Laptop cpu temp, is 63*C too high?
 

Hi,

I am using an IBM R51, Pent. M 1.5 ghz , on-board Intel Extreme 2 graphics

It is not usually running in an air-conditioned room, ambient air temp is circa 30* C, but the machine always has an external fan blowing onto it (and me!)

The usual temperature from cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THM0/temperature is between 42 and 52*C, normally at 49* under web browsing and word processing.

If I fire up Celestia or any other graphics intensive app the cpu temp goes up to 63*C.

The internal fans seem to be working because there is a definitely hot air being coming out of the vents on the central left side of the machine.

The machine's manual is not much help

Should I be worried, or are my temps within the specs for P4-M and this laptop?

Thank you for any input,

mark

I don't know for sure.. But I would assume you are probably fine... Most newer computers will start shutting down/rebooting when the CPU get's to hot... So until you start getting errors assume all is fine.. My HP Pavilion notebook is a true P4, not even a P4 mobile... and I don't usually check the temp. but suffice it to say that it gets VERY hot on my lap... A lot of the heat is also from the RAM on these I believe... So again, unless you start having obvious errors... I would say you should be fine... If you are concerned, call IBM.. they are generally quite good with customer support...

Look buddy, keep in mind that 75 is critical and at 80 Centigrade CPU usually explodes :cool:

I would say that as long as the normal range operates in the 40's or high 40's you're OK. Laptops generally do run a bit hotter than tower due to their limited cooling ability, but I think that as long as the 63 mark is a temporary peak rather than a typical condition, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Naturally any app that really works the CPU will cause a temp increase, but as long as you're not baking your CPU for hours at a time I think it would be OK.

As already suggested, you could call IBM if you are concerned. -- J.W.

OK, thaks for putting my mind at ease

mark

According to "Upgrading and repairing PCs" 14th edition a Pentium 1400 max temperature is 69 deg C.

I would think that yours wouldnt be that much different. earlier Pentiums had higher temp tolerances.

Is there any way you can drop the ambient temp ?

hope this helps
floppy

Thanks again for all the replies, I have a little info to add:

I relocated a room fan to roughly NNE of the laptop and ran the Celestia demo which is very graphics intensive, plus updatedb, plus web browsing, plus playing Soldier of Fortune in full screen (Loki demo) and the temp never went over 52*C,

All of this with Gnome with screen res set to 1024x768.

I should add that the Soldier game was NOT running smoothly, and neither was Celestia (both at full screen) but hey, which $1000 laptop could run those two simulatuneosly (sp?), but everything was usable and a ctrl-alt-f* still gave me a usable CLI, albeit a little slow.

mark