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Case of the overheating i7 processor

2014-04-28 18.41.46

 

I was young and foolish. I happened upon a good deal on an i7 laptop, and I went straight for it. Don’t believe me? Witness that slightly wonky (really, Dell?) sticker on my laptop.

At the time of buying, i7 was pretty much the best processor you could buy. A good system was had, but I kept noticing the laptop constantly sighing and feeling sluggishly warm. While it never overheated and turned off on me, it did always seem more on the hotter side. Thanks to Cooler Master, I had a few products I could use and keep the temperature regulated. In fact, you can probably read up their reviews and their performance easily.

Anyway, lately, I thought, I could get a bit more oomph out of this. It is an i7, but doesn’t seem any faster than most computers. Mind you, I generally use it for browsing, emails, and very occasionally for programming, CAD work, PCB design, though that tends to mostly happen on my work computer.

So I go in the power settings, check processor performance and raise it up to 100% regardless. It was 100% when plugged in, but less on battery. I wanted performance, even if the battery lasts less, I thought, so I went for the whole hog.

So, does that make my laptop faster? No. In fact, I started to notice it being a bit more sluggish, feeling hot (and not warm), and then the occasional ‘I am too hot, I am turning off’ when using it on my lap or similar.

I looked it, and checked my vents. Put extra feet on my laptop to raise it up a bit, to let the airflow be better. Nothing really helped. I was disappointed.

Today, after a bit of reading, I found some link to performance power getting your laptop too hot. Sad as it is, lowering it to 95% has made a massive difference, even in the last half hour or so. I will be keeping an eye out, and will update this if it actually gets any better, but it is sad how the i7 gets just so hot.

I am aware that this is probably old news, and most people already have sorted this one way or the other, and the Haswell processor from Intel is supposed to run cooler, but I thought I’d put it there.

And, how to reduce (or increase, or check) the Maximum Processor Power?Screenshot 2014-04-28 18.53.05

 

Right click on your battery icon in the task bar, and go to your Power Options. In there, click on Change Power Settings, and then click on ‘Change Plan Settings’, followed by ‘Change Advanced Power Settings’.

Screenshot 2014-04-28 18.54.01

As you can see, I have gone extra careful, and I will be playing with these settings as time goes on, but I don’t mind if it works okay in this setting.

Hope this helps!

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