Please help me figure out what’s wrong with my computer. I have a Windows 10 with i9-9900, 64GB RAM and an RTX 2080. Whenever I play Oxygen Not Included, my CPU produces heat much faster than the AIO cooler can remove it. The computer rapidly reaches 115C and the computer shuts off automatically. I’m not sure why there is no thermal throttling to prevent this, but that’s not really my question.
I’ve even underclocked the PC, but I’m still having the overheating problem. Here’s where it gets strange:
In order to avoid an inconvenient shut down, I keep a temperature monitor open on one of my screens. Once it hits 100C, I minimize the game and work on something else. The temperature rapidly falls. So, I know that the AIO is at least working, albeit maybe not well enough. I figured that I’m giving the CPU a rest, so it can cool down. But I’ve recently noticed that I don’t need to pause the game, and I don’t even have to minimize the screen. All I have to do is click on any other window in my other monitor. The game can be in full screen mode, running full tilt in 4K on the left monitor and all I need to do is click on any window in my right monitor. As long as another window is the active window, the game can continue running and the CPU still cools off. But as soon as I click the game screen, the temperatures start rising again. This doesn’t make sense. Sure, it’s technically running “in the background” I suppose. But it’s in full screen with no drop in performance. All the characters are running around and the game is chugging away. Yet, there is no excess heat.
This is the only game or program that does this. Any idea what’s causing this? All my drivers are up to date.
Also, even if the game is paused, the heat continues to rise if the game is the active window. There shouldn’t be any major calculations, number crunching or demands on the CPU. It’s paused! But the heat just keeps rising until I click away.
The CPU load doesn’t seem to change depending on which window is the active window. Each core is between 8% and 30%, regardless. Even with no chance in CPU demands, the temperature rises if the game is the active window.
Until a real expert chimes in, I will throw out a few ideas:
- Does it matter which monitor the game is running on?
- Have you tried raising a window on the same monitor as the game (as opposed to the other monitor)?
- Have you tried the usual stuff like cleaning the fans and heat sinks?
- Not sure how GPU-intensive that game is. Is it possible that when the game window has focus that the GPU switches to a higher power state, when another window has focus the GPU throttles back (or switches to the motherboard GPU)?
This is the symptom that really doesn’t make sense to me. The one thing I can think of: is the AIO cooler physically positioned so that it gets fresh air? Or is it possibly downstream of the GPU somehow (or stuck inside the same poorly ventilated case)? If the GPU is going full blast (which it might be, while being frame rate capped in a secondary window), and the exhaust air is somehow going right into the AIO cooler, it’s not going to be very effective.
What does task manager say about GPU load when the window is active vs. not?
Windows 10 has something called Game Mode which does something to the CPU to prioritize games. You might want to toggle it on or off (depending on what it is now) and seeing if that makes a difference.
Settings->Gaming->Game Mode
I just saw posted elsewhere that apparently Avast also has some sort of game mode that can be turned on and off in case you are using Avast anti-virus.
You might want to keep an eye on the game frame rate under the two scenarios. It’s likely running at a much higher fps when active than when inactive. You can track this by hitting Alt-Z (bringing up the GeForce Experience menu, assuming you have that installed) → gear icon → HUD layout → performance → FPS.
It’s practically identical. Started with computer at idle, just normal background processes and a browser (Chrome) running.
GPU was at 0% and 54C
CPU was at:
Core 0: 2% at 42C
Core 1: 2% at 42C
Core 2: 1% at 42C
Core 3: 0% at 41C
Core 4: 0% at 40C
Core 5: 0% at 40C
Core 6: 0% at 41C
Core 7: 0% at 41C
Started up the game. and left it full screen, unobstructed but made a window in the other monitor the active window. GPU was at 20% and 54C. Cores 0-7 were: 51C / 20%; 51C / 33%; 50C / 24%; 49C / 18%; 49C / 15%; 49C / 10%; 49C / 20%; and 50C / 17%.
I clicked the game screen to make it the active screen. GPU was at 19% and 53C. Core temps were 87,89,86,85,85,84,86,85 and loads were 18,34,24,19,11,9,22,18 respectively.
The AIO is at the top of the tower and has good air flow. The temperature across the cores seems pretty uniformly heating and cooling, regardless of load. Which is a good thing, I believe. I’ve going to try the Game Mode suggestion next.
I have no advice I can offer, but - yikes - 115 Celsius?
Are you sure your CPU hasn’t already sustained some permanent damage from that?
That sounds ridiculously hot for such a low load. There’s no way even a crappy AIO cooler would do such a bad job, unless it’s defective or incorrectly installed. Are you sure the pump is running (I’m assuming the fans are spinning)? Is it properly clamped to the CPU with an appropriate amount of thermal paste, etc.?
Night and Day difference! OMFG! I’m so angry at Windows right now. How long has this “Game Mode” been a thing? I’ve never seen that before. It was turned ON. I just turned it off and the game is smooth. It started faster, and the computer runs much quieter. I was having a lot of noise before… not from the fans, but sounds like hard drive platter noise. I don’t know if that’s what it actually was or not. Anyway, the computer is quiet and the temperatures are still below 50C despite the core loads still being 10-33%. Wow.
Thank you so much! And thanks to the rest of you for helping me troubleshoot. I appreciate it!
I know! I thought the AIO was malfunctioning, but once I clicked a different window, the CPU would cool off twice as fast as it heated up. I still don’t know exactly what this Game Mode was doing to make it behave like that. Could it have been turning the pump off??? That doesn’t sound like something it should do.
And those temps were just what it was when I took a screen shot. Had I left that window active for another five minutes (probably less), the cores would have hit 115C and shut down the computer. All with the loads never increasing from those listed numbers. The heat would just rise, rise, rise until TjMax.
Sweet. I’ve experienced it before. It just doesn’t play nice with some games.
Disabling Game Mode is just hiding the problem here. I don’t know exactly what it’s doing, but I’d guess it’s preventing the CPU from going into a low-clock-rate state (you can see this in task manager, where the clock speed might vary from <2 GHz to >4 GHz, depending on load). Doing that can make games more responsive, but will use more power.
But regardless, your cooling setup should be able to handle 100% indefinitely without reaching crazy temps. I run Prime95 as a burn-in test, and depending on my setup it might hit 80-90 C, but that’s at a real 100% load. You’re at 80 C with like a 20% load.
Game Mode can’t turn the pump off. It sure seems like either a defective unit or misinstallation. A lack of thermal paste could cause this behavior, for instance; or if something got wedged under the cooling puck, preventing it from clamping down properly.
The strange thing is that now that Game Mode is off, the temperature is staying around 50C even though I still have the same load. So it’s not that the cooling system can’t handle a 20-30% load. Because the load is still 20-30% just as before, but now the temperature isn’t increasing. Game Mode was doing something to prevent my computer from cooling itself. But that just doesn’t make sense. If turning Game Mode off just decreased the load, then I’d think there is a cooling system problem. Because the lack of overheating would just be due to the decreased load. But now it’s staying cool despite the load remaining the same as before. Strange, right?
My guess is, maybe Game Mode means prioritize gaming above all other things, to the point of overheating, as long as game performance is optimized, even suicidally so?
That was the first thing I tried. I cleaned and repasted it a few months ago when I got fed up with this issue. I first noticed it several months before that, even. I always just give up on it and avoid the problem by not playing games. My other game (Red Dead) was bad too, but still stayed cool long enough to play. ONI has been simply unplayable. So I’ve just avoided playing it, since nothing has worked. Until now.
It may be a 20% load at a lower clock rate. Not only would there be less work (20% of 2 GHz is less than 20% of 4 GHz), but CPUs get more efficient per unit work as the clocks go down. So the actual power consumption may only be 1/3 of the Game Mode value, for instance.
There’s a little utility called Core Temp that can tell you how much power the CPU is consuming at any moment. Might be worth looking into that.
I can tell you that, in absolute terms, your cooling setup has something seriously wrong with it. Again, you should be able to drive the CPU at 100% on all cores at full clocks without reaching 100 C.
That’s the one I’m using to monitor the temps. I do a lot of video editing and stuff and never run in to heating issues, regardless of load. But I’ve never really monitored the load doing anything else because there wasn’t a need, since it wasn’t overheating. So, I’m not really sure how much power it was drawing during those sessions vs these games.
I’ll have to find something like you mentioned upthread just to purposely run it at max load to ensure the cooling system is working properly. It’s certainly worth investigating further. Thanks!