Does the laptop CPU exceed 95°C during a stress test?
Does the laptop CPU exceed 95°C during a stress test?
CPU: i7 8550U
I recently replaced the thermal paste (Artic MX-4). I double-checked that the heat sink was securely attached and properly fastened, along with the cooler.
Since I'm using Ubuntu, I ran the following command:
stress-ng --cpu 8 --cpu-method matrixprod --timeout 900s --metrics-brief
I chose 8 CPUs because the processor has 4 cores and 8 threads.
After about 5 minutes, the temperature reached close to 95°C, which seems unusual even with all 8 threads operating at 100%.
I also tried Prime95, and the results were comparable depending on the test type.
The thermal paste tube is over three years old, but it appears intact and the consistency seemed acceptable.
Could anyone else report similar temperatures or confirm if this is typical?
Thank you in advance.
Welcome to the forums, newcomer!
What is the model, make, and SKU of your laptop?
You're running an 8th Gen Intel mobile platform. If you were using Windows, ThrottleStop could have helped reduce the CPU's cache, core, iGPU, and possibly the discrete GPU if available. You might try replicating this on Ubuntu.
The thermal paste tube is more than three years old, but it remains securely sealed and the paste texture appeared normal.
Did you apply isopropyl alcohol to clean both the cooler's surface and the heat sink? Were any adjacent areas, such as thermal pads, affected?
By the way, what were your temperatures before reapplying the thermal paste? Which command line did you use, and what were the room temperature readings?
MX-4 performs poorly when used directly on many laptops, often causing temperatures to rise rapidly. Consider ordering Honeywell PTM 7950 for improved long-term performance. High temperatures during extreme stress tests like Prime95 are typical. The 8550U was built for low power consumption, but the cooling systems in most laptops using these CPUs were insufficient. My daughter's Lenovo laptop had an 8550U with a thin copper sprayed-on layer on its heatsink and a 3-point mounting system that made even contact difficult. Performance can significantly improve with better cooling solutions and higher turbo power settings.
Perfectly stable on my Lenovo laptop with 13700H CPU during stress tests.
It also overheats when playing videos in a VM running Hyper-V. The Lenovo's heatsinking isn't sufficient for full power across all 14 cores and 20 threads.
I limited the CPU usage to 95% and it now runs smoothly under heavy loads.
I don't remember the SKU, but it's an Asus Vivobook X530UFO. I set TLP on Ubuntu to manage Intel CPU P-state as described in the configuration file: "Limit the max/min P-state to control the power dissipation of the CPU." This helped keep Turbo Boost below 3GHz and reduced the maximum temperature to 83ºC, which is acceptable.
I didn't use isopropyl alcohol and this isn't my first time sharing this laptop. I cleaned the heat sink and CPU with a clean cloth, and no damage was noticed.
Since I haven't performed stress tests, I lack reference points for comparison. My main concern was avoiding temperatures above 95°C, and the room temperature is around 20ºC.
I'm considering purchasing PTM 7950 Thermal Pads. By adjusting the turbo power limits, the maximum temperature dropped by about 12ºC (to around 83ºC).