Update on the New PC

Yesterday I wrote a brief blog post announcing that I had completed my new gaming PC build. Today… an update.

This morning I decided to run a few benchmarks against the machine (I literally only did initial OS installs yesterday). I very quickly noted during the tests that the CPU was getting much warmer than it should, and so I decided to take the machine apart and replace the CPU fan. I was using the stock cooler that came with the AMD Ryzen 5, but I had a spare CoolerMaster CPU fan that I didn’t end up using in a previous build, so I installed that. In all, it took me about an hour to remove the old fan and install the new one.

Now, with the much larger fan, the benchmarks run at distinctly cooler temperatures. They’re still a bit warmer than I am really happy with, but within safe specs, and comparable to my other Ryzen build.

I still have more testing to do to see if everything works as expected, but at this point I’ve played about 60m of WoW at “recommended settings” with no issues.

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 37/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.