I was running some temperature tests on my PC and decided to stress my CPU using Prime95. The first time I tried it, selecting 4 cores and enabling hyperthreading, my PC almost froze up. The mouse movement was very slow, and I could barely use my computer. I managed to stop the test, and everything returned to normal afterward. However, in subsequent tests using 2 cores, 8 cores, etc., I didn't encounter the same issue again.
During that initial test, I had several applications open, including Discord, and the audio was stuttering. For the later tests, I made sure to close everything else. Is it normal for the PC to behave this way, or does it point to potential CPU instability? Could I have damaged my CPU during the test? My CPU model is an i7-13700Kf. Thanks for any insights!
3 Answers
It's pretty common for systems to slow down when CPU usage hits 100%. What kind of temperatures were you seeing while running the test? Knowing that might help figure things out.
You might have experienced thermal throttling. The i7-13700K can run hot, and Prime95 will make it heat up even more. Doing this once usually won't damage anything, but without better cooling, you might want to avoid making it a regular practice.
Running a synthetic stress tester like Prime95 is going to push your CPU to its limits. If you let it use more cores and threads, your PC is going to lag. It's generally not a good idea to have other applications open while doing stress tests—just a heads up!
But it was only 4 cores for the test. I honestly couldn't even move the mouse!