VRM Overheating Symptoms

If you feel any of these or especially during overclocking or heavy work loads I would suggest getting a mobo with DrMOS MOSFETs and/or solid caps that can handle 10000 hours and/or 105°C. Also, check the case airflow and think about liquid cooling solutions that actually incorporate the VRM heatsinks into the system.

Source of image: Reddit

Here is also complete video guide.

Overheating of VRMs can be a very big blow to your system’s performance and stability in general. Let’s dive into the key symptoms that indicate VRM overheating and what you need to look out for:

1. System Crashes and Blue Screens (BSOD) are some of the most frequent problems you are likely to come across.
The most apparent sign you have an overheating VRM is that you experience stability issues within your system. Some of the issues you might experience are, your computer may freeze periodically, most apparent when you are using the computer for gaming, video editing or stress testing. The crashes can occur with Blue Screens of Death (BSOD) having error codes such as “WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR” or “CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT.” This is because the VRMs cannot deliver steady voltage when they are hot, resulting in fatal system messages.

2. Power surges and System Crashes
Whenever your PC power offs suddenly, and especially when the system is under load, this might be due to thermal protection circuits, which are activated by very hot VRMs. It is important to note that most motherboards will trigger an automatic shut down when the temperature of the VRM components especially the MOSFETs hits 100°C or goes further up.

User Experience: I was using MSI MAG X570 Tomahawk and there was always sudden shut down at random time though it was always when games are being played. Once I was using HWInfo to take a look at the temperatures, I saw that the VRM was getting close to 105 degrees Celsius. Adding a small dedicated fan over the VRM heatsink dropped the temps by 20 degrees, and the shutdowns ceased.”

3. Slowed Down Efficiency and Lower Clock Rates
This is because the VRM overheating results in performance throttling. They can experience lower values of a CPU and GPU clock rate and have reduced operational performance on the system and frame rate in games. The worst can be that your CPU may lower from GHz speeds to somewhere within the MHz range just to ward off threats, and the system will be almost useless.

4. They include High Heatsink Temperature (Touch Test).
If you suspect VRM overheating, you can try a basic but effective method: the touch test. Gently put your finger on the VRM heatsink when possible. If it feels uncomfortably hot within 2-3 seconds it usually means that the VRM temperature is high and can go beyond 90 C°.
Personal Experience: “On one of the overclocking attempts with ASUS ROG Strix X670E hardware, the VRM heatsink was incredibly hot, as in I could not hold my fingers on it.” Extra airflow from a case fan above the VRMs was brought to lower the temperatures by approximately 15°C and stabilize the system during long benchmarks.”
5. Observable Mechanical Mark (Singed or Puffed Up Parts)
In severe conditions, the overheating of VRMs results in physical damage. These include charring around the VRM section, swollen capacitors or even simply melted MOSFETs. If you see some brown or burnt PCB traces, it simply means that your VRMs were running hot, and might have been over 110°C.
Real Incident: One user claimed that his budget motherboard overheat when there was no adequate cooling for the VRM. The MOSFETs were getting hot above 120°C and this caused a capacitor to explode. Replacing the damaged components and adding heatsinks helped solve the problem, but it’s a very expensive repair that could be prevented if the cooling was better.
6. Boot Failure or inability to power on.
Excessive VRM heat can cause your system not to power up correctly when it’s at its worst. If the VRM circuit is bad or continuously getting hot then it can cause the system to not power on at all or to constantly reboot during the power on self-test.
Note:
Consider Aftermarket Cooling: If your motherboard doesn’t have good VRM heatsinks, you can add more heatsinks or small fans to control heat well.