Why is my Noctua NH-D15S overheating during long Forza runs?
This cooler is ridiculously expensive, yet in Forza Horizon 5, the temps would slowly creep up to 85C during long races. It's honestly pathetic. The NH-D15S's silent profile is way too timid for sustained loads, with fans barely hitting 1100 RPM before 80C. I tried plugging them into a 12V header for max speed, but it sounded like a helicopter taking off and only dropped temps by 2C—total waste of effort. I eventually set up a three-stage stepped frequency in the BIOS: 60C to start, 75C to double, and 85C for full blast, and reapplied a wider spread of thermal paste. In Cinebench R23 loops, the cores stayed at 72-77C without any frequency dips. I did run into some annoying fan oscillation at the 75C threshold, but adding a 5C hysteresis window silenced it. Fans now hover at 1300-1500 RPM. I backed up this BIOS config to an image so I never have to deal with this again. The controls feel instantly responsive now.
