It's all about the Software

Thought I'd take this off the io.Groups to save clogging it up.

So, in recent weeks I began to have issues with my i9-13900 system first failing with Windows Update, then random software crashes, and a failure to repair or reinstall Windows 11. Wasn't sure if it was a W11 problem, or a hardware problem as several of you have suggested. I'm keeping an open mind as to which it is.

I successfully installed W10 over the top of the previous installation and the system is stable.
It seems to be running rather hot though, so after some digging around on the web I realised that the power level "long duration package power limit" was set to 253W when Intel say it should be 125W. I don't know if it was set to 125W before I updated the BIOS last week.

I have changed the setting in the BIOS to 125W and now the CPU average temp is around 30c lower (45c instead of 74c running the same software both times), and the air coming out of the top of the water cooling radiator is noticeably cooler as well. Even running the S3 at full pelt with 20 BFM receivers the CPU i averaging 62c.

I am still working with the possibility that the CPU may have some damage given that it is 2 years old and may have been running on the previous setting all that time, but so far the system is stable since the W10 install.

Question is... if the machine starts misbehaving again, how can I work out if the CPU is the problem? (the Intel checker last week came back clean as did everything else.)

Question:

If it is a bit cooked, then would I need to reinstall windows if:

1) I replaced it with another i9-13900K, or
2) replaced it with say an i9-14900K which is 200 quid cheaper despite appearing to have a similar CPU mark in terms of grunt. ?

I really don't know. If it is on the same motherboard it might skate past Microsoft tests. You might be able to move to a whole new machine if your old machine does not subsequently phone home to Microsoft.

If the machine was running that hot then the errors might be due to that. If I had plenty of money to afford a new chip I'd go for it. But a whole new machine sounds more attractive in that case.

{^_^}

Thanks Joanne.

Was thinking would that installation of Windows complain if it was suddenly presented with a different CPU to the one that was present when it was installed. Guess it makes no difference.
Licencing issues would be a different question, with the same Mobo I guess it would be fine.

G0OFE wrote: Wed Mar 19, 2025 11:22 am Thanks Joanne.

Was thinking would that installation of Windows complain if it was suddenly presented with a different CPU to the one that was present when it was installed. Guess it makes no difference.
Licencing issues would be a different question, with the same Mobo I guess it would be fine.

As far as I know (and ChatGPT seems to agree) it's only if you change the motherboard that you will trigger the need to reactivate your Windows.

It's worth making sure you have a copy of your Windows activation key or Product Code anyway. If you have a Microsoft account you should have a list of one or other type stored in your online account:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/win ... 06abf0a886

Personally I think it's very doubtful that heat at that level would damage the CPU, and as you have Win10 running smoothly then I'd doubt very much there's any issue with it. My daughter has Dell XPS-15 laptop and she also has an addiction to a game called "Baldur's Gate". When she plays that the proc (i7) runs around 70c constantly and fan at full-tilt. Been doing it for ages now, sometimes several hours a day. No sign of any damage yet. If you go on gaming forums to search for hit sort of thing they regularly talk about processors hitting 100C with no permanent damage. I am pretty sure the proc will throttle itself back when the heat becomes too great.

I would tend to say "if it ain't broke don't fix it"!

Max

I found my product key and have it safely stored in several places.

I've found a much better hardware monitor - had been using HWMonitor but noticed that the readings were jumping around all over the place. On a video I saw someone using HWINFO64, so I downloaded it and it's miles better. The free version can run up to 5 graphs, so I have a couple of them running for CPU temp and memory use.. a nasty memory leak in Firefox swiftly became evident!

Also showed up a couple of (very brief.. a few seconds) throttles, not sure what caused them.

Anyway, as you say, Max.... if it ain't broke.... it is behaving so I will leave things as they are.

Thanks for the word about FireFox. That may be the source for an issue I have here.

If the computer is one you built your license key can be moved around a whole lot easier than if it was something like a Dell, Lenovo, HP, or other OEM. They get special licenses to go with their computers mostly tied to the motherboard. There are no guarantees, though. I pretend to be a know-it-all but I'm not.

{^_-}