i5 460m dual core turbo boost worry

Hi there,

My i5 often runs with the speed boost on when playing games, I'm concerned, can this damage my processor and potentially ruin my laptop?

 

As far as I know, most of if not all laptops that have an Intel chip with Turbo Boost do this when running a game. You shouldn't need to worry about damage to the system because of this. The only way that any damage could occur is if you do something stupid with the computer like play a game and have the vents blocked. Take care of your system and you should have few problems.

 

I'm also concerned about my processor temp. When gaming, it runs at somewhere between 78 to 85C. I have a Targus fan laptop stand which is meant to keep it cooler, but I'm not sure if it really helps.

Is this too hot and should I be concerned?

 

85C is fine, I only worry after it hits 90C.

 

That is hot, 90-100c is damage point in my opinion. targus fan blows. I own one and threw it out, looked into another cooler pad for like 20-30 $ online at all? no idea why its running so hot sorry

 

The TJunction on the 460m is 105C, 85C while gaming is no issue at all. The Intel Core 2 Duo T9800 in my 2009 MBP 17 hit 99C playing games.

 

When I Alt+tab the game, it cools down very rapidly. Within a second it's down to 68C give or take a little.

I'm wondering if the tool I'm using is correct

 

I never really pass 70C, only when doing seriously heavy gaming like with PCSX2 do I hit 80C and usually it doesn't pass that.

I wouldn't worry about it unless you see yourself above 85C a lot.

 

put some good quality thermal paste such as Arctic MX4 or a similar good quality paste. This will help reduce your max temperature by a few degrees (5c or more).

90c while gaming is too much because this means that the CPU will reach Tj when rendering or video encoding. There has been a long debate about how warm/hot Core i CPUs are. It seems that some laptops' cooling systems are ill designed. Ideally a CPU should not go over 85c even when all its cores are fully loaded @ 100%.

 

Because of Turbo Boost which increases voltage way beyond the amount actually required to run the processor at that particular frequency, i series Core Processors are more prone to heat issues compared to Core 2 processors.

With i series, you get the lowest idles but higher load temperatures due to turbo boost. The i5-460M runs at 2.80GHz even on 2 cores full load on my previous HP(by right should be at most 2.66), which makes the heat issue worse.

 

How can you tell when the turbo boost is being used?

 

Processors — Intel® Turbo Boost Technology Monitor Overview

CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting

 

My temp is constantly going over 80C, I've even seen it hit 90. It's worrying me quite a bit now, this PC is less than 6 months old. I've done everything I can to keep the temp down, I have a cooling mat, I've fiddled with the game settings to keep everything on low. I don't know what to do, other than not play the game.

Edit: Just tried turning up the settings on max for the heck of it, doesn't seem to effect the temperature at all. I'd say on average, it's hitting about 75C during normal play, then when I swing the camera, it's hitting 85.

I recently installed another 4gb of RAM, could that be generating heat too?

 

It' not the RAM, dust in the heatsink or degraded thermal paste would be the most likely culprits.

 

I really doubt it is dust, but I'll check it over anyways.

This laptop is only 6 months old, so I doubt it could be the thermal paste. though, I was thinking of getting some good quality stuff. Is it easy to apply to the processor?

 

I'd say the difficulty of applying the paste itself is somewhat low. Disassembling the laptop can be hard though depending on the model. Oh and 6 months is enough to get lots of dust in if you never cleaned it. I also had the thermal paste in my G73 crap out in 9 months so it's possible that it degraded in 6 months if it was bad paste or poorly applied. Start by cleaning the vents and if you go for a repaste, ICD7 all way .