How long does laptop's cooling system work well on average anyway?

[Volfogg]

Long story. I have this laptop with Ryzen 5 2500U, 8GB ram for almost 2 years and lately the temp spikes can get really absurd (60-75 C, once even 85 C) for older but still CPU heavy stuff, (Starbound, XCOM, X3, Unity engine things...) I cleaned the fans lately, but still no improvement and I keep the laptop elevated for year already. Could be the thermal paste really so bad in this one it didn't even last half the average time (I heard it's 3-5 years).

[nullable]

Well, you've been watching temps religiously since day one and the temps never ever hit 60-75C before?

Or

You've just started monitoring this and are getting all twisted up about unknowns?

And let me ask you this, Is 60-75C within the Ryzen 5 2500U's normal operating temperature range? So is the problem you think these temps are harmful, or you just don't like them even though they're fine?

https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-5-2500u because 60-75c seems fine to me and putting your CPU under the right load can cause temps to go up or spike a little even with good cooling, not all workloads generate the same temperatures.

So again, I ask. Do you really have a problem? Or you just want the temps to be different so you're making one up?

Also the thing with made up averages: AVG(1,3,5,7,9) = 5. So yeah, if it's really a cooling problem there's no guarantees you were going to hit average or better, someone has to be below average. Why couldn't that be you? There's a dozen variables that could cause some minor imperfections in your cooling. It's not like it's all uniform.

[Volfogg]

Originally posted by Snakub Plissken:

Well, you've been watching temps religiously since day one and the temps never ever hit 60-75C before?

Or

You've just started monitoring this and are getting all twisted up about unknowns?

And let me ask you this, Is 60-75C within the Ryzen 5 2500U's normal operating temperature range? So is the problem you think these temps are harmful, or you just don't like them even though they're fine?

I'm just worried about the jet engine-like sounds happening for quite a while and my normal range felt more like 50-65 C before stuff started happening. In one game it went from 70 to 85 C in less than 30 min. Basically, the closer it's to 90 C the more worried I am. Fan RPM values also feel... off. Usage being below 25% while gaming and still having such high RPM and temp also feel off.

[nullable]

You keep saying "feel", like do you have before and now values? Or do you have now values and rough guesses/assumptions?

I'm not saying you don't have any issues or your concerns aren't warranted. But I am saying you wouldn't be the first person to make up a problem because they decided to take a look at that data and don't like it and decide that it was much better in the past. Which it could be, or things are the same and they just didn't notice them before. Humans are fickle that way.

Ultimately if you're not actually having thermal throttling you should be fine. If you are having thermal issues affecting performance you're probably going to need to take the thing apart and reseat the heatsink and do whatever tweaks would satisfy you. Those be your options.

Sometimes things are defective, or imperfect, sometimes things wear out. And sometimes we as users are crazy... it's all manageable though, one way or the other. In my old age I'm a little bit more permissive of things unless there's something actually warranting action (or immediate action).

Your laptop won't melt or explode in the meantime. Too many safety features for that to really happen.

[Illusion of Progress]

60C to 75C isn't bad for a modern CPU, especially in a laptop. My Ryzen 7 3700X (desktop) was warmer than that under stock cooling, and is ~68C to 70C under top end air cooling (this is merely the maximum I've seen SO FAR under my uses so it probably WOULD go higher when stressed). I understand Zen 2 and Zen 3 run warmer than older Zen CPUs like yours, but this doesn't change that yours is running cool.

85C to 90C is indeed warm and I'd be looking to cool it better if I saw that on a desktop, and I personally (subjectively) wouldn't like it even on a laptop, but it comes with the territory, and as was said, unless you're seeing throttling, it's fine.

Originally posted by NotABraveEnoughBoyForThis:

Usage being below 25% while gaming and still having such high RPM and temp also feel off.

You need to understand that "utilization" as a percent on multi-core CPUs isn't as that one single number seems. On a quad core SMT CPU like yours (4 cores but 8 threads), 25% would basically mean two of the eighd threads are simultaneously loaded and the other six aren't. If a game can mostly only utilize one or two cores/threads, this is STILL "fully loaded" for that part of the CPU. The extra cores just aren't working. The CPU will still warm up though.

It's becoming more and more common for people to see these "low" values on CPU while also seeing below 100% utilization on GPU and go "why isn't my system being utilized in games because neither is a bottleneck".

[Bad 💀 Motha]

You can't do anything about the cooling sound, it's going to do this on any gaming laptop. Under 90*C is fine to run all day long for both the cpu and gpu. Wear headphones.

[Volfogg]

Okay. Got it. Constant 75 C stuff - loud, but fine. Stuff doing 85 C - well probably gonna avoid it, even if it's just my paranoia. If I only wasn't so noise sensitive.
EDIT. I think I see the problem causing stuff beyond 75 C. The power of a single and a pair of cores of my CPU might be kinda too weak. If games are limited to using only two cores, it could be that they struggle to keep up without their other half.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Take the laptop apart every 6 months and blow out all the dust. Use a un-used paint brush if needed to help remove what may get into tight spaces and vents, etc.

[Volfogg]

Hmm... Now I see that some titles I played have severe lack of multi-thread support. Makes sense. I have quantity, they want quality. I'd need something closer to base 3 Ghz rather than measly 2Ghz.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Your cpu clocks at 3.6ghz though when under high loads. 2.0ghz is for general OS usages.

What GPU do you have?
If all you have is the onboard AMD Vega, that's what will be lacking in games, not your CPU.

I would wipe out drivers using the DDU app, done via Safe Mode. Select each brand of gpu and select "clean but do not restart". Once all are wiped out, tick the box for "disable Windows auto driver installer". Then reboot normally. Then download and insyall the latest official drivers for your Motherboard Chipset and GPU(s) from AMD.COM

Then switch between power profile in Windows as you feel the need. Balanced for general OS use; AMD or High Performance for prior to launching a Game

[nullable]

Originally posted by NotABraveEnoughBoyForThis:

Hmm... Now I see that some titles I played have severe lack of multi-thread support. Makes sense. I have quantity, they want quality. I'd need something closer to base 3 Ghz rather than measly 2Ghz.

Well base clockspeed is almost meaningless. I mean unless you're having thermal throttling the CPU will run at the boost speed most of the time under load.

Granted you're running a midrange mobile CPU. There's nothing wrong it. It's just not the fastest or the most powerful per core CPU. And it's not like 3.0ghz means the same thing performance-wise across all CPUs anyway.

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-FX-4300-vs-AMD-Ryzen-5-2500U/2879vsm378273 For example.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

If you want to do an IPC check up, run CPUZ 64bit, then in the Bench/Stress tab, once the bench has been run you can select another CPU to compare it to, such as an i5, i7, i9 for example to compare Single Core and also Multi Core IPC.

Cinebench > cpu only test is another good way to compare

[Volfogg]

Well, I have RX 560X GPU, besides AMD Vega. The general idea behind this particular Nitro 5 I had was "just enough to run vanilla Skyrim or something like that".

[Bad 💀 Motha]

No, it should run just about anything you throw at it. I've played GTAV on those specs without any issues and it was at 1080p with decent visual settings and fetched a decent enough fps average above 50-60 range with dips in some spots down to around 45 or so which still isn't bad. I wouldn't bother with Skyrim, at least give Skyrim-SE a try

[Volfogg]

It also comes with NitroSense and CoolBoost function, which I managed to make work again properly (long story, forgot to check for updates). Should I use it more often?