The owner of a pre-built gaming PC discovered that his Intel Core i7-12700K had been cooling down for nearly three years without a drop of thermal paste. All the while, the processor was coupled with a liquid cooling system, but there wasn’t really anything between the heatsink cover and the copper base of the water block.
The user decided to disassemble the phone before finding out what the problem was. Before this, the system frequently overheated but continued to boot and work. When testing with OCCT, the processor quickly reached 100°C and then began to reset the frequency through the temperature regulation mechanism.
It is overheating protection that saves the chip from instant death. As temperatures rise, the Core i7-12700K automatically reduces performance by limiting heat. Indeed, as you know, owners have not been able to get full speed from such a processor for many years.
Another oddity is the incorrect installation of the radiator fan. They do not run in an optimal direction, which further worsens the cooling effect. After applying thermal paste and correcting the airflow, the temperature returned to normal.
