How to fix the PA140 failing to cool my CPU in Atomic Heart?

Watching my clock speed plummet from 5.2GHz to 3.4GHz was a nightmare; it felt like I was wading through mud. Looking at the logs, the PA140 was letting the core temps spike to 94-98℃ under heavy load, which triggered the hardware thermal throttling instantly. I tried capping the CPU power limit to 150W via software, and while temps dropped to 80℃, I lost 15% of my overall FPS, which felt like a pathetic compromise. I ended up ripping the cooler off and applying a 0.15mm high-conductivity nano-thermal paste, then carefully recalibrated the mounting pressure. In HWInfo, the full-load temps were finally pinned between 72-78℃, and the stuttering vanished. I actually managed to snap a plastic clip during the reinstall, which caused the heatsink to wobble for the first half hour until I reinforced it with zip ties. Now the CPU stays above 5.0GHz consistently. After a 5-hour stress test, there's zero throttling, and RAM temps are sitting at 58-63℃.
Category:Troubleshooting Last updated:March 15, 2026 1:08 PM