Overheating chipset.

[JohnAb]

I think putting in a new pad and removing the plastic cover is the best thing to do, but if you want a really fast and simple improvement, then just grab a small (80mm) fan or two and point them towards the PCH area. That what's did and you'll get at least a 10C reduction straight away. The fans were cheap and they aren't even mounted, they are just resting on the cover above the PSU which in my case extends all the way along beneath the GPU. I did add a metal mesh filter cover to stop dust being blown through the fans and deposited all over the motherboard. In fact, I decided to mount the 2 fans together in front of each other with bolts running through both fans and the metal mesh to hold it all together.

The whole assembly is more like a cube and it doesn't move about at all. Both fans run at between 2000-2500 rpm max. They do make a little bit of noise of course, but I don't notice it. Total cost was maybe 10-12 UK Pounds. They just run off the motherboard fan headers, so speed is adjustable in BIOS or through Armoury Crate. The metal filter cover does get quite dusty, so I just clean it about once a week. Not a big job.

[lalantha]

Hey guys, does anyone have an idea about temp sensors marked with red arrows in CPUID HW Monitor? I don't see those in HWiNFO. The motherboard is a TUF Z690 WIFI D4.

[NotHarry]

I think putting in a new pad and removing the plastic cover is the best thing to do, but if you want a really fast and simple improvement, then just grab a small (80mm) fan or two and point them towards the PCH area. That what's did and you'll get at least a 10C reduction straight away. The fans were cheap and they aren't even mounted, they are just resting on the cover above the PSU which in my case extends all the way along beneath the GPU. I did add a metal mesh filter cover to stop dust being blown through the fans and deposited all over the motherboard. In fact, I decided to mount the 2 fans together in front of each other with bolts running through both fans and the metal mesh to hold it all together.

The whole assembly is more like a cube and it doesn't move about at all. Both fans run at between 2000-2500 rpm max. They do make a little bit of noise of course, but I don't notice it. Total cost was maybe 10-12 UK Pounds. They just run off the motherboard fan headers, so speed is adjustable in BIOS or through Armoury Crate. The metal filter cover does get quite dusty, so I just clean it about once a week. Not a big job.

Yes, there is plenty you can do with spare bits of computers or buy cheap from Amazon. The main work is stripping your board out. Just the reseating makes a big difference so any extra cooling can't do any harm. I know I couldn't live with those temps, it wasn't right. At first it was idling sometimes near 70c and then when I played a game my computer became a oven, I did manage to get it down to 50c idle but it was still running to hot for my liking so I ended up stripping it down.

[JohnAb]

Fully understand, luckily my temps are under (reasonable) control, but at the temperatures you were experiencing I would be doing the same. Thanks for sharing your experience.

[IT Troll]

Set the PCH voltages to the midway point which dropped temperatures by 2-3°C, so after about an hour it idles in the low seventies.
During gaming it is still hitting 85°C, I suspect mostly due to the GPU sat above it.

[JohnAb]

My PCH is almost constantly 35C above the indicated motherboard temperature. At the moment my motherboard indicates 22C and the PCH is running at 57C. I do have a fan blowing over the PCH, so unless you have added a fan, re-seated the heatsink and replaced the thermal pad etc. then your difference is going to be higher than that.

Hence, the ambient temperature is a major factor. If my ambient temperature goes up by 5C, so does the PCH, so warmer climates make a big difference. Another factor is how good your case fans are. If the temperature inside the case goes up, then that is really the same as a higher ambient temperature as far as the PCH is concerned. Heat dissipation efficiency is all about temperature difference between the thing that is hot (the PCH) and the surrounding environment.

It's also important to remember that these chipsets are quite capable of running hot. A lot of us don't like that of course, but there is no need to panic either. A lot of this discussion is about personal preference as much as anything else. So to put all of this in context, it's nice to get the temperature lower, but I don't think I have heard of a failure being caused by high PCH temperature.

[IT Troll]

I do favour a quiet system and so have all my fans on curves which mean that during normal light desktop duties the fans spin slowly (the GPU fans stop altogether). They only ramp up when the workload demands it. This led me to adding an extra spot fan next to the chipset as it needs constant airflow. Even so, it is still +50°C over ambient. Here are the various system temperatures after it has been on for 6 hours performing light desktop tasks.

°C
24 SATA SSD (located at bottom of case, same as room ambient)
35 RAM
40 CPU core
45 VRM
46 GPU Core
46 Motherboard
53 NVMe SSD (under GPU)
76 PCH (with spot cooling fan)

[JohnAb]

That's interesting IT Troll. Your PCH is running a lot hotter than mine. I know that you have the 690-G so we're on different motherboards, but that's a big difference considering that you have a fan. Mine generally settles at 57-59C depending on the temperature in the room. You're still within safe operating temperatures, but I do find that surprising.

Looking at your temperatures, your motherboard seems high so I think that explains it. I know you don't want much noise, but I'd suggest improving your case airflow. I'm in the cold and wet UK, but my motherboard is currently just 22C.

I actually came back to provide an update about PCH voltages. Despite other people saying that they are using minimum voltages, I thought I would try it but had no luck. The PC wouldn't even boot. I tried twice, but it would fail with a yellow LED and code 50 which is related to memory initialisation. I reset the BIOS using the button and went back to midpoint voltages. It booted again normally, so no harm done.

However, when I got back to Windows it said that my Hello PIN was not available, so I guess it gets wiped out with a BIOS reset. So I had to log back into my MS account and reset the PIN. Easy enough, but this illustrates why backups are so important. If I hadn't had a copy of my password database on a spare laptop I would have been in trouble. I can't even remember one password, let alone hundreds!

So the real lesson here is BACKUP YOUR DATA, daily if you can.

[restsugavan]

New build PC need under motherboard fan indeed. Since GPU card being longer and longer. Not only size did matters it weight also heavier.

Next you'll need PC case that support Dual PSU 1200W above on Diamon Rapid Era (Post Granite Rapid XEON 2024) with TDP only CPU being 350Watt TDP at stock.
The RTX Ada Loveless RTX 4090Ti on next year require at least 850watt TDP at stock. NVIDIA Hopper RTX 500 Series require at least 950Watt TDP at stock.

From those trend you'll need lower 3 x 120mm FAN at the buttom of the board indeed.

[PauloPanda]

Have a ASUS ROG STRIX Z690 GAMING-WIFI motherboard. After adjusting the voltage in the BIOS and the Power Saving to Maximum in Windows 11, I got the following temperature for PCH (i.e., from 65C to current 54C).



Should I proceed to remove the plastic cover in the PCH heatsink, replace the thermal pads and tighten the screws to achieve an even lower temperature? Or should I just stop here?