High CPU temps but low CPU utilization

D

danielkzlai

Member
I realize that this topic has been posted before but none of the threads I've searched for has helped so far, so I'm here asking for some help.

I've used Afterburner, HWMonitor and HWiNFO and they all show high temps on CPU, while below 10% utilization from Task Manager. Attached image of HWiNFO

1601461596067.png

I've reapplied thermal paste on the CPU cooler but temps still hasn't improved much. CPU idle temps around 55~65 Celsius, voltages <1.3V, power draw is still high (35W+) after switching power mode from Ryzen High Performance mode to Windows Balanced mode. CPU fan is running on 100% speed, 2000RPM

The highest temp of 95 Celsius is when I ran a stress test but HWiNFO shows there isn't any thermal throttling happening.

My specs are:

Mobo: ASUS TUF B450M PRO GAMING
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
CPU Cooler: Stock Ryzen Cooler
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 2x8GB 3000Mhz
GPU: AMD Sapphire Nitro RX480



A thread I found said to enable SVID in BIOS but I can't find SVID in my BIOS at all. Still trying to figure out what I can do with BIOS

I'm not sure how to go about troubleshooting this. Much appreciated for any help given
 
SVID is an Intel feature, so it can't be applied here and it wouldn't help anyway. I think your problem is the cooler, which is not capable to dissipate enough heat. try a better one.
 
Martin said:
SVID is an Intel feature, so it can't be applied here and it wouldn't help anyway. I think your problem is the cooler, which is not capable to dissipate enough heat. try a better one.
Click to expand...

Ohhh now I feel stupid for looking for SVID. Thanks for the suggestion, I might just get a new cooler. Hopefully I'm worrying for no reason. Thanks!
 
There's definitely some cooling issue. Before buying a new cooler, I suggest to make certain that the CPU cooler is mounted properly and that it gets warm when the CPU is under load. The stock coolers are not particularly good (especially the smaller ones like the Wraith Stealth), but certainly not that bad at cooling a 65W CPU.

Regards
Dalai
 
If you're using stock cooler yes its not good. Other than that could also be the case and its ventilation. And what is your ambient(room) temp?
95C is the absolute highest operating temp for Ryzen 3000 and at that point it throttles its self trying to keep it under 95C.

As bad as the stock cooler may be, it should keep it from reaching 95C. Maybe under 90C or even 85C. This can be a combination of the stock cooler with not so good case ventilation and high ambient temp.
To see if there is a mount issue try to touch the coolers fins when you see 90+C. It should be crazy hot. If not and it is just warm then it could be a mount thing.

-----

Can we see the whole sensors thing?
Like this, where all readings are visible:

1601475940513.png
 
Zach said:
If you're using stock cooler yes its not good. Other than that could also be the case and its ventilation. And what is your ambient(room) temp?
95C is the absolute highest operating temp for Ryzen 3000 and at that point it throttles its self trying to keep it under 95C.

As bad as the stock cooler may be, it should keep it from reaching 95C. Maybe under 90C or even 85C. This can be a combination of the stock cooler with not so good case ventilation and high ambient temp.
To see if there is a mount issue try to touch the coolers fins when you see 90+C. It should be crazy hot. If not and it is just warm then it could be a mount thing.

-----

Can we see the whole sensors thing?
Like this, where all readings are visible:

View attachment 5230
Click to expand...

Here it is
1601478491948.png

I think something may be fishy here cos it's drawing at 35W at idle, where I've heard another Ryzen 5-3600 user drawing only 10W at idle.

Temps dont change even when I open the side of my case for airflow and room is air conditioned. I made sure to screw the mount screws until they stop turning, and the fins do feel warm to touch at idle
 
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The 35W at idle is probably due to the power plan you are using. See the minimum core clock? Never goes under 3.2GHz. It should go all the way down to 2.2GHz for at least a few secs. This is an indication of the cores never reaching deep sleep state (confirmed by the C6 residency always at 0%). C1 residency is a more "light" sleep state, and the C0 is the active state of the cores.
Even so, 55+C when idle at 35W is still too high temp.

Just warm fins is not good. It should be hot above 60C CPU temp, let alone when reaches 80+C. You should check the mount, do a reseat maybe.

Another odd thing I see is the "CPU SoC Power (SVI2 TFN)" reading. Its highest I've ever seen on a Ryzen 3000 with 1 core chiplet (1 CCD). Idling at 20W and go up to 24.5W without even 100% load on the CPU is very strange. How many RAM sticks you have installed? 2 or 4?
Right below that, the "Core+SoC Power (SVI2 TFN)" is 43W. Thats not right when "CPU Power Package (SMU)" and "CPU PPT" report only 35W.
Compare those readings to mine

Have you updated the BIOS of the board to the latest?
And check the AMD drivers page for latest Chipset drivers.
 
Zach said:
The 35W at idle is probably due to the power plan you are using. See the minimum core clock? Never goes under 3.2GHz. It should go all the way down to 2.2GHz for at least a few secs. This is an indication of the cores never reaching deep sleep state (confirmed by the C6 residency always at 0%). C1 residency is a more "light" sleep state, and the C0 is the active state of the cores.
Even so, 55+C when idle at 35W is still too high temp.

Just warm fins is not good. It should be hot above 60C CPU temp, let alone when reaches 80+C. You should check the mount, do a reseat maybe.

Another odd thing I see is the "CPU SoC Power (SVI2 TFN)" reading. Its highest I've ever seen on a Ryzen 3000 with 1 core chiplet (1 CCD). Idling at 20W and go up to 24.5W without even 100% load on the CPU is very strange. How many RAM sticks you have installed? 2 or 4?
Right below that, the "Core+SoC Power (SVI2 TFN)" is 43W. Thats not right when "CPU Power Package (SMU)" and "CPU PPT" report only 35W.
Compare those readings to mine

Have you updated the BIOS of the board to the latest?
And check the AMD drivers page for latest Chipset drivers.
Click to expand...

I did a BIOS update via Internet and also downloaded the latest AM4 B450 drivers, they helped a bit but not a drastic amount. It was idling around ~75 before I changed power modes (Ryzen High Performance to Windows Balanced) and its now idling much lower, but still higher than normal. Maybe I'll do a BIOS update again and see if they tell me if I already have the latest BIOS, though I most probably already do.

I have 2x8GB RAM installed. If it's power, is something wrong with the CPU voltage/currents?

I touched the fins at 80 degrees they definitely are hot. I could do a remount again but what faults should I be looking for? When I reapplied the thermal paste I already made sure that all four screws are tightened till they turn no more.

Thanks for your help in looking through all the numbers, I really appreciate it
 
Yeah, if the fins get hot then it should be in good contact. Probably need a better cooler.
Although this cannot justify the (somehow) wierd readings about the SoC power.

The latest BIOS version for your board is v2202 and latest chipset drivers v2.07.14.327 by AMD website. Check it to be sure.
Open CPU-Z, on the "Mainboard" tab you can see BIOS ver. and on Windows "Programs and Features" you can see the chipset drivers ver. by "AMD Chipset Software"

Also I would check these settings inside BIOS:
  • Global C-state Control = Enabled
  • Power Supply Idle Control = Low Current Idle
  • CPPC = Enabled
  • CPPC Preferred Cores = Enabled
  • AMD Cool'n'Quiet = Enabled
  • PPC Adjustment = PState 0
You can also custom set the whatever powerplan you are using.

Untitled16.png

Untitled17.png

By this (97~99% max state) the CPU will drop often to 2.2GHz and mostly will max around 3.4~3.6GHz and go to full boost (4~4.2GHz) only when something heavy is running.
 
Zach said:
Yeah, if the fins get hot then it should be in good contact. Probably need a better cooler.
Although this cannot justify the (somehow) wierd readings about the SoC power.

The latest BIOS version for your board is v2202 and latest chipset drivers v2.07.14.327 by AMD website. Check it to be sure.
Open CPU-Z, on the "Mainboard" tab you can see BIOS ver. and on Windows "Programs and Features" you can see the chipset drivers ver. by "AMD Chipset Software"

Also I would check these settings inside BIOS:
  • Global C-state Control = Enabled
  • Power Supply Idle Control = Low Current Idle
  • CPPC = Enabled
  • CPPC Preferred Cores = Enabled
  • AMD Cool'n'Quiet = Enabled
  • PPC Adjustment = PState 0
You can also custom set the whatever powerplan you are using.

View attachment 5236

View attachment 5237

By this (97~99% max state) the CPU will drop often to 2.2GHz and mostly will max around 3.4~3.6GHz and go to full boost (4~4.2GHz) only when something heavy is running.
Click to expand...

Hi, I've been busy yesterday so I didn't get the time to tweak the settings.

I've tweaked the first four settings and it seems like average temps have gone down a bit, but CPU clocks seems like it's still running higher than intended.

1601612024578.png

I suppose it's something to do with the CPU boosting while nothing is running?

I tried to manually change the CPU maximum state from 100% to 10% and temps instantly dropped. Once I put it back to 100%, it starts ramping up again.

Is it something in BIOS? Or could it be something malicious running in the background?
 
First, you need a batter cooler and that is a fact. Stock one is the bare minimum you can have on a 88W(total package draw) CPU.

Second, there is a chance that the board cannot run 100% properly the CPU and by that I mean it cannot power manage it well enough. Given the fact that its a previous Gen board and not one of the expensive.
But do not get paniced of anything... CPU cant be harmed by this. Its the Ryzen3000 line that require special power management and apparently not every B450 board can do it with 100% accuracy. There're compatible but not designed for them. I've seen it before.
If you are all updated from the software side and did every BIOS setting available then next your best bet is to set CPU max state to something between 96~99%. That will help a lot with the clock reduction and along with a better cooler will bring down CPU temp significantly.

Also Ryzen3000 is by design agressive with boosting. Even with balanced power plan.

I can see now that some cores are entering C6 state (deep sleep) and that is a good thing and a progress.

I would strongly suggest to take some time and read carefully the following articles. It will enrich your knowledge on ZEN2 CPUs. And maybe install the custom power plan that I also have. IMHO its the best for ZEN2. These are from almost a year ago.
www.techpowerup.com

1usmus Custom Power Plan for Ryzen 3000 Zen 2 Processors

In this article by our resident Ryzen tweaking guru "1usmus" we present a customized power plan for AMD's new Ryzen 3000 processors. The new power plan ensures workloads run on the best cores, which not only increases boost clocks, but also stops threads from bouncing between cores too often.
www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com
www.techpowerup.com

1usmus Power Plan for AMD Ryzen - New Developments

Two weeks ago, we released the 1usmus Power Plan for AMD Ryzen processors, which received a ton of attention. Both Microsoft and AMD got involved, releasing fixes on their own. Today, we're taking a look at the improvements these patches bring, and also got a new version of the power plan for...
www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com
 
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