Laptops...do they protect themselves from overheating?

Just curious...I was running a stress test on the notebook, and was monitoring the temperatures via Everest and NHC. Apparently, NHC is somewhat useless with Core2...mostly I was using it to obtain ATI GPU frequencies and the like.

Anyway, playing Oblivion at stock GPU settings...NHC reports that my CPU is over 80deg...Everest reports about 68deg at the time. A little later, NHC says it has passed 100deg and will shut down the notebook soon. Everest is only reporting about 75deg (which is typical for this notebook).

My question is, without NHC's ability to shut down if there is a heat overload (despite it's inability to correctly read temperatures)...do notebooks (especially my nc8430) have some built-in protection against over-heating?

 

Yes, Core 2 Duo and other modern CPUs (as well as GPUs) have built in sensors that automatically detect excessively high temperatures. I believe processors will shut down at 95 degrees while GPUs can go a little higher.

 

is there a really reliable way to monitor the temps that the computer is measuring? NHC doesn't really work, but I haven't used Everest enough no know if they are the best or not.

also, nothing I can see measures the temps of both cores as well as the GPU INDIVIDUALLY...are there any programs that CAN do that?

 

Mobimeter does a good job telling you the processor and hard drive temperatures.

 

It is not always that mobilemeter is able to show the temperatures correctly.
It depends on notebook's design. Sometimes Speedfan is able to show the temperatures while MM cannot, and v.v.

 

Airbags are installed in cars to prevent serious injury in an out of control situation. Sensors are installed in Laptops to prevent serious damage in an out of control situation. Do you really ever want to test either? I think not...

 

My ol' AMD Athlon used to shut down due to heat. All modern processors have temperature sensors which force a shutdown beyond a hard coded value to prevent a thermo nuclear meltdown which would doom the human race to...oh sorry, too many cheezy Sci-Fi channel movies...

 

Pentium M and Core series processors have the ability to reduce the CPU's clock speed if it overheats, similar to that found in the Pentium 4. It has been improved for further power savings, though.

What happens is that when the CPU detects its own core temperature to be too high, it steps its clock speed down until it becomes sufficiently cool again. If it doesn't cool down, the CPU continues reducing its clockspeed bit by bit, and when it goes to zero your computer will hang.