Recently I’ve swapped this CPU from another mainboard to this one, taking the boxed cooler with it. The CPU has worked absolutely great for 5+ yrs in the old system, no trouble at all. But since putting it in the Gigabyte board it shuts down almost immediately on high temps. This started effectively after an SSD swap (different OS) but I can see the core temps rise in the BIOS so the OS is not a factor at all here. Obviously, it needs better cooling, but the cooler still has thermal paste on it. So, as I had ordered some thermal pads from China and cut one roughly to size. Thickness: 0.5mm, 6.0 W/mK. The CPU still shuts down on high temps, but the pad makes contact on both sides as I left the remnants of paste in place for this purpose. Should I add another layer of thermal pad, is the margin between CPU and cooler bigger then 0.5mm? My experience is that CPU and cooler make physical contact as the paste is pressed aside. I’m getting fed up, as on the previous SSD (before the swap) the system was stable with fairly normal temps.
I don’t use thermal pads on CPUs so I can’t really comment on that. I’m a little confused as you said the Issue seemed to start after an SSD swap at the end of your post and also the issue started after the CPU swap at the beginning?
The things I would suggest is start fresh with Pulling the CPU to verify all pins are present and straight. Cleaning both CPU and cooler Using solvent like alcohol to remove all traces of old thermal compound. Apply a small pea sized amount of new thermal paste to the CPU then bolt the cooler back down. Finally reset CMOS and/or load bios factory defaults.
Thanks for the replies! Unfortunately, I don’t have thermal paste available and obtaining that is a bit of a problem (corona related, mostly) as all non-essential shops are closed (lockdown).
@Razor_Blade Sorry for the confusion. I had run the system with a different SSD and it ran fine with just cooling paste between CPU and stock cooler. After the SSD swap it suddenly became an issue, so I added the thermal pad (I had that anyway as the new CPU for the system the 5600K came out of had a cooler w/o pre-applied paste, like the AMD stock coolers do have as standard). I’m just as you perplexed why an SSD swap would create such a massive cooling issue? CMOS was reset when I rebuild the system initially and I’ve applied the default settings several times since.
Is the SSD for some reason writing or reading constantly at full speed? That the only thing I would think if that is causing the temp on the CPU if it has to manage that but even that is a long shot.
No, the SSD isn’t even accessed as it’s just POST/BIOS.
I’ve now reseated the CPU (and there was something in the socket that doesn’t belong there) but it was too hot still and it shut down almost instantly again. I’d also noticed the thermal pad I used was too small, so I replaced it with a newly cut full cover one. Still no luck. I’m pretty sure I don’t need to add another layer of thermal padding, as the cooler firmly sticks to the CPU, I have to twist it to break the seal. So, either the thermal pad isn’t good (6.0 W/mK) or there’s something else. CPU pins are fine.
I haven’t used thermal pads before, but my understanding from ~12 years of building pc’s is cooling material is a “less is more” kind of thing. I wouldn’t use a thermal pad and thermal compound (paste). The pad or paste is meant to fill in the very find gap between the heat spreader ont he cpu and cooler. Some people ‘lack’ the cpu and cooler to make it flatter to allow cpu/cooler to have better contact. That should be over kill for your use case.
Some options, you can do a mixture of them:
Thermal paste only. You noted that you are having difficulties getting it due to local stores closed/covid. You might be able to get it online inexpensively. If you don’t want to support big stores (amazon/walmart): we can help you find independent sources for thermal paste.
Double check the cpu cooler mount. The AM3+ socket and mount has a bad reputation of not being great when it isn’t secured well. Next time you take the cooler off, make sure the mounting brackets are tight tot he motherboard (tighten up the screws ont he mobo. Try cleaning off the cooler and cpu with alcohol too. Make the the cooler clips are on the top and bottom clips flushly then tighten it down.
Motherboard settings. You mentioned moving from one board to another. Gigabyte setting might be different from your old board. If it’s second hand they might have changed stock settings to some kind of overclock that the stock cooler can’t cool. Try factory resetting the board, update bios and try stock settings. do some testing (any canned cpu benchmark). If it works okay, turn on DOCP, if that works well, leave it on…
Advanced Motherboard settings. CPU’s don’t require as much voltage to run well, reducing the voltage to a cpu will allow it to run cooler and might not impact performance (at all). I don’t know the A8-5600K specifically, but looking into if you can undervolt can be helpful.
It sounds to me that your “different OS” is the cause of this.
Normally Intel and AMD CPUs will manage their own temperature. Intel CPUs I am familiar with will start to severely drop CPU clock at 95℃ and higher. Basically half speed. And then if CPU temperature hits 100 it will force an emergency shutdown of the CPU.
I have seen my AMD Ryzen CPUs hit 95℃ and reduce speed to base clock but not half-speed. When playing around with AMD CPUs I saw them shut down (or the motherboard not sure) when going into the BIOS without a heat sink installed.
But anyway that’s hardware protection. If a different OS is causing a shutdown then it is either doing the shutdown itself based on sensor data or it is doing overclocking using MSR programming and causing overheating, maybe by setting a very high clock and disabling the automatic frequency scaling.
For high thermal loads (CPUs, GPUs, MOSFETs, etc.), I would always use thermal paste. Under the mounting pressure it spreads thinner than thermal pads and has higher thermal conductivity.
I’m afraid I’m repeating myself here: the system does NOT boot into an OS, it’s just POST->BIOS.
The socket is FM2, the CPU worked fine for 5+ years on a different mainboard. It even worked fine on this board, until recently. Inspected the CPU: pins are fine, nothing bend.
I’ve remounted the (stock/boxed) AMD cooler several times, using a thermal pad. Each time I had to twist the cooler to get it loose in the first place, meaning the mounting pressure is sufficient. Fan is running.
I’ve done a CMOS clear several times and loaded the default settings afterwards. NO OC!! I can’t get the system to run long enough to apply any sort of undervolting before it shuts down on thermals.
@MazeFrame My nick is a big clue where I’m from The problem isn’t so much availability as such, but obtaining it from the shop. We have a fairly strict lockdown, for several months now, so although PC shops are open online, they’re not for the brick’n’mortar visitor. They also require you to pay online, and I can’t afford that expense ATM. I do have money, but in cash only, and they won’t accept it because of “corona” (although cash is still legal tender, even here!)
do you have the old cpu for that motherboard? if so plug it in and check the bios version.
if you cant do that but can get your current build to post. get the bios version. shut down and go look it up. likely your bios is older than the cpu your trying to use. as a result is reading it wrong… (its possible that the new cpu can still work with an old bios but things will mess up).
now download a fresh bios to a bootable usb.
go buy some thermal paste. stick a 10er in your bank, you will be able to use it straight away, amazon and alibaba both stock it.
so you can get it delivered free if you can wait a day or 3.
mount your cpu properly. and see if your good, to start the bios update if needed.
but until you have the paste your stuck. pads wont work. they ain’t designed for cpu use. there main purpose is to fill LARGE gaps between heat spreaders and components.
not heat spreader on heat spreader where you need to paste to fill micro grooves rather than actual gaps.
Appologies, I didn’t read all the replys. I understand that you ar enot getting anywhere in terms of boot and can’t get into bios?
I recommend removing cpu and memory: Your board supports q-flash. If you do not have anything else plugged in, you can boot and use q-flash to apply the latest (last) bios for the board.
You can try switching stuff out with minimum configuration: cpu and 1 stick of memory. It could be a bad ram stick, or a improper connection to a SSD. Drop everything else and try to get to bios.
I’ve disconnected the SSD, so it’s forced into BIOS every boot. I could get into BIOS just fine, only to see the core temps skyrocket in the MIT tab and shut down on thermals straight away.
Apropos BIOS: my installed version is F2, while the Gigabyte CPU support list notes my APU is supported from version F1. So that’s not an issue. Makes sense, it was running before just fine. When I get the board running properly again I may (!!) upgrade the BIOS to version F5, but I don’t think it matters that much (in the sense it doesn’t add more or better functionality).
In short, having excluded all other options the root cause is simple: no thermal paste. So I may byte (sorry ) the bullet and get some anyway. Given that’ll be from afar, it might be a while before it gets here.
Many thanks for the advise, help, suggestions, much appreciated!
Install HWinfo64, post screen shot of everything, it’ll be 2-3 images to get everything
Do not use thermal pads on your cpu, use paste period.
Your new board does not use a heatsink on it’s vrms, likely your vrms are overheating, or they are too anemic to need a heatsink and cannot provide the power your CPU needs at full load
If you’re fine with chinese thermal pads then chinese paste will do you better
Order a nice big syringe of GD900 thermal paste, you can get a 50g tube for a couple bucks, it’s highly recommended by Brian at tech yes city, it beats out most paste except extreme overclocker stuff
For now, I’ll see if I can overstretch my luck considerably by ordering some thermal paste and await the outcome of that. Next week at the earliest I think.
Took a while, but now a fair number of corona-related limitations are lifted here I was able to buy some thermal paste: Cooler Master Mastergel Pro V2. It helps, the CPU isn’t skyrocketing in temps, but it still does go off on high temps eventually. Where before it shut down within 30 seconds, it now takes a minute or 3, idling I must add! AMD stock cooler CPU fan has ramped up to max speed (3100RPM) and I swapped the original FM2+ cooler for a slightly older AM3 one, which has a larger base, so more/better contact area. It’s fine, AMD makes these brackets/coolers interchangeable.
Problem is, I have a newer BIOS for this board, although my CPU is supported by the current version, but I don’t wanna risk doing a BIOS upgrade if temps aren’t stable, thus risking shutting down during the process. I may have to, eventually.
[edit] Wait, what?! After running the system for a while in the BIOS, it didn’t shut down! So, I tried updating the BIOS and lo and behold, it worked! And immediately I noticed temps have gone down too (was 77, now about 50) so the new BIOS (still from 2013 ) is a great improvement! I’ll await further developments with a bit more confidence in the system now.
The problem isn’t so much availability as such, but obtaining it from the shop. We have a fairly strict lockdown, for several months now, so although PC shops are open online, they’re not for the brick’n’mortar visitor. They also require you to pay online, and I can’t afford that expense ATM. I do have money, but in cash only, and they won’t accept it because of “corona” (although cash is still legal tender, even here!) 
) the bullet and get some anyway. Given that’ll be from afar, it might be a while before it gets here.
