Man pays cheap for a gaming PC due to a “defect” and discovers that the solution was just to remove some plastic.

You know those times when an ad is too good to be true? Something that makes you wonder if it’s a scam? Well, one Reddit user called MonkeyMonkey reported having gone through this, and, unlike many other less fortunate people, the offer ended up being the best possible.

He said he found an ad for a gaming PC equipped with a Core i9 is RTX 4090 for a low price, he didn’t specify the price, but said it was cheaper than a processor and video card combo at other stores.

Slow as a cart

The lower price was set because the shopkeeper said the computer was experiencing the famous thermal throttlingwhich is a reduction in performance due to a “strangulation” thermal. To avoid damaging components, performance is automatically reduced momentarily.

So the machine wasn’t delivering all it could, in fact, it was well below that. He says the PC was completely slow, right from the start, and the fans were spinning at full speed. The person selling it had two computers, one of which was the one with the “problem.”

Even so, the Reddit user decided to take a chance. He bought the machine and tried to find a solution. What he didn’t expect was that the solution was more basic than anyone could imagine.

He thought it might be something related to the thermal paste. He removed the CPU cooler and then the surprise. The plastic under the metal plate of the processor had not been removed. This affected the integration between the heatsink and the CPU, resulting in lower dissipation efficiency, raising the overall temperature of the chip.

He removed the plastic, replaced the cooler and that was it. Problem solved.