If you can feel the warmest spot on the back of your machine, you might find a frozen gel pack like people use for muscle/joint aches might help. I'd wrap it in a towel and check to see it doesn't drip condensation. For some devices you might place it nearer the fan but not blocking air passage.

I hope you get to lower temperatures soon, it is only a stopgap thing.

How long has the system been in operation? Sometimes the thermal compound (paste) between processor and heat sink dries up or "dusts" away. A new application might make the heat sink more efficient.

Note: I do mine every two years. Your current "heat wave" is not quite an ordinary summer down here (about 4 months long). Latitude 29° 44' 59.6652''

make sure you have blown any accumulated dust off the heat sinks, fan blades, fan motor, etc to maximize available cooling efficiency.

Thanks for the ideas.
This particular machine is about 7 month old, and I don't plant to disassemble anything, especially as it's under warranty.
Yes, it's free of dust, which is a routine anyway.
I made sure there was plenty of air gap around the vents.
As a temporary measure, I'll use one of those chiller blocks, wrapped in a towel and position it near the air intake. Thanks for that idea.

I'm expecting an end to the heatwave to end in a few days, but, who knows, we might see another and a longer term approach might be wise.

Is the room also hot? I manage to have the bottom floor of my house cool due to thick walls, CPU sits at about 30C. I don't do anything CPU intensive locally though.

Maybe underclocking is an option.

I have a server with Hetzner and during CPU usage I've seen it hit 98C and logging indicating the CPU was being throttled. Sitting at 41C just now so maybe was a challenging day for their DC.

especially as it's under warranty

A pre-assembled PC should not be overheating this way, even in a heat wave. Use the warranty to get it fixed.

Can you share the PC model and/or that of the CPU and cooler? If it's a stock cooler, an aftermarket cooler can help and doesn't have to be (much) larger, or expensive. They tend to be much more efficient.

Yes, the room is hot: We have no aircon. It's about 33c in here at the moment, and not particularly comfortable.

It's an HP Elitedesk with Intel i7. It's the first time this has happened, and I suspect it's because it's so warm in this room. I'm hoping it's only temporary, and next week will be cooler, especially as we head into Autumn.

Note, it's not happening all the time, and it's only when i'm doing some number crunching.

My main concern is not cooking the processor, and i'd guess if it's only temporary it'll be fine, I hope.

Your CPU can't overheat, it has protections in place to avoid that, so you needn't worry about it.

HP sometimes uses non-standard mountin holes for the CPU fan so an aftermarket cooler may or may not fit. If you have the exact model you can look it up.

I also have a PC (custom build with 5600X) in the attic where it's around 30c currently. Running a stress test it goes up to about 77c tops, without getting throttled. It idles at around 40c. Would probably get much hotter with a stock cooler.

I use HWiNFO to monitor temperatures. Might be good to know what your idle temperatures are.

Water cooling is not really worth the investment, you'd probably be better off with a good air cooler.

Gets a little trickier if it's an SFF model, but might be possible still.

>Water cooling is not really worth the investment, you'd probably be better off with a good air cooler.

A definite consideration. When the operator is cooler and comfortable it may well be more productive overall, even if it costs a little more.

I have discovered that even in a hot room, a standard room fan, 12" or larger blowing on the system from three feet or so will move the heated exhaust air away from the machine to avoid sucking it back inside. Easy to try, less expensive than other options.

Any top tips for minor tweaks to keep things ticking over?

First the physical, yes I read the thread and about the warranty note, but to cover all points:

Replace thermal paste, clean air input/output vents, place a larger heat sink, consider using the computer with the case open (I actually did this with a desktop computer years ago, anyway this won't always work as many times the original airflow is needed for design reasons). Also, consider ways to COOL the room, this could be done with AC or passive methods.

Is this room on a first floor below another floor? or do you have the full house roof above? what about Windows? airflow? passive cooling works, you should add an air input LOW on the room, and an air output HIGH on the room, this will use natural flow of cooler air (low) and output of hotter air (high), you can also add fans to such intakes, be it one in the output, or two (input-output). Also add some shade to the room, like stopping the sun hitting the window, don't let the sun get in, blocking from the inside doesn't work as efficiently as blocking the outside. Add shade like trees, paint the room white (outside) and add extra shade to the roof, be it painting it white or adding a second roof. All of this works, I've used each and every single one of these techniques and our house is amazingly fresh. You will be surprised how the airflow induced by fans can impact a room.

Also on the physical side, consider adding a duct air vent. Search the web and you will find people attaching ducts directly to their cpus to push the hot air out (using an extra fan or more). Yes. I did this in the past when I had a DIY laser cutter, the laser would create fumes when cutting the materials and will also interestingly elevate the room temperature, so I placed a fan to suck the air and fumes and used a duct air vent directly to the window, this window must be sealed allowing only the output of the duct, it's amazing how efficient this works. I suggest this because aside from cooling your room, you must also keep it cool pushing the heat from your computer efficiently to the outside.

Interestingly, if you don't do this fast, the thermal paste on your processor will degrade faster needing a change way sooner than in common conditions, pushing you again to what you don't want to do: replacing it.

Now software. Yes... optimize your system, add an SSD, more RAM, add a second hard drive and use that as virtual memory to avoid using the boot drive, this will impact efficiency and thus reduce heating. Reduce or remove all the unneeded services or background programs, even consider changing your OS, or downgrading. I'm also one of those who by choice picked an specific Windows 10 version and avoids installing the last version with all the "updates", the efficiency of my computer is great this way. If you take your time you will be amazed seeing the comparisons between OS's. Or also consider creating your own cut down version, you can do this on your own without risking your security using third party operative systems, you can create your own iso using public tools, or use debloat scripts.

Don't believe me: try it and post results, you will be surprised.

Thanks explorador

Is this room on a first floor below another floor? or do you have the full house roof above? what about Windows? airflow?

Yes, it's first floor with a room above.

I use thermal airflow where possible by allowing air in at the bottom and the warm air out top of the house.

I will not be touching anything that could invalidate the warranty, but they are all good tips.

Having made semiconductor-based power transmitters and power amplifiers in the past i'm well aware of the benefits of cooling, and the processes involved. On one transmitter I developed I used an aerodynamic vent for improved airflow to help dissipate heat, along with all the other methods.

The problem I had over the summer was caused by the high ambient temperatures we don't normally get, and is now resolved as we head intro winter. With climate change we may get similar temperatures again next year, and if so, I plan to move the computer to the floor and improve airflow around the case. Hopefully, that'll make all the difference.

As mentioned above, clean the system and check/replace the thermal paste. As a temporary fix to prevent damage turn down the performance settings so that it generates less heat.

- A bigger heat sink
- A better location with more airflow
- A good cleaning out of unneeded software that runs background services
- Updated drivers
- Remove programs from startup that don't actually need to run all the time

All of these things combined will generally be more than enough to keep a system from overheating, water cooling is only a tiny but expensive incremental gain for most PCs. I'd look into that last.

Processors run at a temperature well above boiling. If climate change makes it that hot out we have other problems.

I'm curious:

- Is there a lot or "enough" sunlight?
- Is this worth spending some money?

The description of the weather might also mean lots of sunlight (but not always). If that's the case, a bit of solar energy might be useful to power a cooling system, if not for the entire room (ideally), at least for the computer itself. It could be a small AC, or a custom made Peltier setup (always with the heating part outside).

Is the i7 really being used? I love laptops but it's been a while since I found myself using a big screen (22") and now a desktop with 24", the thing is this doesn't always makes sense regarding what I'm doing most of the day (reading/researching/writing/editing/printing), to me it's not ideally ecological or from a power consumption angle, so I now find myself using more and more a Microsoft Surface 2-1 with a shy Atom processor. The heat produced is barely noticeable and the power consumption is minimal. One gets used to a single unique setup, but the opposite is also possible. Tools for throttling can be useful but never the ideal solution given the case. Well, just sharing, to me this is like cars: not always we need a truck for super market stuff.

I will not be touching anything that could invalidate the warranty,

That I understand, but I doubt that thermal paste or a larger, more efficient heat sink would invalidate a warranty. This falls into the ordinary maintenance category, like air in tires, getting oil changes, or keeping the radiator filled. :)

That said, with moderating weather (getting cooler) have you seen a reduction in the heating problem?

Another thing came to mind, and might not apply, but is the cpu over clocked? Changing that setting will certainly reduce any heat.