Why does my CPU overheat with PA120 V3 in Unreal Engine 5?
It's unbelievable that a top-tier dual-tower cooler could just fold under UE5's rendering load; I was halfway through a render and the whole PC just black-screened. The PA120 V3's default fan curve was way too conservative, letting the CPU temp rocket from 50℃ to 102℃ in 30 seconds, triggering the motherboard's emergency shutdown. I tried switching to a high-performance power plan, but that just made it worse—the crash happened in 15 seconds. Total disaster. I went into the BIOS and set a much more aggressive stepped fan curve, and I actually took the cooler off and re-tightened the screws in a cross-pattern to ensure the mounting pressure was even. HWInfo showed the peak temp dropped from 102℃ to 88 - 92℃, and the render finally finished. I noticed one fan making a weird rattling noise after the reinstall, but it was just a cable rubbing against the frame. Power draw is steady at 210 - 230 Watts with fans hitting 1500 - 1800 RPM. I saved the fan profile so I can restore it after any BIOS update. The system response is now snappy.
