Why your CPU suddenly works like crazy, although you didn’t even open some strange app? Is it possessed!? A lot of reasons may hide behind CPU sudden over-performance, from malware to system bugs, hardware conflicts, whatever! You may find the reason, or not, but until you solve the mystery you need to do something to protect your CPU from overheating.

Note that a processor should not work constantly above 60 C (140 F). Safe temperatures, constant and temporary, vary from type to type, and you should check what is better for your particular unit, but an approximate rule is the 60 degrees Celsius for maximum constant use, and the 80-99 degrees for maximum temporary use, that is when you convert some audio files to a different format, etc.

Therefore, if your CPU for some reason tends now to work more than it used to and its temperature rises and stays above 60 C, until this problem is solved go to the Windows Control Panel > Power Options > Change Plan Settings, and enter the Advanced settings of your power plan > Processor power management > Maximum processor state. Change this option to 80% or to whatever would keep temperature below 60 C. (To monitor easily your system temperatures you can use a freeware such as Open Hardware Monitor).

This means that the OS won’t let your CPU exhaust its power, it is like your are downgrading to an inferior CPU, but it also means that its temperature will not increase dangerously. And when your problem is solved you can change again this option to 100% and enjoy better speeds. In any case this difference is important for certain tasks only (in which case you can temporarily change again this option to release more power), while normally even half of your CPU power is more than enough! You can create a shortcut to open easily the advanced power options using as target the command: YourWindowsFolder\System32\control.exe powercfg.cpl,,1

Enjoy!