No GPU installed, yesterday windows randomly switched to basic theme, while no demanding programs were running...

No GPU installed, yesterday windows randomly switched to basic theme, while no demanding programs were running. After that PC became very slow and I had to restart.

I've got an i5 3570k and an Assrock z77 extreme4.

How can I check whether either of these is dying?

One more thing, before I reapplied thermal paste a while ago, the highest temp my CPU reached was 105°C. And this happened multiple times. Could that have fried the CPU?

>Pic related happens randomly, no pattern recognized

no ideas?

>windows
found your problem

Reseat and new paste.

Add more thermal paste, people often don't use enough and it causes problems like this, they give you a whole tube for a reason, apply it generously.

Nibba no. I've had W7 ever since I got this PC, which was 6 years ago. desu I had a GPU back then, it died only recently, but this is clearly a hardware issue.

The temps are fine currently, max I ever get is 60°C.

What about the whole "just apply a rice-grain amount of paste"?

Also under heavy load it doesn't go over 60°C after I put new paste like couple of months ago.

>rice-grain amount
This is a fucking dumb meme, how is your CPU being cooler gonna affect it negatively?

This

Oh shit I forgot windows really does that
Imagine developing a DE so shitty it can throttle your whole pc
God, how can people use this.
Thanks for the sensible chuckle OP

Too much thermal paste actually insulates your cpu from the heatsink, resulting in higher temps (miniscule, but still).

>How can I check whether either of these is dying?

>literally a few degrees extra theoretically as opposed to risking overheating your CPU

Boot your system up with a live linux USB flash drive. How does it perform?

And, 105 C core CPU temps is nuts. Your system should have throttled and shut down as it passed 80 and sustained that on its way to 90. Ya' done fukt up, OP. That sort of heating could cook off motherboard components even if the CPU remains undamaged.

He's not using a giant die like Ryzen, a pea sized amount of paste is enough.

my uncle died of this

CPU hardly ever fails unless the motherboard suffers a VRM failure.

Might be RAM/HDD failure too. Run crystaldiskinfo and memtest86 to verify.

>shutdown at 80

Literally lmaoing @ u rn senpai

I'll do this.

>could cook off motherboard components
How

this is not hdd failure you dumb fuck.

>105c
Literally burnt the water out of your components. Start again, but you'll need to bake the water back into them. Put a bowl of water in the oven and set it to 110c and put your components in it and keep it in there until the bowl evaporates

What did he mean by this.

>How
Traces around CPU socket.

You motherboard components contain hydrated salts used as insulation around the semiconductor circuits in them. The heat caused them to turn into their anhydrous states. You will need to prepare some water. The technique he recommended is incorrect. I would tell you to gently steep it in cold water, as the hydration of a salt is an exothermic process and the heat could cause temperature fluctuations leading to water microbubbles within the circuitry.

applying thermal paste must be liberal enough
the problem is when bubbles appear somewhere or lost thermal paste contact. this causes it things malfunction since the temps are only situated on specific parts of the whole cpu

Checked for those, doesn't seem like there are any.

I checked my memory using memetest, seems fine.

Sorry for the loss...

Bumpity bump

It has nothing to do with temps just
Your igpu might be not contacting proper or something
Just do it user

I did reseat and reapplied the thermal paste. Thing is I cannot unfortunately reproduce the issue, so no clue if it will help.