SB i5 nearing 95C under load?!

...is this normal?

I'm going to buy a cooling mat this week anyway but temps above 90C are worrying me a bit. The laptop's only a day old... trying out a few games and running benchmarks it reached 87C which I kinda put down to excessive stress but I've just played an hour and a half of EVE Online and when I checked HWMonitor afterwards the CPU had hit 92C!

Are SB i5s known to run this high or is it likely to be another problem, bad cooling or a malfunction or something? Any ideas much appreciated

 

Definitely not normal.

RMA time, I think?

Could you give a link to your specific system model?

 

92c means that under Orthos you'll probably reach the 100c. You should send it back definitely.

 

RMA time?

It's a Clevo W150HR but a UK rebrand. Not the exact model but the configurator's here, the specs are in my sig.

 

RMA:

See:
Return merchandise authorization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Yeah, a 15.6" platform should be sufficient to cool off your components easily.

You may want to try properly applying the thermal paste on the cpu and gpu - but myself, I would still return it.

 

If it is still under warranty you should return it. Do not open/dismantle the laptop if it is still under warranty as this might void it.

 

Cheers for the replies. It's still under a collect & return warranty so getting it seen to shouldn't be a problem, just a massive ball-ache, I've only had it a day!!!

What then is a safe upper temperature limit for this i5 to operate at? It idles between 55 and 60C and reaches 75 to 80C when playing less demanding games... is that normal?

 

55C idling is not normal, even if you were in a hot room. Definitely RMA that. 80-85C is as hot as it should get even in a hot room while still staying within a safe range. Anything over 80C is too hot, imo.

 

I've just had a proper look through the owner's thread and the notebookcheck review and it seems idle temps up to 60C and gaming temps up to 95C are actually pretty standard on this model. Not sure that makes me feel any better about it lol but I think I'll try a few cooling solutions and see how it runs before returning it... should be alright with 364 days' warranty left

 

That is not normal, and should not be "standard", I don't care what the manufacturer says. Just because a processor can handle 100C for short durations doesn't mean you should. It's just a poor excuse for their poor cooling. Think of it this way, at 100C water boils. Have you ever dipped your finger into boiling water? Constantly pegging it in the 80's and 90's will shorten it's lifespan. Heat is a computer's worst enemy.
Have you considered possibly looking at a different computer maker?

 

Given that it's a clevo, I'm really surprised it's running that hot. They usually have pretty decent cooling systems.

 

Yeah the one in my HP DV6t ran in the 90 c range as well.

 

The issue with 95c is not safety as such. The BIOS in modern computers is implemented with safeguards. If the CPU temperature goes above a predefined ration (Intel calls it Temperature-junction or Tj for short), the BIOS will throttle the CPU down (i.e down clock it) to help it cool down. If the temperature of the CPU carrying on increasing after the throttle down, the BIOS will instruct the laptop to shut-down when the temperature is around 125c to preserve the CPU from burning.

Games are not as demanding as rendering, file compression, or video encoding. If your CPU is reaching 95c when playing a game, it is more than likely that it will go over 100c when encoding a video or compressing a file. The problem here is that the Tj of your CPU is 100c. When down clock I doubt that your Core i5 will be any faster than a Core 2 Duo, and I'm sure you don't want this.

Ideally a CPU temperature should not exceed 85c with the factory thermal pad, and less than 80c with a good quality after market thermal past

 

Yeah, I understand it won't blow up in my face, I'm just worried it'll burn out after a year if it regularly spends 2-3hrs at a time in the 90C+ range.

Would downclocking the CPU or just disabling the Turbo Boost make it run cooler? The 2520 boosts to 3.2GHz but if it helps temperatures I'm sure I can live with it at 2.5GHz for most games... just not sure that'd cool it down? I guess undervolting would be a good solution too but that's still impossible on SBs right?

 

My Intel Core i7 2720qm idles at around 40ish C after my repaste, down from 45 C.
Its lower than 35C with "Fn+1" enabled.
Clevo P170HMx probably has a better cooling setup but still thats one hot i5.

Not sure if using the Intel IGP results in higher temps.
I dont know if you void your warranty if you repaste the thermal paste yourself, im allowed to do that.

 

Nothing bad should happen to your laptop. The only thing that I don't get is what was the point of buying an i5 that can turbo boost if you have to disable the boost to allow the CPU to run cooler? Don't you think that this is a waste of your hard earned cash?

Download orthos from here and run it for 15 minutes and see how hot your CPU get.

 

I have a Latitude 6420 with a i7 2720qm. It will run at 2.6GHz (turbo mode) for hours on end doing HD recodes. But it maintains about 95c the whole time. If I force it back to its rated 2.2, it stays at 85c. I think I need better cooling if I am going to continue to push this processor at full tilt for hours.

 

Thing is the only intensive activity I do is gaming and running it at 2.5GHz shouldn't have much of an effect on games as the bottleneck's my GPU. If it extends the laptop's lifetime then it's not a big sacrifice...

I'll run Orthos when I have a moment. I've used Furmark though and stopped out of concern after about 20mins when the CPU hit 90, but since then it's hit 93 after a gaming session. Seems like it tables out in the low 90s and keeps stable.

Out of curiosity how long have you had your 6420? Wondering if anyone has sustained CPU temps in the 90s for more than a year or two without issue.

Also what do you use to underclock the CPU?

 

Throttlestop I'm guessing.

 

If a laptop is used in a dust free space, the max CPU temperature should remain the same as long as the temperature ambient temperature is constant. Usually a CPU temperature increases over time because a layer of dust build up around the vent area and abstracts the airflow.

Note that a laptop tends to run hotter by about 6c when it sits on a bed

 

Absolutely, what I meant was has anyone had a CPU, running at 90C+ under load, that lasted more than a couple of years, as in didn't burn out or malfunction due to prolonged high temperatures.

 

As I said before, nothing will happen to a CPU as long as it's temperature is below Tj. Even if the temperature goes above Tj, for instance if the fan fails, the CPU is still safe since the BIOS will instruct the laptop to shut down

So in all cases you don't have to worry about the longevity of your CPU. Your CPU is safe at 95c

Most computer enthusiasts including myself don't like 95c because it is too close to Tj. I was taught that engineers always include a safety margin in their calculation of around 20%. Thus, a CPU with a Tj of 100c should never go above 86c.

If your laptop was out of warranty or if you're allowed to open it I would've suggested the following:

1- there is a possibility that the heatsink is not sitting properly above the CPU. I would suggest to unscrew the screws holding the heatsink in place and then screwing them back following the numbers engraved on the heatsink; screwing screw number 1 a bit, and move to number 2 and screw it a bit, then number 3, 4 and so on. Repeat this sequence over and over again until all the screw are tight.

2- Replace the factory thermal pad with a good quality thermalpast such as MX4, AS5 etc

 

Right, cheers for the advice Having heard the mantra that heat is the death of laptops I just assumed such heat over a long period of time would cause more degredation, no matter how safe the temps.

I think my first step will be to invest in a decent cooling mat. Knowing this model runs so hot as standard makes me think the heatsink and pasting are fine. If the mat fails to cool things by a few degrees though I'll definitely open her up and attempt a re-paste!

 

There's also the fact that while the silicon might be able to withstand 100* repeatedely, the solder that holds things together might not.

My sister used to use her laptop on her bed sheets. I told her that one day it would die on her if she didn't treat it right. A few months ago her GPU spazzed out because the solder connection had broken from the repeated stress cycles from the heat. Ended up having to get it put back on. She learned her lesson.

My point is that the cooler your notebook is running, the less the parts will expand from the heat and so the solder won't fatigue so much. This isn't so much of an issues with CPU's since they aren't surface mounted but you should still bear it in mind.

 

Wow 90c? Out of all the pc's i've owned, I only saw those temps once... It was with an AMD Athlon xp.... It's been dead for some time now.

Anyway, I googled "sandy bridge running hot" in google and found many others having the same exact issue. You know, something strange is going on here. Intel claims that they overclocked a sandy bridge(didn't specify which one) to 4.9ghz fully stable on air cooling. If so many of you are having this 90+ degree issue with the stock clock, then how massive was that heatsink&fan that Intel used?

My guess? They did their overclocking in the arctic.... with a heatsink the size of a semi-trailer.... and a fan blade powered by a V12 engine from the Aston Martin DB9.... revving at 6,000rpm.... that was being driven by chuck norris....

 

It was the i5 2500k, a desktop processor. They used the stock heatsink.

 

^Thanks for the correction.

 

lol, the stock HSF, in my experience with two i7 2600k units with HT disabled, is not enough to handle a 4.9GHz OC on air. Not unless if they were pumping it sub zero temp air.

 

My friend and I built a PC together which he had been saving up for. It has the i5 2500k in it with the stock heatsink. It loads out at 60*C at the stock 3.3GHz so I can see 4.9 being achievable if a little on the hot side. What intel did wasn't really a practical demostration, more to show what their SB lineup is capable of. Given the tiny size of the heatsink, I too was doubtful at first but the number speak for themselves.

 

Yeah, I first thought it was wierd, since the Clarksdale chips had a similarly teeny HSF, and that barely coped.

 

I had an Atom-based netbook running at 100% CPU load non-stop for 5-6 months about a year ago, no idea what the temps actually were but it keeps on ticking.

I have my 2500k running at "only" 4.2 ghz, and load temps are somewhere between 60-70 with a Coolermaster HSF. The C2Q in my HTPC uses the stock HSF and load temps are usually 75-80, been running this way well over a year doing gaming/encodes and no issues yet.

 

I had a few laptops over the past 5 years. On average, the sit on to of my bed for 3 to 4 hours a night when I watch videos, and I never had a problem with cracking soldering joints.
Yet again the maximum temperature my CPU is reaching under full load when my laptop is sitting on the bed is about 76c. When watching a video the temp. is around 50c

I agree the cooler the better

Comparing a desktop cooling systems to a laptop colling system is an unfair comparison

 

Cause it's not just the CPU, it's the surrounding components that are heat sensitive, that may be affected. I dunno how much faith to put in this saying, but every 10C drop in temp, doubles a capacitor's lifespan.