CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video [SOLVED]

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AvatarMaker
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CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video [SOLVED]

Post by AvatarMaker »

Hello. I am running Linux Mint 20.1 Cinnamon on a Thinkpad T430 with an i5-3320M, a 500GB SSD, and 16GB of RAM. At idle, my CPU temperatures are in the low 40's and jump to the high 40's when browsing web pages like this forum. However, when I play a YouTube video, the CPU temperature jumps to the low / mid 50's.
When I try to multitask (use an external monitor to look at another webpage) and play a video, the CPU temperature jumps to the high 50's / low 60's.
Are these normal temperatures for the hardware I'm using? It seems that I'm taxing the CPU a lot. I considered upgrading to an i7-3612QM to help with the multitasking. But I'm worried about the system being all around hotter and at risk of overheating.

Should I be worried with the temperatures of my current CPU (the i5)?

Edit: Here are my machine specs:

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 5.4.0-77-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 
  Desktop: Cinnamon 4.8.6 wm: muffin 4.8.1 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 
  Distro: Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 2349CW5 v: ThinkPad T430 
  serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: LENOVO model: 2349CW5 serial: <filter> UEFI [Legacy]: LENOVO 
  v: G1ETC1WW (2.81 ) date: 06/18/2019 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 30.3 Wh condition: 93.2/93.2 Wh (100%) volts: 10.6/10.8 
  model: LGC 45N1005 type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Discharging 
CPU:
  Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-3320M bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Ivy Bridge rev: 9 L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
  flags: avx lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 20751 
  Speed: 2856 MHz min/max: 1200/3300 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2856 2: 2775 
  3: 2813 4: 2819 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics vendor: Lenovo 
  driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:0166 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
  resolution: 1600x900~60Hz, 1920x1080~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 4000 (IVB GT2) 
  v: 4.2 Mesa 20.2.6 compat-v: 3.0 direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio vendor: Lenovo 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 chip ID: 8086:1e20 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-77-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network vendor: Lenovo driver: e1000e 
  v: 3.2.6-k port: 6080 bus ID: 00:19.0 chip ID: 8086:1502 
  IF: enp0s25 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 [Taylor Peak] driver: iwlwifi 
  v: kernel port: efa0 bus ID: 03:00.0 chip ID: 8086:0085 
  IF: wlp3s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 715.41 GiB used: 91.98 GiB (12.9%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Silicon Power model: SPCC 2.5 SSD size: 476.94 GiB 
  speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: 4A0 scheme: MBR 
  ID-2: /dev/sdb model: INDMEM SSD mSATA 256GB size: 238.47 GiB 
  speed: 3.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: 7A scheme: MBR 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 467.96 GiB used: 45.99 GiB (9.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 51.0 C mobo: 0.0 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 3633 
Repos:
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list 
  1: deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/linrunner-tlp-focal.list 
  1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/linrunner/tlp/ubuntu focal main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/obsproject-obs-studio-focal.list 
  1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/obsproject/obs-studio/ubuntu focal main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
  1: deb http://mirrors.evowise.com/linuxmint/packages ulyssa main upstream import backport
  2: deb http://la-mirrors.evowise.com/ubuntu focal main restricted universe multiverse
  3: deb http://la-mirrors.evowise.com/ubuntu focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
  4: deb http://la-mirrors.evowise.com/ubuntu focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
  5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
  6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/signal-xenial.list 
  1: deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/signal-desktop-keyring.gpg] https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt xenial main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/skype-stable.list 
  1: deb [arch=amd64] https://repo.skype.com/deb stable main
Info:
  Processes: 229 Uptime: 2h 25m Memory: 15.33 GiB used: 2.45 GiB (16.0%) 
  Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 alt: 9 Shell: bash 
  v: 5.0.17 running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.0.38
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 5 times in total.
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newlyminted7
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by newlyminted7 »

What browser are you using?

Also, can you please post your machine's detailed specs? It will allow people to help you better.
Type this into a Terminal:
inxi -Fxxxrz
And post the output here within "code" tags, like this: [code]post your info here[/code]

And you might consider using https://yewtu.be/ instead of youtube directly - as it is a proxy. Basically, just replace youtube.com with yewtu.be in any YouTube URLs, as it bypasses a lot of their unfriendly Javascript and CSS, among other things. It might reduce the load on your browser. You might also consider using the uBlock Origin extension in your browser (https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock).
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by AvatarMaker »

newlyminted7 wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 3:29 pm What browser are you using?

Also, can you please post your machine's detailed specs? It will allow people to help you better.
Type this into a Terminal:
inxi -Fxxxrz
And post the output here within "code" tags, like this: [code]post your info here[/code]

And you might consider using https://yewtu.be/ instead of youtube directly - as it is a proxy. Basically, just replace youtube.com with yewtu.be in any YouTube URLs, as it bypasses a lot of their unfriendly Javascript and CSS, among other things. It might reduce the load on your browser. You might also consider using the uBlock Origin extension in your browser (https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock).
Thanks for replying!
I am using Firefox as my browser.

I've added my machine specs to my original post. Thank you.
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by spamegg »

If it's idling at 40s, then the other temperatures seem reasonable. Using an external monitor can add up to 10 degrees (I used to have dual monitors). Moreover it's weak integrated graphics on the CPU, which is inside a tiny laptop case with poor cooling. Then add multitasking on top of that... Also it's the heat of July right now, and we don't know where you live, so that can be a factor too. I live in a hot and humid climate, and in a very large, well ventilated PC case with lots of airflow and a very good cooler I'm idling at around 32 degrees C.

I would look into trying to reduce that idling temperature first. Maybe increase fan speeds (in the BIOS?) or replace thermal paste?
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by AvatarMaker »

spamegg wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 3:52 pm If it's idling at 40s, then the other temperatures seem reasonable. Using an external monitor can add up to 10 degrees (I used to have dual monitors). Moreover it's weak integrated graphics on the CPU, which is inside a tiny laptop case with poor cooling. Then add multitasking on top of that... Also it's the heat of July right now, and we don't know where you live, so that can be a factor too. I live in a hot and humid climate, and in a very large, well ventilated PC case with lots of airflow and a very good cooler I'm idling at around 32 degrees C.

I would look into trying to reduce that idling temperature first. Maybe increase fan speeds (in the BIOS?) or replace thermal paste?
I actually reapplied thermal paste a few hours earlier (about half the size of a grain of rice). I can't seem to find where to configure the fan speeds in the BIOS.

Now that I think about it, I'm using a third party fan + heatsink. Maybe that could be part of the problem?
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by spamegg »

AvatarMaker wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 4:29 pm Now that I think about it, I'm using a third party fan + heatsink. Maybe that could be part of the problem?
It's definitely possible, maybe it doesn't have good thermal contact or the size is not appropriate... I don't know.
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by ThaCrip »

In short... I would not worry about it personally, especially given your on a laptop which typically runs hotter than desktops and not only that you reapplied the CPU thermal paste and I assume the fan it still working and getting decent airflow over the CPU. those temps don't sound anywhere near 'bad'. sure, they might not be 'perfect' but then again with a laptop in general I would expect to see noticeably higher temps than you would on a typical desktop.

Longer answer, which should give you a ball park estimate for temps...

I got a i5-3550 CPU (which I am running undervolted by -0.130v(which lowers CPU temp)) on my main PC with my room temp roughly 75-80f (maybe into the low 80's a bit) and here is some stats for me...

-Idle = 35-40c (I noticed this is probably closer to 35c when I got nothing running on Mint. but since I generally leave the Firefox web browser open for days/weeks etc, I noticed that there is always usually a mild load on the CPU cores, call it roughly around 10%, at which point the CPU 'idle' is closer to 40c (maybe a touch under). although when it's colder outside, like in winter, my room temp would be probably 66-68f or so at which point my CPU idle will decline further).
-Prime95 (AVX on (which is default Prime95 mode and generates maximum heat which is a 'worse-case-scenario')) = 75c, but generally 71-73c. room temp would have been about 75-80f.
-Prime95 (AVX off (which is more of a real world 100% CPU load test)) = 70c peak, but generally 67-69c. room temp would have been about 75-80f.

NOTE: my i5-3550 CPU is using my i3-2120 stock heatsink/fan combo which is not even the proper heatsink for it because the official i5 heatsinks have a copper contact that touches the CPU and goes into the usual aluminum heatsink. the i3-2120 stock heatsink/fan combo on the other hand is ALL aluminum, so cooling will probably be a bit worse I suspect. but... I undervolted the i5-3550 CPU by -0.130v which lowered my peak temps by about 13c at full load (so from the Prime95 info above you would have to add about 13c to those temps if I was running CPU at default voltage) which, while the stats I posted above are not 'optimal' they are probably still safe enough in general simply because I noticed, even on heavier tasks I do, that the CPU temps don't seem to go more than low 60's TOPS and are often in the 30's or 40's, maybe into the 50's occasionally, as to generally get into the 60c range (give or take) I got to be playing some video games which is probably the most demanding task I run in general even though if I do some lossy audio encoding (like FLAC to MP3/AAC etc) with Foobar2000 that can ramp up CPU temps to but since this does not really run for any length of time, even when temps come up a bit, it's not for all that long. but I imagine if someone encodes video that will tax the CPU pretty hard (not Prime95 level hard, but close enough ;) ).

NOTE: those Prime95 tests were each run for 20 minutes(that Prime95 temp data was back from June 2020), which seems to be enough for CPU to peak and level off. so just knowing this, the tasks I do, even the more demanding tasks, are typically not going to have my CPU at 100% load for any length of time as even gaming, when as I was saying my temps might be as high as low 60's, the CPU load is not 100%, but it's definitely on the higher side of things.

NOTE: -0.130v is the most I can lower my i5-3550 CPU and for it to remain stable as any lower, like to -0.140v, while boots up etc, it does not last for all that long before the system will hardlock after maybe a day or two of uptime at the most off the top of my head. I can even go to -0.150v, which is basically THE max I can go and have system boot up as when I tried -0.160v the system had trouble booting/making it past BIOS screen. but at -0.130v, which is what I am currently using, I have reached 30-60 days of uptime or so without issue on Mint and it would have went longer had I not manually rebooted to apply updates. in fact, my record uptime is 68 days and 15 hrs. but I usually get 30-45days or so before some update comes along to where ill need to reboot, like a NVIDIA GPU driver update. because I noticed after a NVIDIA GPU driver update, while I can continue using the system, it seems to temporarily disable GPU accelerated x264 video playback (like when playing 720p/1080p x264 video etc through Celluloid+MPV (or SMPlayer etc)) until I reboot for the new driver to take effect and then GPU assisted x264 video playback is fine again and stays that way until I install a new NVIDIA driver update in the future.


but good news with unvervolting your CPU (although my guess is the OP can't adjust these things on a laptop) is that it's totally safe as the worst that will happen is your system will get unstable and hard lock, not from any damage to the computer, but simply because the motherboard is not supplying sufficient voltage to the CPU for it to run stable. but then you just power it off and back on and tweak voltage a bit higher until things stable out.

so while I don't think there is really any hardline data on what temps are bad for a CPU, I would think if your no more than around 60c in general, I personally would not worry about it at all, especially given under most typical use situations it won't see 60c or so anyways. even if it does, it's probably briefly, which I can't see doing much harm in the long term to the CPU. because, like I was saying, I would expect the laptop to die of random failure than from CPU death from heat alone.

looking up your i5-3320M CPU specs on Intel's website... it seems 105c is the max it can take as I suspect if it reaches this it will thermal throttle (i.e. CPU speed will slow down) to lower temps. even on my i5-3550 according to Linux's 'watch sensors' command it shows 85c for 'high' and 105c for 'critical'. so assuming this is a good ball park figure, I would not worry too much about running a CPU into the 60's. but beyond this it 'might' be pushing it a bit.

or another way to look at it... my guess is your laptop will randomly die before the CPU itself dies from heat issues. especially assuming you keep the airflow half way decent on it and it does not get packed full of dust.

bottom line... for me personally I would not even really be concerned 'at all' until 'at least' low-60's range and even that I am not all that worried, especially if it's not routinely in that temp range. although, speaking personally (since I don't think there is really any hard data on this stuff), I would rather avoid 70c+, especially if one is reaching that level of temp for any length of time. but this is on my DESKTOP setup, with a laptop I suspect even 70-80c probably ain't the end of the world, especially if it's not routinely in that temp range on your kind of CPU.

p.s. but between i5 vs i7, I would not really expect to see much temp differences. but going from a i5(quad core) back to a i3(dual core) you could expect to see a decent temp decline as was the case for me when I was running a i3-2120 as you could obviously see that runs noticeably cooler than my i5-3550 does when running at a higher load. like off the top of my head, when I was running that i3-2120 CPU with Prime95 topped out, I think the peak temps were low 60's(maybe mid-60's MAX) and that was with NO undervolting either as that was at stock CPU voltage my motherboard gives it. if I undervolted it, like I am with my i5-3550 CPU currently, it would likely shave off probably at least 5-10c from peak temps, maybe more.

side note: the OP can run Prime95 on Linux Mint through command line. but I would be careful to watch temps since they will go quite a bit higher than you see under typical usage/loads. here is Prime95 (64bit version), which will work on Linux Mint... http://www.mersenne.org/ftp_root/gimps/ ... x64.tar.gz ; that's a bit newer than mine as I used "p95v298b6.linux64.tar.gz". basically just extract that file to say 'Prime95' folder, right click the 'Prime95' folder and select 'Open in Terminal', then run "./mprime" (without the ") and press enter than you can type in '15' and press enter, since we want to select the 'Torture Test' and then 'number of threads' should be '4' (since I assume you got a 4 core CPU) and then 'Choose a type of Torture test to run' you can select '1' or '2' or '3' or '4'. since we are primarily concerned with CPU temps here Option 1 or 2 is what we want. if your going for more of a worst case scenario use Option '2'. then on next thing it shows in terminal should be 'customize settings' which I just answer 'n' (which means 'no'), then on next thing shown in terminal should be 'run a weaker torture test (not recommended)' as you either answer 'n'(no) or 'y'(yes) as this determines whether Prime95 uses AVX ON or OFF. if it's ON it will generate more heat on CPU, but 'off' represents more of a real world CPU load at 100% and CPU will run a bit cooler here (but still plenty of heat as you can see on my own test). then finally it will say 'Accept the answers above?' and when you press 'y' and then press ENTER, Prime95 will start it's 'Torture Test' of your CPU and you will immediately see a rise in temps when you monitor it through 'watch sensors' and then it will slowly peak after some time passes (I would say by 20 minutes it will have probably peaked).

NOTE: you should be able to monitor CPU temps on Mint by opening another terminal window and do 'watch sensors' (without the ') and press enter. NOTE: to stop Prime95 or 'watch sensors' you just press CTRL+C and it will instantly stop. so if your running Prime95 and temps are getting too high for you to be comfortable with, just select that terminal window and then press CTRL+C and the Prime95 test will instantly stop and your temps will decline rapidly since there is no more load from Prime95. NOTE: I am not suggesting you use Prime95, but it's a good way to test CPU stability. I would say by about 20min the CPU temp will max out on Prime95.

p.s. on a side note in regards to Prime95... on my old PC (ASUS A8N32-SLI), it's CPU (AMD Athlon X2 3600+) does not even support AVX CPU instructions so you just run Prime95 with defaults basically. but on there my CPU temp, since it's dual core, seems to peak at 62c @ 2.4GHz @ 1.3375v to CPU. Prime95 peaks at 56c when running CPU at it's stock speed of 2.0Ghz and I undervolt CPU to 1.3v. the board seems to default to 1.4v which might be a little high since that CPU is officially rated for 1.35v
Last edited by ThaCrip on Tue Jul 13, 2021 4:11 am, edited 2 times in total.
MainPC: i5-3550 (undervolted by -0.120v (CPU runs 12c cooler) /w stock i3-2120 hs/fan) | 1050 Ti 4GB | 16GB (2x 8GB) DDR3 1600Mhz RAM | Backups: AMD E-300 CPU (8GB RAM) / Athlon X2 3600+ CPU (@2.3GHz@1.35v) (4GB RAM) | All /w Mint 21.x-Xfce
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by Termy »

Sounds fine to me — good enough temperature ranges for a laptop. Ambient temperature will play a role, though. Is it really hot over there? If it gets warmer, the laptop will see higher temperatures. If it's quite an old laptop, you could try blasting the laptop with some compressed air, but I wouldn't do that yourself, unless you're tech-savvy.
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by Petermint »

SSDs and other silicon switch into slow down at 70C or 80C. You want something lower to allow a margin for peak fluctuations. My approach would be to check fans are rotating then check there is no dust in the fans. A drivers up to date? For a desktop, a fan upgrade.

Javascript is a resource hog as mentioned in an earlier post. I use Noscript to reduce CPU waste.

What resolution video do you watch? You could experiment if the CPU temp is over 60.

CPU upgrades rarely help. Adding extra cores just adds background power usage. For a real saving, you have to jump to better technology, say from gen 10 to gen 11, and that means a new motherboard.

Run System Monitor and look for other active processes. You may be able to shut stuff down for big videos. Also test your next big video from a clean boot to see if that runs with less processes.
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by Termy »

Petermint wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:38 am SSDs and other silicon switch into slow down at 70C or 80C.
That's quite an extreme temperature for a storage device, at least for regular computer users. Anecdotally speaking, in around 20 years of computing, I can't recall ever having a storage device even reach 60C; if it did happen, it was probably back in those terrible old cases with IDE drives. I haven't used laptops extensively like I have towers/desktops though, so maybe it's more common in laptops than I realise. Maybe if the CPU fan died, but I'm sure the CPU would overheat and therefore the system power off long before any storage devices reach 70-80C.

For perspective, those are temperatures I'd expect from a high-powered graphics card.
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by Moonstone Man »

Termy wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 6:20 am
Petermint wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:38 am SSDs and other silicon switch into slow down at 70C or 80C.
That's quite an extreme temperature for a storage device...
Actually, some are specced at 85°C, and they do get quite hot, not just in laptops so they include throttling technology. All my NVMe drives have their own coolers.

https://www.amazon.com.au/NVMe-Cooler-H ... B07DGK8PWR
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by ThaCrip »

Petermint wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:38 am SSDs and other silicon switch into slow down at 70C or 80C.
While I am not sure on laptops (and I am not sure on SSD's I never looked into it), I am pretty sure my desktop CPU (i5-3550) does not throttle at all at those temps as I have reached well over 80c before when testing with Prime95 (but as I mentioned already, I basically undervolted CPU to reduce temps in my case (although a better heatsink/fan would help to but I wanted to take the cheapest way out)).

so on my CPU I am pretty sure there is no thermal throttling (what you call 'slow down') until probably somewhere up the upper 90's (see "p.s." section below). but I think the CPU would throttle (to lower temps) or the system would just outright shut down when it hits 105c, but I never reached that high before and would not want to as the highest my i5-3550 CPU hit (at stock voltage(with a stock i3-2120 heatsink/fan(which I know is not the proper one since it lacks copper core))) when I was testing with Prime95 was about 95c and reached 93c after 10min of Prime95. but like I say I have lowered temps since then (it generally won't see more than low 60's now (and often would be 50's or lower which should be pretty safe) with my usage patterns) since it seems pretty safe to say those kind of temps are bad for the CPU (like it would probably not last all that long (maybe a few years or so to take a wild guess(?)) if I was in the ball park of those temps on a regular basis) since they are not far from it's MAX of 105c.

even running games on my CPU, as I was testing some earlier (roughly a hour or two ago) on Wine/Lutris combo, temps seem to be generally in the 55-60c range (I suspect low 60's max).

p.s I took a quick look online and for a i5-2600k, which is older than mine but probably similar enough, the person claimed it did not throttle(slow down) until it hit 98c... https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/90 ... t-32101351
Petermint wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:38 amFor a real saving, you have to jump to better technology, say from gen 10 to gen 11, and that means a new motherboard.
That would be largely pointless to go from 10th gen to 11th gen CPU, simply because there is not enough of a performance/wattage difference to justify the upgrade costs.

hell, I am still on 3rd gen i5 (i5-3550) and it's still plenty fast enough for me even though I realize I would get a decent performance increase with more of recent gen CPU's (especially if someone does stuff that really take advantage of more CPU cores). but in my case, it would be wise to hold onto my current setup as long as I can as this way when I upgrade (say some odd years from now), the upgrade will be more profound for not all that much money.
MainPC: i5-3550 (undervolted by -0.120v (CPU runs 12c cooler) /w stock i3-2120 hs/fan) | 1050 Ti 4GB | 16GB (2x 8GB) DDR3 1600Mhz RAM | Backups: AMD E-300 CPU (8GB RAM) / Athlon X2 3600+ CPU (@2.3GHz@1.35v) (4GB RAM) | All /w Mint 21.x-Xfce
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by AndyMH »

At idle, my CPU temperatures are in the low 40's and jump to the high 40's when browsing web pages like this forum. However, when I play a YouTube video, the CPU temperature jumps to the low / mid 50's.
Completely normal for a T430 with a stock i5 in it. If you want it hotter, then fit an i7-3232QM. Mine idle around 50C and if you want it really hot, then decode a DVD with handbrake, that will get it up into the 90's.

Make sure the fan is free from dust. If you want to do more, install thinkfan (it only makes 2-3C difference for me, not really worth it) or install undervolt (yet to try).
Thinkcentre M720Q - LM21.3 cinnamon, 4 x T430 - LM21.3 cinnamon, Homebrew desktop i5-8400+GTX1080 Cinnamon 19.0
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by AvatarMaker »

ThaCrip wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 3:06 am but good news with unvervolting your CPU (although my guess is the OP can't adjust these things on a laptop) is that it's totally safe as the worst that will happen is your system will get unstable and hard lock, not from any damage to the computer, but simply because the motherboard is not supplying sufficient voltage to the CPU for it to run stable. but then you just power it off and back on and tweak voltage a bit higher until things stable out.
Thanks for the reply!
How were you able to undervolt your CPU?
So it sounds like Prime95 tests how much processing your CPU can do before it overheats?
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by AvatarMaker »

Termy wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 3:58 am Sounds fine to me — good enough temperature ranges for a laptop. Ambient temperature will play a role, though. Is it really hot over there? If it gets warmer, the laptop will see higher temperatures. If it's quite an old laptop, you could try blasting the laptop with some compressed air, but I wouldn't do that yourself, unless you're tech-savvy.
Thanks for the reply!
Yeah, it is hot where I'm at. I definitely notice the laptop getting warmer in response to higher temperatures.
I've also blasted it with compressed air: I learned that you need to hold the heatsink fan in place when you blow air through it, but I had to learn that the hard way.
Last edited by AvatarMaker on Wed Jul 14, 2021 3:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by AvatarMaker »

AndyMH wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 9:25 am Make sure the fan is free from dust. If you want to do more, install thinkfan (it only makes 2-3C difference for me, not really worth it) or install undervolt (yet to try).
Thanks for the reply!
I'm glad that the temperatures are normal.
I'll look into those two packages.
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by AndyMH »

As I said, thinkfan didn't do a lot for me at idle, might be better under a heavier load - not tested.

You will get a fair number of hits on thinkfan on the web, this is the one I followed:
https://www.lxle.net/forums/discussion/ ... ad-t430/p1

You can install it from software manager. It will create a file, /etc/thinkfan.conf, this is what I modified mine to for an i7-3632QM:

Code: Select all

#Andy's thinkfan conf for a T430
#test with sudo thinkfan -n
#based on http://www.lxle.net/forums/discussion/821/how-to-set-up-thinkfan-on-a-lenovo-thinkpad-t430/p1
#default, auto performance, stress test is 
# Temperature	Fan	    Condition
# 50	        2465	idle
# 56	        3630	chromium bbc radio 4
# 57	        3799	two youtube vids in chromium
# 62	        3830	
# 81	        4038	one instance of stress test
# 88	        4042	two instances of stress test

#fan speeds determined from
# sudo su
# echo "level x" > /proc/acpi/ibm/fan
# where x is 0 to 7
# echo "level auto" > /proc/acpi/ibm/fan to set back to auto
# Level	        Fan	    Temp
# full-speed	5437	47
#          7	5084	49
#          6	5068	47
#          5	4421	47
#          4	4032	48 barely noticeable
#          3	3819	48 can't really hear fan
#          2	3611	47
#          1	2475	49
#          0	0	    52
#
#          auto	2786	50 

#sensors - determined from find /sys/devices -type f -name "temp*_input"
#four cores on a i7-3632
#virtual included because in the link above
#label determined from /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon4/device/hwmon/hwmon4/tempXX_label 
# temp1 = Package id 0
# temp2 = Core 0
# temp3 = Core 1
# temp4 = Core 2
# temp5 = Core 3
hwmon /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone0/hwmon1/temp1_input
hwmon /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon4/temp3_input
hwmon /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon4/temp4_input
hwmon /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon4/temp1_input
hwmon /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon4/temp5_input
hwmon /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon4/temp2_input

#  Syntax:
#  (LEVEL, LOW, HIGH)
#  LEVEL is the fan level to use (0-7 with thinkpad_acpi)
#  LOW is the temperature at which to step down to the previous level
#  HIGH is the temperature at which to step up to the next level
#  All numbers are integers.
#at idle 50C needs to be >2800, = 2
(0,	0,	40)
(1,	39,	45)
(2,	44,	50)
(3,	49,	55)
(4,	54,	60)
(5,	59,	65)
(7,	64,	32767)
#(full-speed,67,32767) didn't like this
Other general resources for the T430:
https://medium.com/@n4ru/the-definitive ... ff3f6a8e2e
Hardware maintenance manual - tells you how to replace everything:
https://thinkpads.com/support/hmm/hmm_p ... 304_03.pdf
and join the thinkpad forum, not as active as the LM forum:
https://forum.thinkpads.com/
Thinkcentre M720Q - LM21.3 cinnamon, 4 x T430 - LM21.3 cinnamon, Homebrew desktop i5-8400+GTX1080 Cinnamon 19.0
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by Peter Linu »

ATTENTION: thacrip,
Your replies are interesting. They however seem to work only on a Windows OS. Furthermore only in the terminal. Is this correct or did I miss something? I am looking for an undervolt program that actually can permanently lower the temperature. I assume that you run Mint and hopefully Cinnamon so what do you use?
Cinnamon 21.3 Thinkcentre M920Q + 2 Thinkpad T440p (modded) + Lenovo Y50-70 (all have VBs) + 3 PC NAS drives w XFCE21.2 + Win7 Starter-32bit on ASUS Atom (2011) [and a few others]
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by ThaCrip »

AvatarMaker wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 3:30 pm How were you able to undervolt your CPU?
Through the BIOS, which unless someone has a decent motherboard brand, they probably can't tweak voltages. so if you got your more typical mainstream computer like Dell/HP etc, it's unlikely you can do what I can on my board to my knowledge since they tend to be striped of any fancy features.

I got two ASUS motherboards...

-ASUS P8H61-M LX Plus. which I had since May 2012 and is my main PC and this board is nothing fancy either (I can't overclock the CPU with this board, but I can tweak CPU voltages etc).

-ASUS A8N32-SLI. which I got in March 2006 and used to be my main PC (in fact, I replaced some swollen capacitors on this last month) as this was a high end board in it's day (basically in the 2005/2006 time frame) as one can overclock CPU etc with this unlike my current main PC's.

both are running newest BIOS's (in fact, it's real easy to switch BIOS's (I can flash to any version I want, upgrades or downgrades) on the A8N32-SLI board. basically file has to be named properly on CD and then powering on PC I press ALT+F2 and the rest is pretty straight forward. then I heard for good measure after this complete to clear the BIOS's CMOS settings with jumper on the motherboard to help ensure everything is as good as it can be and then configure BIOS settings to ones likin). but the newest BIOS for my old computer is from early 2007, and my main PC is from the year 2014 I think.

p.s. I never actually used undervolting on that P8H61-M LX Plus board until I got a hold of the i5-3550 CPU used last year for only $20 as that was a solid upgrade for only $20 as it went from two cores to four cores and is one generation newer chip so it's more power efficient to and a bit faster in GHz.
AvatarMaker wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 3:30 pmSo it sounds like Prime95 tests how much processing your CPU can do before it overheats?
If ones CPU is cooled properly, you could leave Prime95 running for days or weeks if one wants to (although it would probably be pointless and just waste electricity. I have heard of people running it for 24 hour test runs though) and have no problems (it even reports stuff on screen to show you if any of it's calculations had errors or not(when i tried overclocking to 2.5Ghz on my old A8N32-SLI board it did throw a error on Prime95, but at 2.4GHz it's fine)).

but generally speaking... after 20 minutes it should give you a pretty good indication of your peak temps since temps either peak by that time frame or pretty close to it and 20minutes is not much of ones time.

basically Prime95 hammers ones CPU harder than just about any other task will as if Prime95 is good, you can be pretty sure your CPU is stable and won't overheat doing other random tasks. but like I say, if you run this, keep a eye on CPU temps through 'watch sensors' command through terminal as you can simply press CTRL+C on the terminal window running Prime95 to immediately stop Prime95 and CPU temps will immediately start to decline back to normal levels. so while Prime95 is not actually 'bad' for the CPU if it's cooled properly, if your cooling is so-so, it could potentially be harmful. but the way I see it, if your computer got damaged from Prime95, it almost surely was close to dying straight up, since any hardware that's in good running order should be able to handle it.
Peter Linu wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 11:27 pm ATTENTION: thacrip,
Your replies are interesting. They however seem to work only on a Windows OS. Furthermore only in the terminal. Is this correct or did I miss something? I am looking for an undervolt program that actually can permanently lower the temperature. I assume that you run Mint and hopefully Cinnamon so what do you use?
Undervolting is done in the BIOS itself (although there may be Windows programs that can tweak it as if I recall correctly I might have used one through Windows itself on my old ASUS A8N32-SLI board but I don't bother nowadays and just do it through the BIOS itself. but I can't run anything newer than Windows 7 on that A8N32-SLI board as Win10 64bit complains about lack of 'nx-bit' (32bit Win10 installs, but it's unstable), but Linux Mint v20, which is 64bit, runs fine.).

but... like I mentioned to AvatarMaker, I have a ASUS motherboard which the common desktop computer user is unlikely to have any fancy options in their BIOS like this to adjust, especially given if one OVERvolts the CPU, which I can potentially do (as there are "-" and "+" symbols in relation to CPU voltage adjustment on my main PC), it could potentially damage the CPU if you go too far. but undervolting is totally safe as the worst that can happen is the system will become unstable and freeze up due to not enough power going to the CPU, but it does lower CPU temps "if" you can adjust these things.

like on my main PC (which could vary a bit from CPU to CPU etc).... I lowered max temps by about 13c from lowering CPU voltage by -0.130v (basically I got about 1c less in temp for every -0.010v drop in voltage to CPU). on my backup computer, with recent testing, I can do 2.0Ghz @ 1.300v (the lowest I can use for system to work) and 2.4Ghz @ 1.3375v, which while 1.300v will still work here, rebooting the PC does not work as it will try to reboot and then hang, but once I raised voltage to 1.3375v (which is the lowest I can go and rebooting will work), rebooting works as expected. on my backup computer it seems to default to 1.4v to the CPU(I think), which is a bit high as the CPU in that computer (AMD Athlon X2 3600+ 2.0Ghz(stock speed)) is officially rated at 1.35v. it's probably not a huge deal but would add further heat to it when under load. but just on my 2.0GHz @ 1.300v test it peaked at 56c, then at 2.4GHz @ 1.3375v it peaked at 62c. so a 6c increase in temps but I got a additional 400MHz out of the CPU so I think the small increase in temp is worth it especially given CPU voltage is still below what it's officially rated for as I noticed trying to go much over 2.4GHz, like when trying 2.5Ghz, things become unstable and I may be able to increase CPU voltage to fix it, but at that point the CPU temps I am sure would start to go up quite a bit to where it would not be worth it given the increase in temps for little performance gain over what I can easily do at 2.4GHz. 2.4GHz should be pretty safe on this 2.0GHz CPU.

but I do think it's less power efficient that way (with the 2.4GHz overclock) because normally one can ENABLE the AMD quiet-and-cool feature which makes things more efficient but when overclocking I can't use that feature as it disables overclocking on it. in fact, Linux Mint gives me a message upon boot up complaining about it, but given what I read online, I can pretty much ignore it as it won't interfere with system stability etc

basically the error is pretty much this on my old ASUS A8N32-SLI computer when overclocking as I could probably get this error to go away if I disabled overclocking and enabled that Cool-n-Quiet feature which my board does have...

powernow_k8: [Firmware Bug]: No Compatible ACPI _PSS objects found
[Firmware Bug]: First,make sure Cool'N'Quiet is enabled in the Bios
[Firmware Bug]: If that doesn't help, try upgrading your Bios

but ill sacrifice a bit less power efficiency for a bit better performance ;)

============================================

EDIT: like Termy said (below this post), that's also true. but I can clear my boards CMOS with a jumper on the board so I am not worried as both of my ASUS boards (my main PC and my old one I had since 2006) have a jumper which I simply remove, slide over to a different prong, wait maybe 30 seconds, then switch it back and turn on computer and BIOS is reset to defaults.
Last edited by ThaCrip on Thu Jul 15, 2021 10:35 am, edited 2 times in total.
MainPC: i5-3550 (undervolted by -0.120v (CPU runs 12c cooler) /w stock i3-2120 hs/fan) | 1050 Ti 4GB | 16GB (2x 8GB) DDR3 1600Mhz RAM | Backups: AMD E-300 CPU (8GB RAM) / Athlon X2 3600+ CPU (@2.3GHz@1.35v) (4GB RAM) | All /w Mint 21.x-Xfce
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Re: CPU Temperature While Playing YouTube Video

Post by Termy »

Peter Linu wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 11:27 pm I am looking for an undervolt program that actually can permanently lower the temperature.
WARNING: Incorrectly configuring a CPU at the BIOS/UEFI level can lead to an unbootable system, potentially even requiring that the BIOS/UEFI be reset, likely by momentarily removing the CMOS Lithium-Ion battery.

Many BIOS/UEFI allow you to adjust the voltage and various other aspects of the CPU. Rather than simply providing inadequate amounts of voltage to the CPU, potentially leading to system instability, you could lower the frequency of the CPU, as well as the voltage. If your CPU has plenty of cores, you might want to consider disabling one or more cores. Another thing which can help is to disable any Turbo-like feature of your CPU.
I'm also Terminalforlife on GitHub.
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