Possibly dangerous CPU temperatures?

[Alfred K]

Hello! My problem *cough* this time *cough* is that my new laptop seems to have some heating issues. When playing games like Battlefield 3 my CPU gets as hot as 80 Celsius (100 Celsius is water's boiling temperature). What makes me really worried is that it USED to be 75 C max when playing Battlefield 3. Should I pop open my laptop or do something similar, since I do not want my machine fry to death. Idle the temperature is 39 - 42 C. The CPU is an i5 3210 2,5 GHz.

[Bolkonsky]

Get a can of compressed air, and a small tube or straw (usually comes with it) and clean out the vents with it. Then invest in a decent cooling pad. Lots of people insist that the Cooler Master two/three fan ones are the best, like this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-...ds=cooling+pad

However I've personally had bad experiences with it quality wise, the pins on the fans broke off during shipping, so it's not very durable, and the whole thing was warped.

This got some good reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-Ma...ds=cooling+pad

I would never play any intensive game on a laptop without a cooling pad. Also using a laptop on a sofa or bed can cause heating issues, as the fabric contours to the laptop and blocks the vents. Always use it on a hard surface.

[Alfred K]

Get a can of compressed air, and a small tube or straw (usually comes with it) and clean out the vents with it. Then invest in a decent cooling pad. Lots of people insist that the Cooler Master two/three fan ones are the best, like this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-...ds=cooling+pad

However I've personally had bad experiences with it quality wise, the pins on the fans broke off during shipping, so it's not very durable, and the whole thing was warped.

This got some good reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-Ma...ds=cooling+pad

I would never play any intensive game on a laptop without a cooling pad. Also using a laptop on a sofa or bed can cause heating issues, as the fabric contours to the laptop and blocks the vents. Always use it on a hard surface.

Thank you for replying. I already bought a cooling pad. It's a Logitech N120. I'll look around local tech stores and try to clean out the dust as soon as possible. The weird thing is that my laptop is so new that how could it have already collected so much dust. I suppose it could

[Top-Tier-Tech]

how could it have already collected so much dust. I suppose it could

If by new you mean you've had it for less than like 3 months then there is almost no chance that dust is your problem. And you say you have a cooling pad... yikes. Gaming on laptops always leads to excessive heat since they don't have very good ventilation but your current temps are definitely excessive beyond normal.

[Alfred K]

If by new you mean you've had it for less than like 3 months then there is almost no chance that dust is your problem. And you say you have a cooling pad... yikes. Gaming on laptops always leads to excessive heat since they don't have very good ventilation but your current temps are definitely excessive beyond normal.

Bought my laptop one and a half weeks ago, seems I have a problem...

[Bolkonsky]

Bought my laptop one and a half weeks ago, seems I have a problem...

Is there a fan speed setting in your BIOS/UEFI? If so make sure it's set up properly - set to maintain a low temperature, etc. Lots of times they set these to higher temps so the fans are quieter, but they probably weren't expecting you to play BF3 on it.

[Alfred K]

There doesn't seem to be an option for changing fan settings in the BIOS. Strange...

[Crazyeyesreaper]

its because your using Ivy Bridge, those chips run hot no matter what your fine

max temp on those chips is 105'c your still 25'c under the limit, that said as time goes on your CPU will get warmer, do to the fact Intel used TIM under the IHS, aka the metal over the CPU die itself instead of solder like they did with sandybridge this means higher temps because tim is far worse at thermal transfer.

all in all your fine, your 25'c under the max overclocked i hit 88c on a regular basis your on Intel so dont worry about it till you start pushing 90-95c then its time to tear the thing apart and change the thermal paste between CPU and Cooler, theres nothing you can do about the TIM under the IHS. well their is but its not worth doing.

If you had AMD yea it would be time to worry at those temps

Anyway replacing the Tim between the Heatsink assembly and the CPU would drop temps a good 7-15'C

if your really worried about temps and dont mind a 5-10% drop in performance on the CPU go into the bios and turn off HT aka Hyper Threading, this should lower temps a bit. if not well turn it back on.

[Alfred K]

its because your using Ivy Bridge, those chips run hot no matter what your fine

max temp on those chips is 105'c your still 25'c under the limit, that said as time goes on your CPU will get warmer, do to the fact Intel used TIM under the IHS, aka the metal over the CPU die itself instead of solder like they did with sandybridge this means higher temps because tim is far worse at thermal transfer.

all in all your fine, your 25'c under the max overclocked i hit 88c on a regular basis your on Intel so dont worry about it till you start pushing 90-95c then its time to tear the thing apart and change the thermal paste between CPU and Cooler, theres nothing you can do about the TIM under the IHS. well their is but its not worth doing.

If you had AMD yea it would be time to worry at those temps

Anyway replacing the Tim between the Heatsink assembly and the CPU would drop temps a good 7-15'C

if your really worried about temps and dont mind a 5-10% drop in performance on the CPU go into the bios and turn off HT aka Hyper Threading, this should lower temps a bit. if not well turn it back on.

its fine. stop worrying about it. desktop guys dont know what they are talking about, on load a laptop will reach those temps and it wont melt, nor will cause damage.

you dont need a cooler, you need to play on hard surfaces, sometimes people get bottle caps and prop the notebook up.

ivy on notebooks doesnt run any hotter than sandy, mainly because there is no heatspreader like in the desktops.

and what did you buy? you never told me

Thank you both for replying, feel much better now that I know I don't have to start messing around with warranty, at least not yet

Karamazovmm I eventually got an Asus K55vm http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-...k.77878.0.html

[karamazovmm]

its fine. stop worrying about it. desktop guys dont know what they are talking about, on load a laptop will reach those temps and it wont melt, nor will cause damage.

you dont need a cooler, you need to play on hard surfaces, sometimes people get bottle caps and prop the notebook up.

ivy on notebooks doesnt run any hotter than sandy, mainly because there is no heatspreader like in the desktops.

and what did you buy? you never told me

[Top-Tier-Tech]

its fine. stop worrying about it. desktop guys dont know what they are talking about

To hit 80C with a cooling pad no less (imagine temps without it) is not what I'd consider normal on a laptop. That's just the CPU temp, internal temps in general getting raised excessively for long periods of time always lead to component failures earlier than would otherwise occur. Sure the CPU is rated to still function at that temp but the system as a whole is being done no favors with internal components getting that hot.

[karamazovmm]

To hit 80C with a cooling pad no less (imagine temps without it) is not what I'd consider normal on a laptop. That's just the CPU temp, internal temps in general getting raised excessively for long periods of time always lead to component failures earlier than would otherwise occur. Sure the CPU is rated to still function at that temp but the system as a whole is being done no favors with internal components getting that hot.

yes its normal. Cooling pads are ineffective, they only drop usually 3-6c of a cpu temp. the n120 aint even a good cooling pad, being the best one the u3 and swapping the fan for something more powerful.

for example if you use a enterprise class hardware like the precision m4600, and use a subroutine like dev null to load the cpu, it will net similar results. And the cooling on that notebook is a much higher grade. From what I remember someone at notebookreview was comparing his temps with the RMBP, using that m4600, it was 75c for the cpu and 85c for the gpu, for the RMBP it was 85c on the cpu and 80c on the gpu, the lower temps is due to kepler on the latter and the better cooling that was developed, do the same test on the mbp and you are hitting higher temps on the cpu, high 80s to low 90s.

if you want to go the gaming notebook routine I have far more interesting numbers, the cpus do hover around 80-85c for the cpu, for the gpus last year it was 85-95c, and the gpus this year it is 65-85c, the lower range is for the 680m non oced and the higher range is for the same gpu, the 7970m stays in the middle of the sandwich oc or not.

While I agree that high temps on a small chassis may affect other components, like the HDD, the most usual failure that we see on the forums is, overvoltage damage (a lot of 580m are failing now), vibration damage to the HDD, drops and rough handling (mostly chassis, case, HDD and screen damage) and power daughter board gone caput.

There was only one widespread heat problem that I know of (across several lines and not to a particular model that had poor cooling, which is also circumvented by throttling, see the new xps 15) the 8600m and 8800m problem, which was due to the poor job that nvidia did.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

who are you talking about karamazovmm, just for clarification

fact: cpu is ivybridge and it does in fact run warmer, due to TIM vs Solder but not abnormally so it falls in with whats expected as the cpu shrinks in size transistors get packed more densely it becomes hard to pull heat away, but I digress ive seen far worse in past.

fact: temps can be dropped by changing the TIM between the copper heatpipes and the CPU itself by a fair amount as with any laptop these days as the stock paste is usually just plain garbage,

so just want to make sure were on the same page here lol

on an unrelated note

that said as we both agree hes fine, chips safe up to 105c and even then if it does get to hot it will thermal throttle to protect itself regardless so not a big deal unless he sees that happen.

[karamazovmm]

who are you talking about karamazovmm, just for clarification

fact: cpu is ivybridge and it does in fact run warmer, due to TIM vs Solder but not abnormally so it falls in with whats expected as the cpu shrinks in size transistors get packed more densely it becomes hard to pull heat away, but I digress ive seen far worse in past.

fact: temps can be dropped by changing the TIM between the copper heatpipes and the CPU itself by a fair amount as with any laptop these days as the stock paste is usually just plain garbage,

so just want to make sure were on the same page here lol

on an unrelated note

that said as we both agree hes fine, chips safe up to 105c and even then if it does get to hot it will thermal throttle to protect itself regardless so not a big deal unless he sees that happen.

I was talking to bolkosky and top tier tech

but as I said there is no heat spreader in the ivy for mobile, so what youre saying that you get higher temps due to that aint valid.

a new paste of Tim is valid, although its usually nowhere near that temp reduction. Asus usually doesnt screw it up that hard on paste application. Apple, dell, hp... they do apply tim like there is no tomorrow.

Another thing to note is that the temp reduction that we achieved in repasting was using ICD 24, an unreleased great product that benefited from terrible previous poor job, otherwise any good paste will reduce usually only 3-4c

@AGeorg

You are going to do a through disassamble to reach the heatsnk in that notebook, good luck if it comes to that. I hate those ''service'' covers, it needs to be the entire back panel, one single piece. That makes a notebook far more friendlier to serve

[Crazyeyesreaper]

and im not talking about replacing paste under the damn IHS im talking replacing the paste or thermal bad between the CPU and the Cooling assembly, which as you noted would give a drop in temps

Most Ivy Bridge laptops wont have cooling of this size but its still an Ivy Laptop, Point is replacing the TIM or Thermal Pad between the CPU and the Cooler can have a big impact, sometimes a copper shiv is a better idea but the image below demonstartes what can be expected, regardless ive had the opposite with ASUS units terrible paste jobs on the 4 ive delt with, simple change to MX4 temps were down 7-9c at load granted these were inexpensive units but i digress it is an option but voids the warranty.

and yes i forgot the laptop chips tend to be delided.. my bad doesnt change the fact they still run hot due to the smaller size, thats the new problem being encountered by Intel shrinking makes it easier to make powerful chips but the further it shrinks the more heat becomes an issue because of how densely packed the transistors are but im off on a tanget,

as we already said your fine dont worry about it if it starts getting crazy hot like 95-100c then you should start to worry. otherwise forget about it and just enjoy.

[karamazovmm]

we are going to see an increase on tdp in haswell. And they will put the pch in the cpu in one platform, dunno if their approach is going for the die or a true integration without a bridge (not that a bridge wont happen, it will), this is going to happen in the shark bay platform that is geared towards the ultrabooks.

variable TDPs are going to receive another boost, and we are going to see someone pretty soon.

and crazy that look like a clevo, which model is it?

[Crazyeyesreaper]

not sure google image search its branded by Origin PC or w.e though i was lazy wanted to make sure it was Ivy, regardless yes Haswell will be more power hungry 140w TDP is expected from what i remember supposedly overclocking will be VERY good but i find that doubtful as due to transistor density but if im proven wrong so be it lol i wouldnt be sad about it.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

^ THAT is true but then again thats the point if lasted forever no one would buy new lol, its MENT to fail lol usually just after warranty runs out