Core Distance to TjMAX randomly spikes to 100°C in OCCT
Recently I tried to clean my PC with an I5 11400F CPU. I removed the GPU and wanted to remove the CPU cooler too but couldn't do it. I tried though and I think I might have damaged the motherboard with a screwdriver in a few places during the process (don't ask how). Can it be the reason for the spikes? Like could I damage some sensors and now they sometimes fail and show 0°C (which is what 100°C to TjMAX means)? There are no other visible issues with the PC though so I guess it can be a just a bug. Btw I can't add screenshots because of some weird Jerboa bug
Oh boy. I'm not 100% sure about Intel CPUs, but typically the sensors are inside of the metal casing with the silicon. You might've damaged the frame of the cooler so it's not making contact with the CPU and causing the CPU to spike in temp. I'd recommend reaching out to someone who has experience with building PCs and see if they can help you get the CPU cooler off properly, replace the thermal paste, and hopefully get it remounted properly.
Don't stress your CPU for now because it will cause long-term damage that could fry the CPU/mobo.
I agree with this, you probably dislodged or loosened the cooler. Which needs firm pressure to work properly, causing one of your cores to spike in temperature.
Distance to TjMAX is a value opposite to temperature. If it's 100°C, it means the core's temperature is 0°C (at least for most of the Intel CPUs). The core temperature doesn't spike to 0 though...
The temperatures don't spike and are completely normal though, even in stress tests. Maybe OCCT calculates the value and it fails because of freezes caused by stress tests? I don't even see the 100°C on the live sheets. It just appears in the max column smh and stays there all session (as it should)