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Hello everybody!

This is my first post in this community. Lately, I've noticed that while I was playing some games (Smite, Paladins, Guild Wars 2, Ark) my CPU temperature usually reaches temperatures about 80-85ºC and I'm worried about it.

Here are the specs:

OS: Windows 7 Home Basic 64-bit SP1
CPU: Intel Core i7 2600 @ 3.40 GHz Sandy Bridge 32nm Technology
RAM: 16,0 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 668 MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard: ASUSTeK Computer INC. P8P67 (LGA1155)
Graphics: V223HQ (1920x1080 @ 60 Hz) 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 (ASUSTeK Computer Inc)
Storage: 931GB Western Digital WDC WD10 02FAEX-00Z3A0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA).

While the computer is idle the temperature is around 38-40ºC.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Welcome to the Tech Report!

I have many questions for you:
Have any evil dust bunnies taken up residence in your case's filters and fans or in your CPU heatsink?
Are you certain that all of your case and CPU fans are still spinning?
Have you changed the cooling profile or target temperatures in your BIOS or in Asus' Thermal Radar software?
Has the thermal goop between your processor and your heatsink dried up?

That's a very low temperature for it to be overheating, usually it doesn't even back off turbo boost until over 90°C.

What symptoms are you seeing and what leads you to believe they're caused by the CPU?

Which cooler are you using and what sort of clockspeeds are you seeing?

Have you visually inspected the fan/heatsink?

If all you're worried about is the temperature, don't be. 80-85C is perfectly healthy. These chips will live happily in the 90+C range for many years without any ill effects.

PoetaDesamparado wrote:

... my CPU temperature usually reaches temperatures about 80-85ºC and I'm worried about it.
...
While the computer is idle the temperature is around 38-40ºC.

What were your temperatures before when you were not worried about it? Is CPU fan noise an issue now as well? Also, you forgot to mention whether you use stock or some other cooler.

As others mentioned, your computer does have some age, so make sure you dust it off first - case filters, and if dust gets inside the case (or your case has no dust filters), also clean the heatsink. It can make world of difference.

Waco wrote:

If all you're worried about is the temperature, don't be. 80-85C is perfectly healthy. These chips will live happily in the 90+C range for many years without any ill effects.

That being said, crack the case and check the CPU fan, and check the PSU fan and the vents to atmosphere. likely as JaE has noted you have gathered up some dusty insulation...

Cleaning tip if that is the case ::
shutdown and unplug the tower
ground yourself to case (grab the case metal 1st)
hold and keep the fans from spinning you plan on cleaning, then liberally use air dusters rated for pc parts.

reboot and test.

failing that, do the fans spin at all or very slow (sub 1000rpm at al ltimes?) you may need a new fan
have you moved the tower recently ? in moving you may have gaped/separated the CPU and heatsink by thumping it around and the thermal paste is no good and or aerated.

and lastly .. is this a laptop? if so it may be 'normal' .. if ti is a laptop get some sort of standoff and make a 1/2 inch gap between the bottom of the laptop and the desk.

Yeah, like ppi said, 80C isn't out of the realm of possiblity for the stock Intel cooler. Like Waco, said, that's not harmful to your CPU.

If you're using an aftermarket cooler similar to this your load temps will generally be around 65C give-or-take.

Even though it's not quite in overheat territory, that's still a bit warmer than it should be for stock clock on stock cooler.

I blame dust bunnies.

If you've never taken the rig apart there's probably a layer cake of dust formed in between the CPU fan and the HSF by now. Get rid of it before it becomes sentient!

Going to be the odd man out here. There should be no reason for you to get to 80+ under any normal load even with the stock cooler unless you have environmental issues like ambient temp being in the 80*F+ or you are running Prime95 for the better part of a day.

I'd check for lots of dust like others suggested. Then if you've got a small shop vac, put that sucker in reverse (clean air not dirty from uncleaned filter) and take it outside to clean. Yes hold down the fans as you blow them out as you don't want to damage them or back feed power. But I've on occasion not held them and so long as they don't turn up really fast you won't have issues. Only had a single cheapo can lose a few fins on the fan, but it was an ancient video card with extremely birttle plastic from China.

Taking it a step further you can wash the heat sink with the fan removed in warm/hot water with some basic soap like Dawn. Or my personal favorite truck is use a medium paint brush to clean between the fins.

Your other choice assuming your case isn't an issue by design or improperly pointed fans is to buy something like a 212 EVO can which will drastically reduced temps and wont have all of the same hassles of cleaning the stock one (albeit very small hassle). This assumes you want to get more life out of your 2600k and have no intentions of replacing it in the near future (2+ years?)

The Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo is rather tall at 159mm due to its 120mm fan and tower design. Some cases aren't wide enough to accommodate it. If you have a small case, a tower cooler with a 92mm fan like the Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 is only 130 mm tall but still cools more quietly and much more effectively than the stock Intel cooler.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

The Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo is rather tall at 159mm due to its 120mm fan and tower design. Some cases aren't wide enough to accommodate it. If you have a small case, a tower cooler with a 92mm fan like the Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 is only 130 mm tall but still cools more quietly and much more effectively than the stock Intel cooler.

Yep, anything but the stock cooler if your having heat issues with it and can't solve it other ways (cleaning, fan adjustments or a good case).

That in mind, I still run my i5-2500k with a stock HSF and with it slightly overclocked to 3.8ghz I am on the edge of 60*c a lot while gaming for a few hours. Corsair 400r case, 7850 overclocked and about 75*f ambeint temp.

The thing is, when a CPU runs really hot it tends to cook the thermal paste; thereafter, the paste gets worse and worse at its job and you get hotter temps until you remove the heatsink to clean and reapply everything. At least, that was my experience a few years ago; I haven't had a hot CPU in a while.

Welch wrote:

Going to be the odd man out here. There should be no reason for you to get to 80+ under any normal load even with the stock cooler unless you have environmental issues like ambient temp being in the 80*F+ or you are running Prime95 for the better part of a day.

Any "quiet" cooling profile will run a 2600 on the stock cooler well into the 80s before it throttles up.