Checking if Your CPU is Overheating

The best way to check if the protection feature of your processor is being used or not is to run a program that puts your CPU running at 100% of its capacity. One program that does that is BurnIn Test (http://www.passmark.com/ftp/bitstd.exe). Install and run it. In Configuration, Duty Cicles, leave checked only the CPU Math and CPU MMX boxes, raising from 50 to 100 the value present on these two options. This will make your CPU to run at 100% of its capacity while running this program.

Before starting testing your PC with BurnIn, configure Throttle Watch to save a data recording file on your desktop. Go to Settings, Journal File and configure Desktop and then press the F5 key while inside the Throttle Watch program. This will start recording the gathered data in a file called journal.txt on your desktop. Keep Thottle Watch open.

Start the BurnIn program clicking on the green light button and run it for the time you think it is enough (we suggest that you run it for at least 15 minutes). After finishing running this software (just click on Stop to finish it), go back again to Throttle Watch and press the F5 key again to stop the data recording. Open the journal.txt file and you will see if the Thermal Throttling was activated or not during the stress test.

Under normal condition, the "Throt" collumn has to be always showing zero. If it happens to be a number different from zero there, this means that the Thermal Throttling feature was activate and your processor has overheating problems.

If this is your case, you will have to check your CPU cooler installation. With the PC turned off, remove the CPU cooler, clean its base and also the processor surface with a cloth, apply a thin layer of thermal paste on the processor surface and reinstall its cooler. Repeat the test to check if the problem was solved. If it wasn't solved, you will need to change your CPU cooler for another one with greater cooling performance than the one currently used in your computer.

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