Odd Question about PC over heating

[phantom5582]

Long Story short, My PC seems to over heat whenever I play the Sims 4 for too long, and I'm wondering if having too many animation packs is causing this problem.

[Scorpio]

6 hours ago, phantom5582 said:

Long Story short, My PC seems to over heat whenever I play the Sims 4 for too long, and I'm wondering if having too many animation packs is causing this problem.

Nope... It's a hardware/cooling problem.

 

Some PC's, but especially laptops, get worked pretty hard when used for gaming, data mining, video editing, autocad, etc.

Many PC's were not really designed for that but more for internet browsing or business use.

 

Do you know which part/s are overheating?

If you have an integrated CPU/GPU and don't use a separate dedicated Graphics Card will cause overheating.

(Certain CPU's, like P4's, use way more power and get much hotter than others).

Bad/old thermal paste under the CPU cooler can cause it to overheat and usually it will either crash or shut down

If it's an older PC have you tried blowing it out inside with compressed air, they collect a lot of dust over time and will also cause overheating.

Pay special attention around the cooler fins as they get plugged up with dust pretty easy.

Adding extra cooling fans can sometimes help but it's more of a band-aid fix if there are other problems lurking.

 

You could drop your PC specs in here to get more ideas maybe.

 

For now you could try lowering your graphics settings in the game and turn off shadows, etc.

Along with other settings on your PC: turn of Anti-Aliasing and set other things to performance rather than quality.    

[SkyBarbie]

12 hours ago, phantom5582 said:

Long Story short, My PC seems to over heat whenever I play the Sims 4 for too long, and I'm wondering if having too many animation packs is causing this problem.

Take your PC outside and use an air compressor and blow all the fans and heat sinks out.  This helps quite a bit.  I blow mine out every 6 months.

 

Also, run your PC with the side cover off and ensure that all your fans are spinning properly.  Once everything looks good you can put the cover back on (after you turn the PC off).

 

Try to use the PC in a cool, well ventilated room.  Try to keep the room temperature at 74 degrees F or less.

 

Don't overclock your CPU or GPU.

 

There are lots of temperature monitoring tools that you can download.  Real Temp is one that I use.  You need to determine if it is your CPU or GPU that is overheating.

 

Best of luck!

[phantom5582]

It's a good PC, able to run most other games with no problem. Using this site I can see that I can run all of the Sims 4 addons, but every so often the PC just cuts out, as if someone pressed the reset button, and starts to reboot.

I'll try to do a bit of dusting to see if that will help. I have added a small bit of vinyl ducting from my AC unit to the bottom of the wire shelf that my PC is on... but I have not tested to see if that is going to help. I really hope it's not the thermal paste as it was a pain and a half getting the heat sink on.

[DarkAudit]

What are your idle temps? Have you tried any stress tests like Prime95 or AIDA to see what you get under load?

 

Actually for starters, what are your PC specs anyway? You haven't told us what you're running or what your cooling/fan setup is.

 

I've got a well-ventilated and cooled Ryzen 5 2600 system, and the fans ramp up quite often during a Sims 4 session.

[phantom5582]

3 hours ago, DarkAudit said:

What are your idle temps? Have you tried any stress tests like Prime95 or AIDA to see what you get under load?

 

Actually for starters, what are your PC specs anyway? You haven't told us what you're running or what your cooling/fan setup is.

 

I've got a well-ventilated and cooled Ryzen 5 2600 system, and the fans ramp up quite often during a Sims 4 session.

I have not gotten Real Temp yet, but I'm getting it in the morning. In the mean time, what is the easiest way to get my specs?

[Scorpio]

5 hours ago, phantom5582 said:

I have not gotten Real Temp yet, but I'm getting it in the morning. In the mean time, what is the easiest way to get my specs?

Think they're are some utilities you can download that will tell you most everything but I haven't used any in a very long time.

 

Using windows device manager can give you some info but it's kind-of limited.

[DarkAudit]

I use CoreTemp and Open Hardware Monitor. CPUID should also give you some specs.

[phantom5582]

This is what I pulled off from the site I linked above. If this isn't enough, tell me what I need please.

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4690 CPU @ 3.50GHz
Video Card: Radeon RX 580 Series, 16GB
Ram: 16GB
OS: Windows 10

 

[DarkAudit]

11 hours ago, phantom5582 said:

This is what I pulled off from the site I linked above. If this isn't enough, tell me what I need please.

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4690 CPU @ 3.50GHz
Video Card: Radeon RX 580 Series, 16GB
Ram: 16GB
OS: Windows 10

 

What CPU cooler are you using? What are your temps at idle and under load? What's your fan setup in the rest of the system? Are they properly configured in BIOS?

 

On the software side, are all your drivers updated?

[phantom5582]

1 hour ago, DarkAudit said:

What CPU cooler are you using? What are your temps at idle and under load? What's your fan setup in the rest of the system? Are they properly configured in BIOS?

 

On the software side, are all your drivers updated?

CPU Cooler: Thermaltake UX200.

Fan Set up: See attached Pic, but add one fan at the bottom of the case, one in the front of the case, and one in the case panel. I worked to get the fans blowing bottom to top and front to back.

BIOS: I have no idea nor do I know how to check that.
Temps: Still working on on Real Temp and learning how to use it

[DarkAudit]

4 hours ago, phantom5582 said:

BIOS: I have no idea nor do I know how to check that.

Your motherboard manual should have a section on how to properly set up your fans for optimal performance. You just need to take note of which fan is connected to which fan header on the motherboard.

[Scorpio]

Well your system specs. certainly isn't the problem and you should be able to run most everything on it. 

 

Usually you just hit the Del key when booting up to enter the Bios Setup.

 

Then look for the Menu area of Cooling/Fans and CPU shutdown temp settings, sometimes these have to be increased a little.

 

If your MB is an overclocking type board you may need to make sure the overclocking is disabled, (settings are pretty complicated).

Changing them to defaults usually sets them to non-overclocked and then do the same thing for memory timings, etc.

Pretty common problems for overclocking memory/CPU are CTD's and overheating.  

[DarkAudit]

Now that I'm thinking about it, I should do a trace of my fan speeds to see which ones are ramping up during a Sims session. And of COURSE this idea comes to me when I'm at work and there's at least six hours before I can act on it. ?

 

[phantom5582]

Ok, update. I adjusted the CPU fans in BIOS to the max setting, but I'm not sure what I can do with BIOS and I don't want to mess things up. Best if I stated the MB I have. ASRock H97 Anniversary https://www.asrock.com/mb/intel/h97 anniversary/

 

I also did a test with Dying Light, CPU Temps didn't go over 50°C on average. Course the fact that outside temps are down and I don't have my heater on at all is likely helping.

[Scorpio]

Bios settings can be daunting at best, so yes it's sometimes better not to mess with things.

Did you find out what your CPU shutdown temp. was set to?

Have you tested it out by running Sims again?

 

If it is, in fact, the CPU overheating, my best guess it's a thermal paste problem, I know it's a PITA.

 

ASRock makes some nice MB's and I've had a few in the past myself.