How to stop thermal throttling on Thermalright PA120 V3?
Right when the battle peaks and the screen is full of effects, my FPS would dive from 120 to 45, which actually got me excited to start troubleshooting. The dual-tower setup of the PA120 V3 couldn't keep up with the transient power spikes, and my core temps were slamming into 92-98℃, triggering a hard thermal throttle. I tried lowering the CPU power limits in the BIOS, but that just tanked my minimum FPS, which was a dealbreaker. I ended up stripping the cooler, applying high-performance thermal paste, and adding a dedicated 120mm fan for direct airflow. HWInfo showed peak temps dropping to 72-78℃, and the FPS swings completely vanished. I did have a brief issue where the new fan messed up my case pressure and raised internal temps by 3℃, but I fixed that by ramping up the front intake fans. CPU is now steady at 60-65℃ and the SSD is sitting at 45-52℃. No more throttling, just pure performance.