Fixing CPU thermal throttling on ASRock A320M-HDV R4.0?
Running the Enhanced Edition on an A320 is basically a torture test for hardware. My frame rate would plummet from 60 down to 20 in cycles. The ASRock A320M-HDV R4.0 has zero heatsinks on the VRMs, and under modern loads, they hit 110℃, forcing the CPU to clock down from 3.6GHz to a pathetic 0.5GHz. I tried the 'High Performance' power plan in Windows, but that just made it overheat faster—total facepalm moment. I ended up gluing three small aluminum heatsinks onto the VRM chokes and capped the CPU TDP to 65W in the BIOS to stop the aggressive boosting. HWMonitor showed the VRMs dropped from 110℃ to 85-92℃, and the CPU finally stabilized around 3.2GHz. I actually knocked over a capacitor while installing the heatsinks and couldn't boot for a second, but once I secured them, it worked. CPU temps are 72-78℃ and fans are screaming at 2500 RPM. It's still a bit of a struggle, but it's playable now.
