxed to the hilt (1080p, GTX 770, 16gb ram) obviously not at 60fps in all situations bit still very playable and the CPU hits around 90-93 Celsius. Playing Path of Exile all 4 cores will be 98-100 Celsius.

Now this has been the case since I got the rig two years ago and all appears fine, just hot. I didn't get it from OcUK, infact from a supplier who builds it once I spec it. I remember the heatsink I wanted was allegedly too big for the case (some Corsair jobby with a side window), so opted for a slightly cheaper one.

Some months back I had a big dust/cat hair removal on all fans, fins and areas of the case and this made no difference.

It is clocked to a stable 4.1ghz (even though I hear the K variants can hit 4.4ghz reliably) but now and again I do think "is that too hot?".

My first thought is to take it apart, re-seat and re-paste the cpu? At work at the mo so couldn't tell you what heatsink I have, but that would be the next step I imagine.

Also, if this CPU doesn't melt is it still a worthy component to have for a while?
 
Using Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 at the mo. Or so the invoice says from two years back. I'll double check when I get home.
Would that suffice for a clocked 4690K?

Any other recommended air cooling fans/heatsinks for the CPU? I only have two extra 120mm fans, front and back.

If that's a rubbish heatsink I'll upgrade it, if not I'll reseat and repaste it and see what happens.
 
It's a decent HS, re-seat and check the voltage via cpu-z whist loading the cpu. Auto voltage is usually a lot higher than the chip needs for stable running, lowering it can reduce temps a fair bit.
 
Ok cool thanks for the input, that's the weekend project sorted then.

Never played with voltages before either, time to start the learning!
 
My 4690k is stable at 4.4GHz - under stress it doesn't go much higher than high 60s. But it is water cooled which does help. My vcore is set to 1.199v.
 
You're going to need cans of compressed air if you don't already have them as well as a tube of thermal compound. I suggest NTH1 or MX4. They're cheap. You'll also need some high % rubbing alcohol. Look up how to remove and reapply thermal compound on youtube. Don't spread the compound yourself, put a blob in the middle and let the heatsink spread it.

If you've never used the cans of compressed air before, here are some tips- Use the little hose bit that it comes with, don't spray directly from the nozzle. Not enough pressure.

ALWAYS hold the can upright while you spray. If you tilt or shake it the air comes out freezing cold and leaves frost. That is bad.

Always spray in short bursts, and let the can rest for a few seconds between bursts. With sustained spraying, the can gets cold and pressure is reduced.

If you have an air compressor in your garage, you can use it, however, make sure you are using a moisture trap.

If you have a leaf blower, you can certainly use it to blow out your computer. Be careful of spinning fans too fast with the leaf blower as super high RPM can damage the bearings. You may want to jam your fans in place (with q tips) if you will be using a leaf blower or compressor.

If you smoke in the room, the compressed air might not be sufficient to blow the HSF out. You may need to take the HSF, run it under the shower, and dry it with a blow drier. Had to do that on my NHD14 after 5 years of service. I smoke. It goes without saying that you remove the fan(s) first. Just wash the metal part.

My shower has a high pressure setting and this really worked wonders to get all the gunk out of the heatsink.
 
Last edited:
Just reseat the cooler (with new paste) and go from there. No point throwing money at the problem until you rule out the free potential issues

I would also recommend you remove the modest overclock you are running until you have sorted your issues. At 100c, the chip is probably throttling, so it might actually improve performance anyway.
 
mistersprinkles said:
You're going to need cans of compressed air if you don't already have them as well as a tube of thermal compound. I suggest NTH1 or MX4. They're cheap. You'll also need some high % rubbing alcohol. Look up how to remove and reapply thermal compound on youtube. Don't spread the compound yourself, put a blob in the middle and let the heatsink spread it.

If you've never used the cans of compressed air before, here are some tips- Use the little hose bit that it comes with, don't spray directly from the nozzle. Not enough pressure.

ALWAYS hold the can upright while you spray. If you tilt or shake it the air comes out freezing cold and leaves frost. That is bad.

Always spray in short bursts, and let the can rest for a few seconds between bursts. With sustained spraying, the can gets cold and pressure is reduced.

If you have an air compressor in your garage, you can use it, however, make sure you are using a moisture trap.

If you have a leaf blower, you can certainly use it to blow out your computer. Be careful of spinning fans too fast with the leaf blower as super high RPM can damage the bearings. You may want to jam your fans in place (with q tips) if you will be using a leaf blower or compressor.

If you smoke in the room, the compressed air might not be sufficient to blow the HSF out. You may need to take the HSF, run it under the shower, and dry it with a blow drier. Had to do that on my NHD14 after 5 years of service. I smoke. It goes without saying that you remove the fan(s) first. Just wash the metal part.

My shower has a high pressure setting and this really worked wonders to get all the gunk out of the heatsink.
Click to expand...

That's actually really good advice - it's amazing what well applied thermal paste on a clean chip, and removing gunk and dust can do.
 
Could also try a delid.

I had that heat sink on a 4670k and have now reused it on a 4570. I fitted a voltage reducer so the fan is silent but also now runs slower and it still more than cools the 4570.
 
Awesome thanks for the advice people. Got some thermal compound and cleaning solutions on the way (with haribo? Doubt it...), and still have a few cans of compressed air. I'll give it a good clean and see what happens, and mess with the voltages if need be after.

If this works out it'll be interesting to see any performance gains, never considered throttling due to temp
 
Brazo said:
Could also try a delid.

I had that heat sink on a 4670k and have now reused it on a 4570. I fitted a voltage reducer so the fan is silent but also now runs slower and it still more than cools the 4570.
Click to expand...

on my system, de-lidding reduced temps from around 70/80 to 40/50 it was a huge difference. tried with mx5 paste at first (or similar) and got 10 degrees or so improvement swapping to coollaboratory ultra (or whatever its called)
 
delidding is quite technical though, and quite extreme for most average users. However if done properly it does make a massive difference. Personally I wouldn't recommend doing it in your instance.
 
Keep it simple. clean it and re-paste it. You can look into other options once that avenue has been explored.
 
Had a look at delidding - a lot of reports of about 20 Celsius reduction is quite good. But... hell no, I don't trust myself doing that.

Before I get cracking with the cleaning are there any quick CPU benchmarks I can run just for curiosity's sake? Plan to do one as it is now (idles at around 40C), at stock settings, then again once all super clean.
 
I think its the overclock plus having vcore on auto. I'd be tempted to put the CPU back to stock, you probably won't see much of a performance hit as the CPU is probably throttling anyone. Or reducing the vcore to a fixed lower value. I'd recommend downloading HWmonitor - running something intensive and checking the vcore voltage - anything above 1.28 volts with that HSF will take the temp up. BTW, I use that HSF on my 4790K at stock and it works very well;, keeping the CPU below 70 on full load prime 95 (which isn't recommended with this CPU architecture but doesn't seem to phase my pc too much)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom