How hot is too hot?

[Veraster]

I have an Alienware M14X laptop. This is not the same computer as the one in my profile info. It has an Ivy Bridge i7-3610QM. Normally, it never sees cpu temperatures higher than 82C or so on the hottest core during intensive gaming because anything I've thrown at it before never pushed the cpu to constant 100% utilization.

The other day, I installed F@H on it. The cpu temps on the hottest core reach a high of 93C and and hover around 89-91 once F@H has been running for a while. The other three cores are always ~5 to ~13 degrees C cooler than core #3.

I'm used to looking at cpu temperatures that never go higher than 51C after being under maximum load for several hours on my E5300 Pentium D computer. Even with more fans than I need in my desktop, it also isn't near as loud close up as my M14X is from a distance.

So is 93C too hot? Plastic cups and stuff like that melt in boiling water and silicon is a type of plastic. 93C is almost the boiling point of water, so is that dangerously hot or is it just at the borderline of too hot? Will running my cpu in the low 90s and upper 80s shorten it's life?

Note that I have a custom made cooling pad for this laptop. The fans blow in the direction the laptop's internal fans blow in. The cooler's fans aren't fighting the laptop's fans and killing the airflow. I don't even want to know what the temps would be without the cooler...

Also, would I see a notable temperature difference if I plugged my cooler into a 12 volt switching adapter instead of a 5 volt one? It's not a question of if it will work or explode. It's just pc fans plugged strait into a power source and I know it will work on voltages as high as 20 volts.

 

[PP Mguire]

Don't fold on the laptop, you'll kill it.

Although laptop CPUs and GPUs can take higher temps than regular desktop variants 93C is too hot and you should not run it that way.

 

[Veraster]

Is it possible to mod it somehow and make it safe to fold on that laptop or is the bottom line just that laptops should never be used for folding? That's a disappointment since a desktop with similar specs would kick major ass lol.

 

[PP Mguire]

Eh, laptop components are weaker anyways. No real point in tearing your Alienware up just to fold.

 

[Veraster]

Would making the cooling pad fans faster make a difference at all?

 

[mcaustin1]

Your shoving air back up into the laptop with the cooling pad.

 

[Veraster]

Your shoving air back up into the laptop with the cooling pad.

There are two fans. The one on the bottom blows air into the laptop and the one on the side sucks it out. The fans on the cooler are blowing in the same direction as the ones built into the laptop like I said in my first post.

 

[PP Mguire]

Not really. The heatsinks on laptops have a small surface area and are tiny compared to even stock heatsinks found on desktop variants. Being completely honest and blunt here, if you want to **** up your laptop continue folding on it. If you don't then I would stop. Not trying to be rude, but just honest. They aren't made for such tasks and a constant 24/7 load can kill the CPU at those temps.

 

[Matt77]

Just play it safe and use a desktop. You don't see many people folding with a laptop in professional institutions for reasons like this, and a lack of power.

 

[Ethnod]

I have an Alienware M14X laptop. This is not the same computer as the one in my profile info. It has an Ivy Bridge i7-3610QM. Normally, it never sees cpu temperatures higher than 82C or so on the hottest core during intensive gaming because anything I've thrown at it before never pushed the cpu to constant 100% utilization.

I have an Alienware M11x and I find they run extremely hot actually. Regardless of what anyone says, the cooler the better for CPU's and GPU's (etc). I was finding that when I was too hot myself and put the fan on the extra air that was there to cool me was actually working very well on the lappy so I bought a cooling bench and its dropped the temp a good bit. However, I bought a small one as the M11x is a very small little thing.

My advice is to get one and get a good one