Why is my Thermalright PA140 overheating in Dying Light 2?
This game treats your CPU like a stress test, and my PC just gave up and rebooted—it was honestly infuriating. The Thermalright PA140 is huge, but the stock paste couldn't handle the 250W peaks, leaving a 0.2-0.4mm gap that sent my core temps from 65℃ to 100℃ in a single second. I tried capping the CPU power limit to 125W in the BIOS, but my FPS tanked to 30, which was a ridiculous way to 'fix' the problem. I eventually swapped to high-performance liquid metal and forced the fans to 100% at 80℃. In AIDA64 FPU tests, the peak temp dropped from 100℃ to 84℃, and the crashes stopped. I actually messed up the first liquid metal application, which made temps rise by 2℃ until I re-lapped the base. CPU temps now sit at 68-78℃. I exported the fan curve after a lot of trial and error, and the input response finally feels tactile and snappy.
