Well. That didn't fix it. Anyone have a spare fan they can send me? Looks like my old system (which is, granted, something like 14 years old) is not compatible.

That's not benchmark. That's running pretty much nothing but Firefox and Discord.

Let's see. I took off the radiator for the water cooler and the fan attached to it and cleaned those as best I could and then put them back on.

It's idling in the high 40s, low 50s.

It's back up to low 80s, high 70s as soon as I turn on Genshin.

Err. Honkai.

Moving up to mid 80s, low 90s.

And this USED to be a game that ran in the 60s.

Yeah, no. I just saw 100 peak. No gaming for me.

And now that the temperature got back up, it's hanging around the mid to high 70s again, even though the game is off.

Rising back to mid-80s.

Sorry for the spam. I'm just trying to figure out what's setting my computer off.

It is better than it was, but I can no longer play anything but basic idler games.

computer troubles suck. hope you can get it managed soon.

So, I do have a backup machine. I fixed the almost 15 year old machine. I'd bought a new hard drive for it before I decided to just outright replace it and now I have a working version of linux. There's no wifi, so I'll have to figure out how to get cables working or get the BFF to help me move stuff in the sewing room, but at least there's a backup.

Oh dear sorry to hear about it

What size fan?

Also, could be your thermal paste be dried out?

• We recommend using a
LGA1700 compatible cooling
system on an Intel® 600 series
motherboard.

• Additional holes for LGA1200
compatible cooling systems
are also available on ASUS’
Intel® 600 series motherboards,
however, we still strongly advise
consulting with your cooling
system vendor or manufacturer
on the compatibility and
functionality of the cooling
system.

• Push-pin type LGA1200
compatible cooling systems
cannot be installed to this
motherboard

AmbularD : That was the very first thing I tried.

Took some doing because I didn't realize there was a backplate, but I figured it out eventually and replaced it. I also took off the fan in the back and the radiator and cleaned those out. It helped drop the temperature a little, but the temp is only reasonable when I have nothing but Firefox open.

Well, Firefox, Discord, Obsidian. Those kinds of programs idle out at low to mid-40s. I can't do gaming any more on the machine. That's when it hits the high temperature and then refuses to come back down, even when the game is off.