“What happens if you start up a PC without a CPU cooler?”

Nothing good.

If you’re lucky, the CPU will sense that’s something’s very wrong and slow or shut itself down before permanent damage occurs.

But with today’s higher-power chips, the margin for error is very small.

More likely, after a few glorious and toasty moments, your CPU would give up the ghost in the form of a puff of smoke and the smell of burning plastic.

Tom’s Hardware Guide has an excellent video on exactly this topic, showing what happens when they removed the cooler from several types and generations of CPUs. Fun to watch; glad it’s not my PC they were working on!

The Tom’s Hardware Guide video: https://youtu.be/_P2_9THvQcc

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