My AMD Ryzen 7 5700 has been running for about nine months, but it suddenly started getting extremely hot. The BIOS reports around 60°C, and Windows sits near 80°C even with no applications open. Starting a game makes the temperature climb until the computer shuts down. I'm using the stock AMD cooler and the thermal paste that came pre-applied. What should I check first?
4 Answers
A better cooler can reduce temperatures substantially, especially during warm weather, but it shouldn’t be the first fix here. Idle temperatures around 80°C strongly suggest a contact or mounting problem. After fixing that, a decent aftermarket cooler may bring load temperatures down by roughly 10–20°C compared with the stock unit.
The stock cooler should be adequate for this CPU when it is mounted correctly. Don’t run games with the heatsink loose. Make sure the backplate and screws are installed in the correct positions, the cooler sits flat on the CPU, and the fan is connected to the CPU_FAN header. Then apply fresh thermal paste and verify the temperatures again.
Check the cooler mounting before assuming the CPU is faulty. A processor normally doesn’t just start overheating on its own, so the most likely causes are a loose heatsink, failed mounting hardware, or poor thermal-paste contact. Remove the cooler, clean off the old paste, apply fresh paste, and reinstall it firmly. If the stock cooler still struggles afterward, a reasonably priced tower cooler such as a Thermalright Phantom Spirit would be a good upgrade.
You could lower power and temperature later with settings such as Curve Optimizer, but don’t start there. First restore the cooler’s mounting, replace the thermal paste, and confirm the fan is spinning. Overclocking or BIOS settings are unlikely to be the cause if nothing was changed recently.
I found that the cooler wasn’t screwed in at all, and the backplate had fallen off. I’m putting the mounting hardware back in place and ordered new thermal paste. I didn’t notice a difference when I pressed the cooler down by hand, but I’ll test it once it’s properly secured.