Before an overheating component reaches this point, it may be "throttled" until temperatures fall below a safe point using dynamic frequency scaling technology. A computer with thermal sensors integrated in the CPU, motherboard, chipset, or GPU can shut itself down when high temperatures are detected to prevent permanent damage, although this may not completely guarantee long-term safe operation. This can be improved by the use of thermal compounds to even out surface imperfections, or even by lapping.īecause high temperatures can significantly reduce life span or cause permanent damage to components, and the heat output of components can sometimes exceed the computer's cooling capacity, manufacturers often take additional precautions to ensure that temperatures remain within safe limits. Poor heat transfer due to poor thermal contact between components to be cooled and cooling devices.In some cases of equipment with bad thermal design, cooling air can easily flow out through "cooling" holes before passing over hot components cooling in such cases can often be improved by blocking of selected holes. Poor airflow including turbulence due to friction against impeding components such as ribbon cables, or incorrect orientation of fans, can reduce the amount of air flowing through a case and even create localized whirlpools of hot air in the case.Dust acting as a thermal insulator and impeding airflow, thereby reducing heatsink and fan performance.For semiconductors, instantaneous junction temperature, rather than component case, heatsink, or ambient temperature is critical. For reliable operation, the temperature must never exceed a specified maximum permissible value unique to each component. In operation, the temperature of a computer's components will rise until the heat transferred to the surroundings is equal to the heat produced by the component, that is, when thermal equilibrium is reached. The dust buildup on this laptop CPU heatsink after three years of use has made the laptop unusable due to frequent thermal shutdowns. Heat generation can be reduced by efficient design and selection of operating parameters such as voltage and frequency, but ultimately, acceptable performance can often only be achieved by managing significant heat generation. CPU and GPU) are the main generators of heat in modern computers. Components commonly individually cooled include the CPU, graphics processing unit (GPU) and the northbridge. This is generally known as Thermal Throttling in the case of reduction of clock speeds, or Thermal Shutdown in the case of a complete shutdown of the device or system.Ĭooling may be designed to reduce the ambient temperature within the case of a computer, such as by exhausting hot air, or to cool a single component or small area (spot cooling). All modern day processors are designed to cut out or reduce their voltage or clock speed if the internal temperature of the processor exceeds a specified limit. There are also other cooling techniques, such as liquid cooling. Computer fans are widely used along with heatsink fans to reduce temperature by actively exhausting hot air. Attention to patterns of airflow can prevent the development of hotspots. Use of heatsinks cooled by airflow reduces the temperature rise produced by a given amount of heat. Components that are susceptible to temporary malfunction or permanent failure if overheated include integrated circuits such as central processing units (CPUs), chipsets, graphics cards, and hard disk drives.Ĭomponents are often designed to generate as little heat as possible, and computers and operating systems may be designed to reduce power consumption and consequent heating according to workload, but more heat may still be produced than can be removed without attention to cooling. Vertical aluminium profiles are used as heatsinks.Ĭomputer cooling is required to remove the waste heat produced by computer components, to keep components within permissible operating temperature limits. The process of removing waste heat from a computerĪ finned air cooled heatsink with fan clipped onto a CPU, with a smaller passive heatsink without fan in the background A 3-fan heatsink mounted on a video card to maximize cooling efficiency of the GPU and surrounding components Commodore 128DCR computer's switch-mode power supply, with a user-installed 60 mm cooling fan.
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