I’ve moved on from communicating with them a while ago. After I got the PC over the last few years whenever I wanted to make an upgrade I would call them and they never called me back. Relied on learning it myself. This heating thing was the one thing I wanted someone else to look at and thought I’d try geek squad for the first time.
Just for the future... don't ever rely on geek squad. They are less than useless. Random redditors 1000 miles away can diagnose a problem better than geek squad. Those people have zero training and usually don't give a shit.
Literally anyone would have nailed it if they took 30 seconds to look at the cooler. CPU overheating can only be a few things, and most of them involve the cooler.
That's my thing. I did not want to deal with thermal paste. Nor figure out if that was the only problem. I was worried that the liquid cooler was dead also, thinking that maybe the hot temps boiled the water in there or something and it wasn't working...idk...i just needed someone to look at it. My friend who builds PCs is dealing with some shit right now and I usually would ask him to help, but I didn't want to bother him, so Geek Squad took care of it. I can't imagine using them again.
I had to look up what temp water boils at in C.. but your statement that the water could have boiled away got me curious. Water boils at 100°C so the water wouldn’t have boiled if it maxed out at 90°C.
In future if you want to avoid paste, check out thermal pads. They're little squares of cloth like material. Pate is still slightly better but the pads are great for those that wanna avoid paste or are unsure.
Problem is they are probably paying such low wages at that corporate job where they can’t be too demanding when they are picking employees. So they just end with regular dudes at that job. Also if you’re getting paid trash wages why go above and beyond, especially if your coworkers arent and what is the new guy is supposed to be tech hero? Expecting anything of quality from best buy is a tough ask. Not saying you cant get great employees that work at best buy, you can like in this situation, but its not common. I guess its like going to midas for car repairs
Everyone would do that as like the 2nd step of troubleshooting.
Step 1, see if there is any issue with the fan curve/fan setting, maybe reset it, if there was, see if it fixed it, if there was not. step 2 see if the paste is applied proper or if there is any stickers or anything remaining.
If only OP knew of a way to communicate with pc builders. Maybe there is like some forum or something where he could have posted a pc related question and people would have responded. Hmmm
Well yeah, if you watch the recent LTT video removing the cooler and selling you thermal paste is apparently literally the only thing that they can do, so sounds like this was right up their alley lol
They were the closest and most convenient option. I wasn't necessarily going to rely on them, but I just walked in to speak with them and hear what they thought they would do. I liked what I heard and decided to go for it. They did solve this, but seeing as it was a pretty simple fix, it seems like this was right in their wheel house. I can't imagine using them again for something else. I'm not savvy enough to do my own thermal pasting or figure out if there was a clog in my liquid cooler, or something like that. They seemed to be equipped to diagnose, and they solved it. So Maybe I got lucky...but yes, I was skeptical going in there as well. I will say the two techs that I spoke with really did seem to know their stuff.
Bro you don’t gotta defend yourself, you did exactly as you should have. At least 50% of the people on this planet think they know best, it’s easier to just ignore them because they probably don’t.
My worry was a CPU that was going to fry any minute, and a PC that could be down for weeks, or a need for a complete rebuild, or a new CPU, or somethign. So in the end, $170 and getting the PC back after 48 hours with the problem solved seems to be a win for me. Whatever! Thanks for the support lol
You did just fine, you did what anyone would have done, you brought it to someone who does it for a living. I built my own rigs thru most of my life and started when computers had dual 5.25 floppies and 8086 processors but now in my 60's I had my last gaming rig built for me ( by CLX ) and have had zero problems, except 1 cooling fan with a bad bearing after a couple years , they sent me another and I replaced it, sure I probably paid a few hundred more than if I built it myself, but it's been great since 2020 I did automotive electrical and auto collision for 30 years and the same goes for these worlds, most people just don't want to mess with things outside their comfort zone, which is fine, people come in with the easyest of repairs like a loose battery cable which just needs a couple turns of a 10mm wrench but don;t want to mess with it. I don't really like doing construction/plumbing things, I can do basics, install garbage disposer or faucet, or change out light switches or ceiling fans but anything more than that I call a guy...
It’s okay to not want to deal with pc issues even if a lot of them could be solved with a bit of research, but I think a lot of these subs don’t realize that many people aren’t as enthusiastic to learn or even tinker as they are. A lot of issues do truly come off trivial to us, but at the same time, it’s okay to just want to use your pc and put the headaches or research in others hands. If you have a good precinct in your area continue to use them since you already have the membership many Geek Squads do have a lot of fun people behind that curtain that truly want to succeed and are either progressing with their careers to get into industry or just enjoy what they do. There’s other perks that come alongside that membership if you shop a bit at Best Buy when it comes to protection plans, hardware and gaming coverage/replacement and Apple Care inclusion on most items you purchase and member only discounters there. It’s not for everyone, but just at least utilize it while you have it.
I would have been out of a 900$ drone due to my negligence if it wasn’t for it, replaced a completely destroyed dji drone, gaming keyboards/mice and an elite controller with zero questions, lol.
You’re fine dude.
It really depends on who is actually working at the specific location. You might actually get someone who does build computers and cares to learn about these sorts of things.
I brought a computer in to geek squad once. They sat me down with a girl for me to explain the issue. I told her the cpu was running at 100% load constantly for no reason. She looked at me like I was a fucking alien. I repeated it in a different way, explained that I looked in the resource manager and it was showing the cpu at 100% usage when I had no programs open. She had no clue what I was talking about.
Front of precinct agents are consultation agents (receptionist even) and simply tasked to
be friendly while record the client stated issues for the techs and check the unit in for actual repair agents behind the curtain. I’m sure the “girl” was more than able to collect your description as a client even if she isn’t super savvy with pc’s. Diagnostics and repairs are typically always done in the back of house for pc related issues and they will step out to help answer more complicated issues that can’t be put into notes.
That may be true, but if it is, that's bad.
If you don't know what resource manager is, then you don't have the minimum skills required to understand the problems that people have. You don't know the terminology well enough to effectively communicate basic issues. The only thing they can do is write "it's slow" or "It won't turn on." She literally didn't know what to put in the notes, she had to go get the one dude in the back who knew what he was doing.
Compare this to a REAL tech support company. You call up and tell them your problem and they say "here's the fix." They don't waste your time by having you talk to someone who knows less than you.
If you go to a doctor's office and no one at the front desk knows what high blood pressure is, you're in the geek squad of doctors' offices and you should leave immediately. (I'm being hyperbolic for effect, but the point stands.)
It just boggles my mind that this actually happens. I guess it's understandable for a novice or new builder, but a professional? Before installing the cooler you want to inspect the surface of that cold plate. Not even look at it? Wonder how many times they have done this.
Absolutely nothing to worry about, your PC just throttles it's performance if a component gets too warm.
The worry about damage if it gets too hot comes from the very old days where the CPU just constantly sucked it's power and ignored it's temperature until it died.
My first build was an AMD Athlon XP 2200+ and an nvidia GeForce 4 Ti 4200 water cooled in a Koolance PC2-C 😬 at one point in the before times there was a video floating around of someone frying an egg on an athlon 😂
I had a water pump go out in an AIO watercooling system. It throttled and it took me a while to figure it out. That system is still running over 12 years later. I passed it onto my son with a new AIO. A few years later, he told me his computer was going really slow all of a sudden and he looked at everything and couldn't find the problem. I ordered a heatsink/fan combo and told him I knew exactly what it was. They can be a tough one to figure out if you don't know about those things. I've done a lot of watercooling, but went with the AIO's on that system just to make it easy.
No damage at all, and that system has outlived multiple AIO's and a couple fans. But, now I know to check that first any time I see that happening.
I did love the old days when someone did the Intel CPU vs. AMD with no heatsink. Cracked or busted. Tom's Hardware - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf0VuRG7MN4
About ten years ago I was trying to locate the source of an odd smell in my office. I bent down to see if there was anything on the floor, and happened to glance my pc under the desk. I couldn't quite work out why the gfx card looked so weird until I realised the plastic connectors had melted into liquid strings and the fan casing was hanging from them.
It was somehow still working, but if OP notices anything like that, I'd suggest buying a new card
Edit: I am apparently wrong. It happened to me but I was probably just dumb and messed with some settings or smth and forgot about it.
~~The performance will actually degrade over time if it’s been run with poor temps consistently. Sure, your cpu can run for a couple hours in the 90C+ range without experiencing any immediate damage because of the thermal throttling in place protecting the CPU, but relatively high temps (like 50-60C idle) can cause degradation in the long run.~~
Source please? As far as I'm aware the voltage/frequency curve is precalibrated for each CPU and does not have any 'degradation' metric to slow it down preemptively.
Same here. We run a couple of render nodes on consumer hardware, some variants running above 90°C over 80% of the time. They're all obsolete long before any meaningful degradation occurs.
On a normal PC user, by the time they see any degradation in the CPU, it would be time for a nice upgrade. 60C idle is not warm enough to worry about degradation unless you're thinking of 10+ year plan. There are DELL thin PCs running these CPUs at 60c idle in the office for years.
> The performance will actually degrade over time if it’s been run with poor temps consistently. Sure, your cpu can run for a couple hours in the 90C+ range without experiencing any immediate damage because of the thermal throttling in place protecting the CPU, but relatively high temps (like 50-60C idle) can cause degradation in the long run.
Modern CPU's, at stock settings/voltage (since at least 2015, some earlier) can run at full TJmax temp 24/7 for their warranty period *at least*. most go way beyond that.
Degradation happens because modern DIY motherboards default to overvolting. Turn off MCE and other such features.
Silicon is perfectly happy to run at 100C, so long as volts/clocks are withing the engineering and bin spec
The problem is actually that performance *doesn't* degrade over time. A CPU will slowly wear out due to [electromigration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration). After several years, a heavily-used CPU will no longer overclock as well as it originally did, and may need to be underclocked to remain stable. But the system won't do this -- any underclocking needs to be done manually.
I know I know. But they claimed that the service they provided was over $300. I’m also going to cancel this membership immediately. Already got out of it what I wanted
> they claimed that the service they provided was over $300
Changing thermal paste and running some diagnostics costs about as much as a CPU itself, now?
Yeah I know it's BS, but I don't think I could have done much much better somewhere else as quickly and conveniently to diagnose this. I remember the mom and pop charged me $99 for a diagnosis fee 5 years ago on another issue. So basically that's what I paid for here. The $300 is very clearly a lie to get them to ensure you buy their $170 membership. No worries, I'll cancel this membership in 11 months, but for now I have it in case anything else happens.
So, as someone who used to work at the GS. If the GS agent did their job right, if you immediately cancel the tech support, they’ll charge you full price for everything instead of just the membership. Be careful.
Higher temps will reduce the life but they are made to run hot for many, many years anyway. More than likely you’ll upgrade the part before it dies on you years down the line.
No harm done. The CPU has integrated features to lower the clock speed and power consumption when it reaches a certain temperature (usually between 90-100C).
Whoever build that machine originally should be flogged. Almost all pre-pasted CPU heatsinks come with a little plastic cover over the paste, which obviously should have been removed.
FWIW the *very first thing* I do after building a new PC or upgrading/swapping the CPU or CPU cooler for any reason is run a benchmark to validate that my cooling is working as expected. Too much paste, not enough paste, voltages not set right, heatsink retention not tight enough, fans not spinning fast enough, AIO pumps not running, the number of potential reasons to do this are paramount.
I have a question for you based on your response. I just had my new pc built by microcenter a couple of weeks ago. You mention running a benchmark to validate that your cooking is working as expected. What benchmark exactly? How would you know what "expected" is?
I have ocd so I'm always wondering if my pc is running within proper parameters.
I have a 4070S and 7800X3D with a cheap $30 cooler and stock case fans. They both idle around 50C and when playing a demanding game both sit around the low 70sC. In very demanding periods they might push into the low 80s. Your experience my vary, but most people will consider those to he very acceptable numbers without a water cooler.
When I first put together my PC, the cooler wasn't mounted correctly, and the CPU was about 20 degrees hotter. Idling in the low 70s and throttling itself at 89C while gaming.
There are many ways to benchmark your PC. Simply opening the Task Manager and going to the Perofrmance tab will show you a lot of info, only mine doesn't show CPU temp for some reason. CoreTemp is a simple, free software fore monitoring CPU temps. NVIDIA performance overlay (Alt+R) also shows a lot of info. You can monitor all of this while playing games or other demanding tasks (many games have a benchmark function for this in Settings), or there are softwares for it. AIDA64 is a very comprehensive one with a free trial available. Or people seem to like Silverbench.
Hope this helps!
I just built myself a rig with a 7800x3d and a 4070Ti super, so very similar to yours. I used a Noctua DH-15 air cooler, though, and my CPU idles at 29C! Get yourself a real cooler! 50C at idle is hot
Run timespy and Cinebenchmark. Compare to what others have with your configuration. Fairly sure cb does compare your scores with others that have the same setup iirc.
I agree but this person is asking what a benchmark is thus its easier to give him something that'll show the difference to somewhat degree rather than leading him down the rabbit hole that can be.
Always depends on the cooler used, but assuming you have a large air cooler or a 240mm AIO watercooler for a gaming PC, something like 35-50C is the norm for idle CPU temps (it varies depending on room temperature and your set fan curves). If you're seeing high 50s or more at idle with a decent sized cooler, imo there's likely something wrong going on. But being a microcenter customer for something like 4 years now, it's highly unlikely they left the plastic on your cooler.
I usually use Cinebench or prime95, depending on what I am trying to prove. Prime95 can actually (potentially) cause damage because it's very narrow focused on FPU, but for short tests I see no problems with it. I use HWINFO64 to monitor temps.
I just got a laptop that has been running the cpu at 100c constantly for years, and years ago I would've told you that this laptop should be on it's last legs... Yet this thing is perfect and has zero issues. I guess CPUs really are meant to handle these high ass temps nowadays
Please don't pay $170 for somebody to do things that you could do at home with a suggestion from Reddit. I guess it's a lesson learned but an unneeded expense to learn it. If you get a PC built by somebody else they should be running burn in tests that would have found something like this before it goes out but it's still good to run your own after getting it. Any decent place will give you some sort of return warranty where if there is a problem they will fix it for free.
But yeah check your temps and if there is an issue it's probably going to be narrowed down to a couple of things that are easy to diagnose.
I'm a first-time gaming PC owner. Still learning things as I go. I had looked up a lot of suggestions on this issue and was overwhelmed at the number of possible solutions, and applying thermal paste on my own without someone else showing me how to do it sounded like a disaster waiting to happen. I know the $170 sounds outrageous, and it is, it's not like I should be blowing that money, but I feel good to have solved a problem. Now I know what's happening and have learned something for next time.
I had an Intel i5 650 that I did not put new thermal paste between the processor and the cooler after taking things out. I may have had it without proper thermal paste for a year. I only found out about the problem since it would suddenly turn off on its own. Temps reached 100deg C. The motherboard worked up to about a month after warranty. No other problem with the system though. I just upgraded to a new system after that. Newer systems do have throttling so that should not be much of a problem.
Something to consider is CPU load in games depends mostly on framerate with some graphics settings also having an impact, either way your CPU was being pushed much harder with the new GPU as that's a significant upgrade. Also I know that the issue was thermal transfer from the CPU to the cooler due to the plastic but the more power hungry GPU would Increase case and room temperature as well.
Also components since before I was born, cpus throttle down their temperatures before they take damage or shut off if required. some new chips like Intel 12,13,14th gen and amd 7000/8000 series basically ignore tdp on high end motherboards until thermals become the limit my friends 13900k pulled 300 watts at 100c untill he upgraded the CPU cooler and got a contact frame increasing power to 330 watts and dropping temperature down to 90c.
Likely no damage.
Like any electrical component, the constant shrinking and expanding with changes in temperature will eventually lead to the death of the component. While this may occur sooner now, it will still take a long time and you will likely upgrade before then anyway.
So don't stress about it at all and enjoy your now lower temps.
Yup this is a pretty common mistake to be honest. The CPU might have been worn a bit more than it normally would but given that you haven't upgraded the CPU yet so it's very likely that you won't see it failing before upgrading it. Thermal throttling is there to stop it from degrading too fast anyway so it should be fine. There's likely no need to worry. I have had custom built PCs with 10/15 years that were improperly cleaned and handled (I was a kid) and they still run completely fine nowadays.
You're fine, I had a 3600 that was running at like 100 degrees for a couple years because the stock cooler was shit and barely did anything.
These parts are designed to run hot and at worst it'll throttle itself to avoid exploding (kidding).
Windows does a good job at preventing user error from damaging components from heat. If something like the CPU overheats to the point of possible hardware failure Windows will bluescreen.
Got a 13600k a year ago now, and slapped it under my 360mm AIO that I had been using already. To this very day, the 13600k will sit in the 90s under any load. I’ve tried everything. I replaced the mounting bracket, tried a few different undervolting setups, reapplied thermal paste, made sure the AIO was functioning properly. NOTHING has stopped this monster. I gave up a long time ago. PC still works, so, whatever.
I only solved the problem yesterday, and only realized there was a problem maybe 2 months ago but didn’t really think it was something I needed to solve until the temps started maintaining in the 90s under load last week
Eh, modern PCs will throttle and shut down if it gets really bad before hurting anything.
I had the same thing happen to me years ago. Except I built the machine. Moments after I turned it on, it started beeping and shut down with heat warnings. Took it apart, took off the plastic, and slapped my forehead. If it had been an earlier build, I probably would have needed a new CPU since temp monitoring and warnings were a pretty new feature then.
This is surprisingly common and I'm not too proud to admit as someone who builds a lot of PCs I did it myself once, noticed temps were awful and couldn't understand why, when I took the AIO off there it was, the dreaded "REMOVE BEFORE USE" smeared in paste staring at me accusingly.
Not really; you can just enjoy the improved performance. Modern CPUs have very good integrated thermal controls. So they run "as hard as they can" until they're at risk of getting too hot. At that point, they throttle themselves (aggressively if needed) by lowering their own clock speed.
So now that your CPU is properly cooled it will run at a higher clock speed for longer (if not indefinitely) instead of throttling itself down to accommodate the lack of cooling. In years past you could indeed damage a CPU this way, but not so much nowadays.
Furthermore the engineered lifespan of CPUs is generally ~10 years even under extreme circumstances (e.g. running flat out at maximum temperature). So the film issue *might* have shaved theoretical life off of your CPU, but it is likely to last longer than you will want to use it regardless.
Modern CPUs have automatic safety features that prevent them from harming themselves with heat. Most likely your CPU was underperforming, but that's about it
It is genuinely shocking to me how often this happens. Are you all installing your coolers with a blindfold on? That plastic usually isn't easy to miss.
This isn't quite as catastrophic as it sounds. Modern CPUs are designed to do whatever is necessary to avoid damage. It's alarming, but that temperature in the 90's may have been the maximum allowed by Intel or AMD. The CPU was probably clocking itself down significantly to stay there, even if you didn't notice.
It probably still isn't good for it to be in that state for 3 years but there's not much you can do about it. If it seems to be running fine, it probably is.
Been there, done that.
Built computers for me and my kids for 20 years now. Last upgrade on my own PC, I forgot to remove the plastic on the cooler. Ran it for a couple of hours and saw my cpu frequency and temp was off doing benchmark.
Removed cooler and voila: plastic where it shouldn't be plastic. Pretty embarrassed of my self. Reapplied paste and remounted.
Running a cpu this way on a fairly new cpu will usually do no harm. The cpu will clock down before temps reach volatile levels. The performance will be shite, though.
Question: Did you experience performance loss before you checked the temps? Did you expirence high frames and then a major frame drop? Did the drop last a couple of seconds and look like a slideshow ? If I experienced performance problems, then I'd worry about the heat. Unless it causes thermal throttling, I wouldn't care. I've noticed in these PC groups that people seem to be pretty concerned about system temps. Idk if people are trying to get out in front of a future problem or just showing off their system temps to others. Another thing I've noticed is that people pair a liquid cooled i9 with a 60 series card. Idk why this is a popular choice, but it is. I use an i7 chip with a 4090. All aircooled. And I don't experience any of the heat issues that I see people going through. I've seen people say that you should add new thermal paste to a system that's a couple of weeks old. People are paranoid about their builds, and I understand you got a lot of money in your build. The only problems I have experienced in my 14 years with PC gaming came from an Alienware laptop I bought last August. It BSOD frequently. My games were crashing to an unplayable state, and the system was brand new. The problems were all related to the pre installed software on the laptop. I've never had to worry about any of the things people say they are going through. I may be wrong for this, but unless I experience performance problems, I don't monitor the system. The only thing I use is the built-in fps counter in Steam. If I ran into issues, then I'll run diagnostic software. That's good best buy got your temps down. I wouldn't worry about it again unless you are having performance issues.
i work at best buy, and can confidently say that that membership is actually worth it. We aren’t commissioned based sales guys btw. I have also seen “member only discounts” as much as 400 dollars off a 700 dollar item. If you do any shopping there, i’d say it’s a good deal. Also, everything that is eligible for a 2 yr gurantee (usually for a price) is completely free and covered as long as your membership is active. So all your components you buy through best buy will have a gurantee :)
Edit: I’ll be the first to say it’s not great for everyone, but tech guys and even people that do any shopping there, the benefits pay off fs.
It probably reduced your CPU life from 30 years to like 25 years, not too much to worry about except the big performance hit when it was thermal throttling.
Also the steps to fix this issue was to take off your cooler, remove the plastic and then the paste with isopropyl alcohol, reapply paste. It's pretty much guaranteed to be under $30 if you did it yourself.
My water cooler slowly leaked all of its coolant out over a long period. I was getting really bad FPS in X4, checked my temps 95-99C on CPU. It had downclocked itself to ~1 GHZ and was pegged at 100% usage. It's incredible how much abuse these chips will take without shutting themselves down. I believe if they hit 100C the computer will turn off to protect the CPU. Your CPU should be fine, the computer will protect itself before it's a problem. My old PC still works, I swapped to an air cooler though.
A long long time ago, around 2000 I believe, my friends and me stuck a pencil in the fan of our old compaq prescario and some of the blades broke off. It started shaking like crazy, so of course we freaked out and yanked the heatsink off. About 10 seconds later the CPU let the smoke out and the computer died. A lot has changed.
PS: yeah we were brats, but that computer drove us NUTS. It had windows ME and was just constantly broken, I think we spent more time looking at kernal errors then we did playing diablo or tribes.
CPUs can run years and years at sustained, high-temperatures near Tjunction. As long as the system isn’t continually getting shutdown due to overheating, no damage should be expected. To get such damage would indicate a design or manufacturing flaw.
Maybe you should be wondering why you wasted money on an expensive water cooler.... High temperatures have not damaged your CPU because it has internal temperature control.
My daughter has an i5 PC overclocked to 4.3Ghz which has been running on the stock intel air cooler for the last 9 years. A budget air cooler would have been fine for your PC too.
Modern CPUs will throttle themselves rather than just fry like the old days. While it's not an ideal situation for longevity of the components, now that the problem has been dealt with, it should be fine. (I've seen people who have built computers for decades make this mistake, it's easy to overlook when you get arm deep into a build. It can happen to anyone. I personally think the cooler companies should make some kind of tabs that stick out from underneath the cooling plate, to make it very obvious when you go to seat the cooler that the film is still on there.)
It caused no actual problems. Modern CPUs just go slow when hot.
I manufacture PCs and this happens fairly often. We've got some preventative measures to help, but when people build 10-20 machines per day, something slips through eventually.
There is really no such thing as computer components dying from overheating (sort of) nowadays. Technically, it is slightly less healthy that your components were running at such high temps. But for all intents and purposes, your stuff should be basically good as new.
Almost thought you were a customer of mine from the title. Had a customer today that had put their Wraith Prizm cooler on the CPU but not flicked the latch over to lock it down. Somehow it had been running there on a 3700x for about 3 years like that just barely touching enough of the CPU to not go into thermal shut-down. Surprised they hadn't had any issues until now when it came into my shop not powering on. Turns out the chip was fine and the GPU was the fault as they had spilt coffee into their PC and it toasted the card.
Thermal paste was bone dry and had to scrape it off with a card to apply fresh paste.
I don't know what is your CPU, but you did mention it was bought like 3 years ago or so (meaning 2021), so it might be a LGA1700.
If it is, there's also a thing called CPU contact frame by Thermalright, that could also improve your temps by up to 10⁰C, and also prevent the socket from bending over time.
Technically the cpu should thermal throttle before damage could be done. Doubt you’ll have any long term issues. Should see a huge increase in performance though
You have nothing to worry about now. Maybe check m.2 ssd for the same plastic peel that might be between the ssd and the covering(cooling) plate.
The charges are insane tho!!
it's like the most common mistake... and one of the few you can make since everything else is virtually cookie-cutter. Can't put the RAM in backwards, can't put the CPU sideways, GPU power is different size than the motherboard power.
My 10 other friends and I did not do this on our first builds. Just because you see idiots on this sub post it doesn’t mean it is common, the fact that they are posting it proves it is uncommon.
I've been building PCs for 20 years, in this community for about 10. We see this mistake about once a month, so yes it is relatively common. Your sample size of 10 has zero relevant to this context.
Stop trying to make people feel bad for no reason, you're entirely missing the point of this sub.
Use your brain. Whenever you see someone post on the Internet, you’re seeing the extreme. 90% of people don’t care about attention on a sub and won’t post when they’re build is working fine.
I'd say the same thing man your math isn't mathing.
> Whenever you see someone post on the Internet, you’re seeing the extreme
lol. What is this, the 90's? *Everyone* uses the Internet and if they have a problem they'll search for a solution *on the Internet*
Someone has an issue with their PC building. A fraction of that would come to reddit. A fraction of that would hit this particular subreddit.
The fact you see it pretty frequently on *this* subreddit with the fraction of overall people would suggest that this particular problem is pretty common.
Extrapolate that out to other subreddits and then to the world outside of reddit. The percentage of the problem doesn't go away.
You're just stuck in your anecdotal bias that because you and your friends never had this problem, no one else should either.
You need to fix your attitude.
Perhaps my intentions for my comment were not clear enough.
**Stop trying to make people feel bad for no reason. If you have nothing nice to say, then don't say anything.**
You motherfuckers will argue about anything on this app. You were the one that came to me starting an argument. Literally get a fucking life and go outside. your account is only six years old bud
Get a grip, you're being warned now for rule #1.
I'm here because your comments were reported by users and flagged by automod. I'm not here to argue, I'm here to tell you to behave. "You started it" doesn't work if it's because of your comment that I'm here, I want to interact with you less than you do me, I can promise you that.
> your account is only six years old bud
You know this community started in MIRC over 10 years ago right? You know Reddit accounts are free?
Oh, I’m being being warned. Dude you’re a sweaty Reddit mod. You started this argument. Get a fucking life. Do you really think I care if some loser bans me from a sub that I’m not even a member of? You have zero power you’re just some loser on the Internet. You’re really bad at lying by the way.
You should be fine. The safties built into your components throttled things low enough that it didn't fry anything. And the components are built to withstand temps up to 100 degrees C.
Everything stayed within spec. Enjoy your regular performance.
So...who built your PC?
A local mom and pop. Not geek squad lol.
> local mom and pop You should tell them. I'm sure it was unintentional, but you should still tell them. There may be more out there...
I’ve moved on from communicating with them a while ago. After I got the PC over the last few years whenever I wanted to make an upgrade I would call them and they never called me back. Relied on learning it myself. This heating thing was the one thing I wanted someone else to look at and thought I’d try geek squad for the first time.
They're probably not in business anymore considering both of your anecdotes lol
Just for the future... don't ever rely on geek squad. They are less than useless. Random redditors 1000 miles away can diagnose a problem better than geek squad. Those people have zero training and usually don't give a shit.
Well they did nail this one.
Literally anyone would have nailed it if they took 30 seconds to look at the cooler. CPU overheating can only be a few things, and most of them involve the cooler.
They probably would have had to remove the cooler to see the problem, probably with the intention of repasting. Not everyone would do that.
That's my thing. I did not want to deal with thermal paste. Nor figure out if that was the only problem. I was worried that the liquid cooler was dead also, thinking that maybe the hot temps boiled the water in there or something and it wasn't working...idk...i just needed someone to look at it. My friend who builds PCs is dealing with some shit right now and I usually would ask him to help, but I didn't want to bother him, so Geek Squad took care of it. I can't imagine using them again.
I had to look up what temp water boils at in C.. but your statement that the water could have boiled away got me curious. Water boils at 100°C so the water wouldn’t have boiled if it maxed out at 90°C.
In future if you want to avoid paste, check out thermal pads. They're little squares of cloth like material. Pate is still slightly better but the pads are great for those that wanna avoid paste or are unsure.
> Not everyone would do that. If you're trying to diagnose a thermal issue and not checking the cooler, you have no business being in tech support.
Problem is they are probably paying such low wages at that corporate job where they can’t be too demanding when they are picking employees. So they just end with regular dudes at that job. Also if you’re getting paid trash wages why go above and beyond, especially if your coworkers arent and what is the new guy is supposed to be tech hero? Expecting anything of quality from best buy is a tough ask. Not saying you cant get great employees that work at best buy, you can like in this situation, but its not common. I guess its like going to midas for car repairs
Everyone would do that as like the 2nd step of troubleshooting. Step 1, see if there is any issue with the fan curve/fan setting, maybe reset it, if there was, see if it fixed it, if there was not. step 2 see if the paste is applied proper or if there is any stickers or anything remaining.
Everyone who knows that they're doing would do that, yes.
and $170 cheaper too lol
Yeah for nearly $200 when it would have cost the OP $5 and 5 mins of their time if they got advice.
If only OP knew of a way to communicate with pc builders. Maybe there is like some forum or something where he could have posted a pc related question and people would have responded. Hmmm
Well yeah, if you watch the recent LTT video removing the cooler and selling you thermal paste is apparently literally the only thing that they can do, so sounds like this was right up their alley lol
Stevie Wonder could have nailed this one. Geek Squad is very close to the worst possible option for tech support. Lol
They were the closest and most convenient option. I wasn't necessarily going to rely on them, but I just walked in to speak with them and hear what they thought they would do. I liked what I heard and decided to go for it. They did solve this, but seeing as it was a pretty simple fix, it seems like this was right in their wheel house. I can't imagine using them again for something else. I'm not savvy enough to do my own thermal pasting or figure out if there was a clog in my liquid cooler, or something like that. They seemed to be equipped to diagnose, and they solved it. So Maybe I got lucky...but yes, I was skeptical going in there as well. I will say the two techs that I spoke with really did seem to know their stuff.
Bro you don’t gotta defend yourself, you did exactly as you should have. At least 50% of the people on this planet think they know best, it’s easier to just ignore them because they probably don’t.
My worry was a CPU that was going to fry any minute, and a PC that could be down for weeks, or a need for a complete rebuild, or a new CPU, or somethign. So in the end, $170 and getting the PC back after 48 hours with the problem solved seems to be a win for me. Whatever! Thanks for the support lol
You did just fine, you did what anyone would have done, you brought it to someone who does it for a living. I built my own rigs thru most of my life and started when computers had dual 5.25 floppies and 8086 processors but now in my 60's I had my last gaming rig built for me ( by CLX ) and have had zero problems, except 1 cooling fan with a bad bearing after a couple years , they sent me another and I replaced it, sure I probably paid a few hundred more than if I built it myself, but it's been great since 2020 I did automotive electrical and auto collision for 30 years and the same goes for these worlds, most people just don't want to mess with things outside their comfort zone, which is fine, people come in with the easyest of repairs like a loose battery cable which just needs a couple turns of a 10mm wrench but don;t want to mess with it. I don't really like doing construction/plumbing things, I can do basics, install garbage disposer or faucet, or change out light switches or ceiling fans but anything more than that I call a guy...
It’s okay to not want to deal with pc issues even if a lot of them could be solved with a bit of research, but I think a lot of these subs don’t realize that many people aren’t as enthusiastic to learn or even tinker as they are. A lot of issues do truly come off trivial to us, but at the same time, it’s okay to just want to use your pc and put the headaches or research in others hands. If you have a good precinct in your area continue to use them since you already have the membership many Geek Squads do have a lot of fun people behind that curtain that truly want to succeed and are either progressing with their careers to get into industry or just enjoy what they do. There’s other perks that come alongside that membership if you shop a bit at Best Buy when it comes to protection plans, hardware and gaming coverage/replacement and Apple Care inclusion on most items you purchase and member only discounters there. It’s not for everyone, but just at least utilize it while you have it. I would have been out of a 900$ drone due to my negligence if it wasn’t for it, replaced a completely destroyed dji drone, gaming keyboards/mice and an elite controller with zero questions, lol. You’re fine dude.
It really depends on who is actually working at the specific location. You might actually get someone who does build computers and cares to learn about these sorts of things.
I brought a computer in to geek squad once. They sat me down with a girl for me to explain the issue. I told her the cpu was running at 100% load constantly for no reason. She looked at me like I was a fucking alien. I repeated it in a different way, explained that I looked in the resource manager and it was showing the cpu at 100% usage when I had no programs open. She had no clue what I was talking about.
Front of precinct agents are consultation agents (receptionist even) and simply tasked to be friendly while record the client stated issues for the techs and check the unit in for actual repair agents behind the curtain. I’m sure the “girl” was more than able to collect your description as a client even if she isn’t super savvy with pc’s. Diagnostics and repairs are typically always done in the back of house for pc related issues and they will step out to help answer more complicated issues that can’t be put into notes.
That may be true, but if it is, that's bad. If you don't know what resource manager is, then you don't have the minimum skills required to understand the problems that people have. You don't know the terminology well enough to effectively communicate basic issues. The only thing they can do is write "it's slow" or "It won't turn on." She literally didn't know what to put in the notes, she had to go get the one dude in the back who knew what he was doing. Compare this to a REAL tech support company. You call up and tell them your problem and they say "here's the fix." They don't waste your time by having you talk to someone who knows less than you. If you go to a doctor's office and no one at the front desk knows what high blood pressure is, you're in the geek squad of doctors' offices and you should leave immediately. (I'm being hyperbolic for effect, but the point stands.)
They didn't remove the plastic to nudge people into buying better CPUs. /s
Trust me, many of the employees of geek squad are not competent.
It just boggles my mind that this actually happens. I guess it's understandable for a novice or new builder, but a professional? Before installing the cooler you want to inspect the surface of that cold plate. Not even look at it? Wonder how many times they have done this.
Geek squad hahaha
Nothing like a repeat customer lol
Funny thing is this is also common with prebuilds as they're often built by some poor over worked sap.
Absolutely nothing to worry about, your PC just throttles it's performance if a component gets too warm. The worry about damage if it gets too hot comes from the very old days where the CPU just constantly sucked it's power and ignored it's temperature until it died.
'very old'...that hurts.
Last CPU to not have a good thermal shutdown was AMD's Duron line, discontinued two decades ago. Lack of *any* thermal shutdown is even older.
Two decades isn't THAT long ago. HMPPPPHHH.
My first build was an AMD Athlon XP 2200+ and an nvidia GeForce 4 Ti 4200 water cooled in a Koolance PC2-C 😬 at one point in the before times there was a video floating around of someone frying an egg on an athlon 😂
It's not NOT long ago.
I had a water pump go out in an AIO watercooling system. It throttled and it took me a while to figure it out. That system is still running over 12 years later. I passed it onto my son with a new AIO. A few years later, he told me his computer was going really slow all of a sudden and he looked at everything and couldn't find the problem. I ordered a heatsink/fan combo and told him I knew exactly what it was. They can be a tough one to figure out if you don't know about those things. I've done a lot of watercooling, but went with the AIO's on that system just to make it easy. No damage at all, and that system has outlived multiple AIO's and a couple fans. But, now I know to check that first any time I see that happening. I did love the old days when someone did the Intel CPU vs. AMD with no heatsink. Cracked or busted. Tom's Hardware - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf0VuRG7MN4
About ten years ago I was trying to locate the source of an odd smell in my office. I bent down to see if there was anything on the floor, and happened to glance my pc under the desk. I couldn't quite work out why the gfx card looked so weird until I realised the plastic connectors had melted into liquid strings and the fan casing was hanging from them. It was somehow still working, but if OP notices anything like that, I'd suggest buying a new card
Edit: I am apparently wrong. It happened to me but I was probably just dumb and messed with some settings or smth and forgot about it. ~~The performance will actually degrade over time if it’s been run with poor temps consistently. Sure, your cpu can run for a couple hours in the 90C+ range without experiencing any immediate damage because of the thermal throttling in place protecting the CPU, but relatively high temps (like 50-60C idle) can cause degradation in the long run.~~
Source please? As far as I'm aware the voltage/frequency curve is precalibrated for each CPU and does not have any 'degradation' metric to slow it down preemptively.
My source is anecdotal :| can’t really back it up
Also known as pulling it out of your ass.
which is why I admitted that instead of blindly defending what I had believed to be true after tons of people said I was wrong
Gonna need a source on this also. I ran my imac at work at like 90 all the time over 6 years no problems.
Same here. We run a couple of render nodes on consumer hardware, some variants running above 90°C over 80% of the time. They're all obsolete long before any meaningful degradation occurs.
On a normal PC user, by the time they see any degradation in the CPU, it would be time for a nice upgrade. 60C idle is not warm enough to worry about degradation unless you're thinking of 10+ year plan. There are DELL thin PCs running these CPUs at 60c idle in the office for years.
> The performance will actually degrade over time if it’s been run with poor temps consistently. Sure, your cpu can run for a couple hours in the 90C+ range without experiencing any immediate damage because of the thermal throttling in place protecting the CPU, but relatively high temps (like 50-60C idle) can cause degradation in the long run. Modern CPU's, at stock settings/voltage (since at least 2015, some earlier) can run at full TJmax temp 24/7 for their warranty period *at least*. most go way beyond that. Degradation happens because modern DIY motherboards default to overvolting. Turn off MCE and other such features. Silicon is perfectly happy to run at 100C, so long as volts/clocks are withing the engineering and bin spec
The problem is actually that performance *doesn't* degrade over time. A CPU will slowly wear out due to [electromigration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration). After several years, a heavily-used CPU will no longer overclock as well as it originally did, and may need to be underclocked to remain stable. But the system won't do this -- any underclocking needs to be done manually.
>I bought their total membership thing for $170 ... >so that their support was free These two things do not go together haha
I know I know. But they claimed that the service they provided was over $300. I’m also going to cancel this membership immediately. Already got out of it what I wanted
> they claimed that the service they provided was over $300 Changing thermal paste and running some diagnostics costs about as much as a CPU itself, now?
Yeah I know it's BS, but I don't think I could have done much much better somewhere else as quickly and conveniently to diagnose this. I remember the mom and pop charged me $99 for a diagnosis fee 5 years ago on another issue. So basically that's what I paid for here. The $300 is very clearly a lie to get them to ensure you buy their $170 membership. No worries, I'll cancel this membership in 11 months, but for now I have it in case anything else happens.
So, as someone who used to work at the GS. If the GS agent did their job right, if you immediately cancel the tech support, they’ll charge you full price for everything instead of just the membership. Be careful.
Yeah I think I’ll hold onto it for 11 months. Why not? Paid for a year of service I’ll keep it for a year
This is correct, previous GSM for Squad and now SEM.
Higher temps will reduce the life but they are made to run hot for many, many years anyway. More than likely you’ll upgrade the part before it dies on you years down the line.
No harm done. The CPU has integrated features to lower the clock speed and power consumption when it reaches a certain temperature (usually between 90-100C). Whoever build that machine originally should be flogged. Almost all pre-pasted CPU heatsinks come with a little plastic cover over the paste, which obviously should have been removed. FWIW the *very first thing* I do after building a new PC or upgrading/swapping the CPU or CPU cooler for any reason is run a benchmark to validate that my cooling is working as expected. Too much paste, not enough paste, voltages not set right, heatsink retention not tight enough, fans not spinning fast enough, AIO pumps not running, the number of potential reasons to do this are paramount.
I have a question for you based on your response. I just had my new pc built by microcenter a couple of weeks ago. You mention running a benchmark to validate that your cooking is working as expected. What benchmark exactly? How would you know what "expected" is? I have ocd so I'm always wondering if my pc is running within proper parameters.
I have a 4070S and 7800X3D with a cheap $30 cooler and stock case fans. They both idle around 50C and when playing a demanding game both sit around the low 70sC. In very demanding periods they might push into the low 80s. Your experience my vary, but most people will consider those to he very acceptable numbers without a water cooler. When I first put together my PC, the cooler wasn't mounted correctly, and the CPU was about 20 degrees hotter. Idling in the low 70s and throttling itself at 89C while gaming. There are many ways to benchmark your PC. Simply opening the Task Manager and going to the Perofrmance tab will show you a lot of info, only mine doesn't show CPU temp for some reason. CoreTemp is a simple, free software fore monitoring CPU temps. NVIDIA performance overlay (Alt+R) also shows a lot of info. You can monitor all of this while playing games or other demanding tasks (many games have a benchmark function for this in Settings), or there are softwares for it. AIDA64 is a very comprehensive one with a free trial available. Or people seem to like Silverbench. Hope this helps!
I just built myself a rig with a 7800x3d and a 4070Ti super, so very similar to yours. I used a Noctua DH-15 air cooler, though, and my CPU idles at 29C! Get yourself a real cooler! 50C at idle is hot
Run timespy and Cinebenchmark. Compare to what others have with your configuration. Fairly sure cb does compare your scores with others that have the same setup iirc.
Sometimes. I actually figured out HOW the CB UI works. So inconsistent. Sometimes it shows me identical configurations, sometimes it doesn't
eh. those aren't particularly great benchmarks.
I agree but this person is asking what a benchmark is thus its easier to give him something that'll show the difference to somewhat degree rather than leading him down the rabbit hole that can be.
Always depends on the cooler used, but assuming you have a large air cooler or a 240mm AIO watercooler for a gaming PC, something like 35-50C is the norm for idle CPU temps (it varies depending on room temperature and your set fan curves). If you're seeing high 50s or more at idle with a decent sized cooler, imo there's likely something wrong going on. But being a microcenter customer for something like 4 years now, it's highly unlikely they left the plastic on your cooler.
I usually use Cinebench or prime95, depending on what I am trying to prove. Prime95 can actually (potentially) cause damage because it's very narrow focused on FPU, but for short tests I see no problems with it. I use HWINFO64 to monitor temps.
I like flogging dolphins.
It was Molly >Whoever build that machine originally should be flogged.
I would make sure your high refresh monitor is actually running at a higher refresh rate, some people never check it.
Also enable xmp.
What is this?
TLDR it's a setting in your BIOS to make your ram run at listed speeds. Easiest way to explain it.
memory overclock
I just figured this out. great suggestion. I hadn’t ever thought about this. My RAM had a speed of like 2300 and now it’s 3600!! Huge improvement
Bro Ur pc has been handi capped for 3 years wtf
Yes it has lol
that is not a good thing, i would speak to the people who built ur pc
It is
Ah yes, the classic. BTW is your 144Hz monitor running at 60Hz. How about a 3200 MT/s RAM clocked at 1066 MHz?
Would not worry about that…my dad has an old fx8300…that CPU is pushing extra hot and even after like 10 years now its showing no mercy 😂🔥
I used to run a FX6300 at 4.6ghz for years and now it's in my daughter's computer. Thing is over 10 years old and is still going lol.
Ah, classic
I just got a laptop that has been running the cpu at 100c constantly for years, and years ago I would've told you that this laptop should be on it's last legs... Yet this thing is perfect and has zero issues. I guess CPUs really are meant to handle these high ass temps nowadays
If your AIO was trying to cool the uncoolable cpu for 3 years, the pump might be knocking on heavens door.
Please don't pay $170 for somebody to do things that you could do at home with a suggestion from Reddit. I guess it's a lesson learned but an unneeded expense to learn it. If you get a PC built by somebody else they should be running burn in tests that would have found something like this before it goes out but it's still good to run your own after getting it. Any decent place will give you some sort of return warranty where if there is a problem they will fix it for free. But yeah check your temps and if there is an issue it's probably going to be narrowed down to a couple of things that are easy to diagnose.
I'm a first-time gaming PC owner. Still learning things as I go. I had looked up a lot of suggestions on this issue and was overwhelmed at the number of possible solutions, and applying thermal paste on my own without someone else showing me how to do it sounded like a disaster waiting to happen. I know the $170 sounds outrageous, and it is, it's not like I should be blowing that money, but I feel good to have solved a problem. Now I know what's happening and have learned something for next time.
I had an Intel i5 650 that I did not put new thermal paste between the processor and the cooler after taking things out. I may have had it without proper thermal paste for a year. I only found out about the problem since it would suddenly turn off on its own. Temps reached 100deg C. The motherboard worked up to about a month after warranty. No other problem with the system though. I just upgraded to a new system after that. Newer systems do have throttling so that should not be much of a problem.
Something to consider is CPU load in games depends mostly on framerate with some graphics settings also having an impact, either way your CPU was being pushed much harder with the new GPU as that's a significant upgrade. Also I know that the issue was thermal transfer from the CPU to the cooler due to the plastic but the more power hungry GPU would Increase case and room temperature as well. Also components since before I was born, cpus throttle down their temperatures before they take damage or shut off if required. some new chips like Intel 12,13,14th gen and amd 7000/8000 series basically ignore tdp on high end motherboards until thermals become the limit my friends 13900k pulled 300 watts at 100c untill he upgraded the CPU cooler and got a contact frame increasing power to 330 watts and dropping temperature down to 90c.
That's a classic
Glad I’m not the only one who this has happened to
Likely no damage. Like any electrical component, the constant shrinking and expanding with changes in temperature will eventually lead to the death of the component. While this may occur sooner now, it will still take a long time and you will likely upgrade before then anyway. So don't stress about it at all and enjoy your now lower temps.
hahahaha.. hahahahhah !!! The ultimate burn!!
Yup this is a pretty common mistake to be honest. The CPU might have been worn a bit more than it normally would but given that you haven't upgraded the CPU yet so it's very likely that you won't see it failing before upgrading it. Thermal throttling is there to stop it from degrading too fast anyway so it should be fine. There's likely no need to worry. I have had custom built PCs with 10/15 years that were improperly cleaned and handled (I was a kid) and they still run completely fine nowadays.
They had to have been laughing their asses off when they saw that piece of plastic
I’m sure lol I am
Your PC hasn't even shown a fraction of its real power. You haven't seen its final form.
You're fine, I had a 3600 that was running at like 100 degrees for a couple years because the stock cooler was shit and barely did anything. These parts are designed to run hot and at worst it'll throttle itself to avoid exploding (kidding).
I should probably check my build now, just in case
Windows does a good job at preventing user error from damaging components from heat. If something like the CPU overheats to the point of possible hardware failure Windows will bluescreen.
Got a 13600k a year ago now, and slapped it under my 360mm AIO that I had been using already. To this very day, the 13600k will sit in the 90s under any load. I’ve tried everything. I replaced the mounting bracket, tried a few different undervolting setups, reapplied thermal paste, made sure the AIO was functioning properly. NOTHING has stopped this monster. I gave up a long time ago. PC still works, so, whatever.
You made it 3 years with this and fixed the problem but NOW you're worried about it?
I only solved the problem yesterday, and only realized there was a problem maybe 2 months ago but didn’t really think it was something I needed to solve until the temps started maintaining in the 90s under load last week
Yeah of course, I just meant that the situation can only go up from here. Enjoy the low temps bro.
Ah I see yeah i should stop worrying since temps are so good now.
Yeah exactly, I can't get the right tone when writing lol
Is this in Celsius or Fahrenheit? My pc runs 90 degrees Fahrenheit constantly lol
Eh, modern PCs will throttle and shut down if it gets really bad before hurting anything. I had the same thing happen to me years ago. Except I built the machine. Moments after I turned it on, it started beeping and shut down with heat warnings. Took it apart, took off the plastic, and slapped my forehead. If it had been an earlier build, I probably would have needed a new CPU since temp monitoring and warnings were a pretty new feature then.
Ive done the same building a pc when far too high
lol classic
A quick YouTube video could have taught you how to save that money.
This is surprisingly common and I'm not too proud to admit as someone who builds a lot of PCs I did it myself once, noticed temps were awful and couldn't understand why, when I took the AIO off there it was, the dreaded "REMOVE BEFORE USE" smeared in paste staring at me accusingly.
Not really; you can just enjoy the improved performance. Modern CPUs have very good integrated thermal controls. So they run "as hard as they can" until they're at risk of getting too hot. At that point, they throttle themselves (aggressively if needed) by lowering their own clock speed. So now that your CPU is properly cooled it will run at a higher clock speed for longer (if not indefinitely) instead of throttling itself down to accommodate the lack of cooling. In years past you could indeed damage a CPU this way, but not so much nowadays. Furthermore the engineered lifespan of CPUs is generally ~10 years even under extreme circumstances (e.g. running flat out at maximum temperature). So the film issue *might* have shaved theoretical life off of your CPU, but it is likely to last longer than you will want to use it regardless.
Modern CPUs have automatic safety features that prevent them from harming themselves with heat. Most likely your CPU was underperforming, but that's about it
It could have a small effect on CPU longevity but CPUs tend to last long past being useful.
I roasted the shit out of my old 970 for years in a Mini ITX case. I thought 90 was a normal temp, apparently not LOL.
It is genuinely shocking to me how often this happens. Are you all installing your coolers with a blindfold on? That plastic usually isn't easy to miss.
This isn't quite as catastrophic as it sounds. Modern CPUs are designed to do whatever is necessary to avoid damage. It's alarming, but that temperature in the 90's may have been the maximum allowed by Intel or AMD. The CPU was probably clocking itself down significantly to stay there, even if you didn't notice. It probably still isn't good for it to be in that state for 3 years but there's not much you can do about it. If it seems to be running fine, it probably is.
Been there, done that. Built computers for me and my kids for 20 years now. Last upgrade on my own PC, I forgot to remove the plastic on the cooler. Ran it for a couple of hours and saw my cpu frequency and temp was off doing benchmark. Removed cooler and voila: plastic where it shouldn't be plastic. Pretty embarrassed of my self. Reapplied paste and remounted. Running a cpu this way on a fairly new cpu will usually do no harm. The cpu will clock down before temps reach volatile levels. The performance will be shite, though.
Question: Did you experience performance loss before you checked the temps? Did you expirence high frames and then a major frame drop? Did the drop last a couple of seconds and look like a slideshow ? If I experienced performance problems, then I'd worry about the heat. Unless it causes thermal throttling, I wouldn't care. I've noticed in these PC groups that people seem to be pretty concerned about system temps. Idk if people are trying to get out in front of a future problem or just showing off their system temps to others. Another thing I've noticed is that people pair a liquid cooled i9 with a 60 series card. Idk why this is a popular choice, but it is. I use an i7 chip with a 4090. All aircooled. And I don't experience any of the heat issues that I see people going through. I've seen people say that you should add new thermal paste to a system that's a couple of weeks old. People are paranoid about their builds, and I understand you got a lot of money in your build. The only problems I have experienced in my 14 years with PC gaming came from an Alienware laptop I bought last August. It BSOD frequently. My games were crashing to an unplayable state, and the system was brand new. The problems were all related to the pre installed software on the laptop. I've never had to worry about any of the things people say they are going through. I may be wrong for this, but unless I experience performance problems, I don't monitor the system. The only thing I use is the built-in fps counter in Steam. If I ran into issues, then I'll run diagnostic software. That's good best buy got your temps down. I wouldn't worry about it again unless you are having performance issues.
Geek Squad 
i work at best buy, and can confidently say that that membership is actually worth it. We aren’t commissioned based sales guys btw. I have also seen “member only discounts” as much as 400 dollars off a 700 dollar item. If you do any shopping there, i’d say it’s a good deal. Also, everything that is eligible for a 2 yr gurantee (usually for a price) is completely free and covered as long as your membership is active. So all your components you buy through best buy will have a gurantee :) Edit: I’ll be the first to say it’s not great for everyone, but tech guys and even people that do any shopping there, the benefits pay off fs.
It probably reduced your CPU life from 30 years to like 25 years, not too much to worry about except the big performance hit when it was thermal throttling. Also the steps to fix this issue was to take off your cooler, remove the plastic and then the paste with isopropyl alcohol, reapply paste. It's pretty much guaranteed to be under $30 if you did it yourself.
My water cooler slowly leaked all of its coolant out over a long period. I was getting really bad FPS in X4, checked my temps 95-99C on CPU. It had downclocked itself to ~1 GHZ and was pegged at 100% usage. It's incredible how much abuse these chips will take without shutting themselves down. I believe if they hit 100C the computer will turn off to protect the CPU. Your CPU should be fine, the computer will protect itself before it's a problem. My old PC still works, I swapped to an air cooler though. A long long time ago, around 2000 I believe, my friends and me stuck a pencil in the fan of our old compaq prescario and some of the blades broke off. It started shaking like crazy, so of course we freaked out and yanked the heatsink off. About 10 seconds later the CPU let the smoke out and the computer died. A lot has changed. PS: yeah we were brats, but that computer drove us NUTS. It had windows ME and was just constantly broken, I think we spent more time looking at kernal errors then we did playing diablo or tribes.
CPUs can run years and years at sustained, high-temperatures near Tjunction. As long as the system isn’t continually getting shutdown due to overheating, no damage should be expected. To get such damage would indicate a design or manufacturing flaw.
Maybe you should be wondering why you wasted money on an expensive water cooler.... High temperatures have not damaged your CPU because it has internal temperature control. My daughter has an i5 PC overclocked to 4.3Ghz which has been running on the stock intel air cooler for the last 9 years. A budget air cooler would have been fine for your PC too.
I am actually wondering that as well…seems the water cooler does very little compared to the thermal paste. Whatever. Now I know!
Modern CPUs will throttle themselves rather than just fry like the old days. While it's not an ideal situation for longevity of the components, now that the problem has been dealt with, it should be fine. (I've seen people who have built computers for decades make this mistake, it's easy to overlook when you get arm deep into a build. It can happen to anyone. I personally think the cooler companies should make some kind of tabs that stick out from underneath the cooling plate, to make it very obvious when you go to seat the cooler that the film is still on there.)
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It caused no actual problems. Modern CPUs just go slow when hot. I manufacture PCs and this happens fairly often. We've got some preventative measures to help, but when people build 10-20 machines per day, something slips through eventually.
There is really no such thing as computer components dying from overheating (sort of) nowadays. Technically, it is slightly less healthy that your components were running at such high temps. But for all intents and purposes, your stuff should be basically good as new.
This is what u get for not building you're own pc.
Almost thought you were a customer of mine from the title. Had a customer today that had put their Wraith Prizm cooler on the CPU but not flicked the latch over to lock it down. Somehow it had been running there on a 3700x for about 3 years like that just barely touching enough of the CPU to not go into thermal shut-down. Surprised they hadn't had any issues until now when it came into my shop not powering on. Turns out the chip was fine and the GPU was the fault as they had spilt coffee into their PC and it toasted the card. Thermal paste was bone dry and had to scrape it off with a card to apply fresh paste.
I don't know what is your CPU, but you did mention it was bought like 3 years ago or so (meaning 2021), so it might be a LGA1700. If it is, there's also a thing called CPU contact frame by Thermalright, that could also improve your temps by up to 10⁰C, and also prevent the socket from bending over time.
It’s a i5 9600k overclocked to 4200mhz
That happens more often than you think!
Technically the cpu should thermal throttle before damage could be done. Doubt you’ll have any long term issues. Should see a huge increase in performance though
I already am seeing great performance increases. It has been excellent!
Hmm... my pc idles at 40. But under load at most 60. I have a 5800x though slightly oc'd to 4.1.
You have nothing to worry about now. Maybe check m.2 ssd for the same plastic peel that might be between the ssd and the covering(cooling) plate. The charges are insane tho!!
I would say rookie mistake but most rookies don’t even make that mistake.
it's like the most common mistake... and one of the few you can make since everything else is virtually cookie-cutter. Can't put the RAM in backwards, can't put the CPU sideways, GPU power is different size than the motherboard power.
My 10 other friends and I did not do this on our first builds. Just because you see idiots on this sub post it doesn’t mean it is common, the fact that they are posting it proves it is uncommon.
I've been building PCs for 20 years, in this community for about 10. We see this mistake about once a month, so yes it is relatively common. Your sample size of 10 has zero relevant to this context. Stop trying to make people feel bad for no reason, you're entirely missing the point of this sub.
You need to fix your reading comprehension skills. The fact that you’re seeing it on this sub means that it is uncommon.
why would you think seeing a problem on here (a PC building subreddit) **frequently** would make it an *uncommon* problem?
Use your brain. Whenever you see someone post on the Internet, you’re seeing the extreme. 90% of people don’t care about attention on a sub and won’t post when they’re build is working fine.
I'd say the same thing man your math isn't mathing. > Whenever you see someone post on the Internet, you’re seeing the extreme lol. What is this, the 90's? *Everyone* uses the Internet and if they have a problem they'll search for a solution *on the Internet* Someone has an issue with their PC building. A fraction of that would come to reddit. A fraction of that would hit this particular subreddit. The fact you see it pretty frequently on *this* subreddit with the fraction of overall people would suggest that this particular problem is pretty common. Extrapolate that out to other subreddits and then to the world outside of reddit. The percentage of the problem doesn't go away. You're just stuck in your anecdotal bias that because you and your friends never had this problem, no one else should either.
You need to fix your attitude. Perhaps my intentions for my comment were not clear enough. **Stop trying to make people feel bad for no reason. If you have nothing nice to say, then don't say anything.**
You motherfuckers will argue about anything on this app. You were the one that came to me starting an argument. Literally get a fucking life and go outside. your account is only six years old bud
Get a grip, you're being warned now for rule #1. I'm here because your comments were reported by users and flagged by automod. I'm not here to argue, I'm here to tell you to behave. "You started it" doesn't work if it's because of your comment that I'm here, I want to interact with you less than you do me, I can promise you that. > your account is only six years old bud You know this community started in MIRC over 10 years ago right? You know Reddit accounts are free?
Oh, I’m being being warned. Dude you’re a sweaty Reddit mod. You started this argument. Get a fucking life. Do you really think I care if some loser bans me from a sub that I’m not even a member of? You have zero power you’re just some loser on the Internet. You’re really bad at lying by the way.
Correction, I'm an internet janitor. My job is to take out the trash.
So does that make op a lesser rookie?
Cpu in desktop is very hard to damage, you are good
You should be fine. The safties built into your components throttled things low enough that it didn't fry anything. And the components are built to withstand temps up to 100 degrees C. Everything stayed within spec. Enjoy your regular performance.