Thermal pads contain silicone oil that conducts heat but not electricity. They last about 5 years.
According to this video, 84 (15 W/mK) to 98 (stock pads) degrees Celsius is normal for a video card at 100%, but a Samsung SSD should stay between 30 and 50 degrees Celsius under load. They throttle at 70.
SpeedFan 4.52 says my NVME drive (HD1. Temp1 is CPU) is 50+ degrees Celsius while browsing with the manual fan boost off, so I'm looking into a new pad that should fit better physically and conductivity-wise and doesn't compress too much (more than 30%). Until then it's fan noise for me. SpeedFan considers 37C low for HD and 38C low for CPU.
As for the stench, since removing the dust lessened it, it was probably dust. I've removed the degraded sealing pads just in case (using 96% alcohol which is too strong for pressed CD labels) as it's better to suck in air near the bottom like it was designed to, than sticky decaying plastic, which might also explain the burning smell. So far it still smells old but doesn't stink anymore.
Update 2024-05-20: After it refused to sleep last night, but the fans were fortunately still boosted, and watching YouTube for a couple of hours, the hottest sensor is 45C CPU. But even with an open window + large fan, and no component feeling warm or looking dusty, the stench is back. Maybe MSI plastic (no rattle) or dust (none visible) or a blown capacitor (guess i'll try to remove the mobo) degrades at 50C.
Update 2024-05-21: I didn't feel like messing with all the screws and heatpipe connections, so just disconnected the fans and hit them with compressed air. Seems to have stopped the poplar seed stink and despite one crash due to overheating:
- <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
- <System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power" Guid="{331c3b3a-2005-44c2-ac5e-77220c37d6b4}" />
<EventID>86</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>83</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8000000000000020</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2024-05-21T18:05:45.4845791Z" />
<EventRecordID>45870</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="15772" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>MSI</Computer>
<Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
</System>
- <EventData>
<Data Name="ThermalZoneDeviceInstanceLength">9</Data>
<Data Name="ThermalZoneDeviceInstance">\_TZ.THRM</Data>
<Data Name="ShutdownTime">2024-05-21T18:05:45.4840604Z</Data>
<Data Name="_CRT">373</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>
I just played some more Doom (2016) and with the fan boost on, max temps were only up to 70C iirc. HWiNFo is better than SpeedFan at keeping track of max temps, so I'll use that next time.
Update 2024-05-28: The thermal pad under the NVMe ASIC was misaligned according to my King of Crabs session with about 90 open YouTube tabs. I think the buffering writes from those (Google blocks blocking YouTube tabs from loading for "performance") overheated the ASIC.
Fixing that and putting a thin YAODHAOD M.2 graphite/copper sticker on the bottom and an ARCTIC TP-3 thermal pad + another sticker on top appears to have worked (13C improvement):
Not sure why the PCH isn't reading. Maybe I accidentally zapped it while doing more fan cleaning with my new Chanurae duster, but then other stuff should probably not work either. Turns out that's an EUFI bug according to this thread.
Right now I smell only rain from outside. Feels good.
