Fixing thermal hotspots for Thermalright PA120 SE ARGB in Dota 2
It is honestly embarrassing to get thermal throttling in Dota 2, especially with a dual-tower cooler. Monitoring showed a massive temperature delta—the hottest core was 22℃ higher than the coolest, which is a dead giveaway for poor base contact on the PA120 SE. I first tried capping the max boost clock via software, but that just cost me 10% overall performance, which felt like a defeat. I had to go the physical route. I tore down the cooler, reapplied high-performance liquid metal paste, and tightened the screws in a strict diagonal pattern. In the next stress test, the core delta shrank to 8-12℃, and the clock speeds stopped swinging wildly, stabilizing between 4.2-4.4GHz instead of 3.0-4.5GHz. I actually messed up the first liquid metal application and got some overflow on the edges, so I had to spend an hour cleaning it with isopropyl alcohol before I dared to boot. CPU full-load temps now sit at 72-80℃. I exported the fan curve from the BIOS, and it's holding steady at 72-80℃.
