Replacing cpu

[Tim]

On Sat, 2015-06-27 at 13:21 -0600, jd1008 wrote:
> I noticed that during the installation of fc20, the air coming
> out of the exhaust vent was almost scalding if I kept my finger there
> for about a minute or so. By scalding, I mean if I had touched
> a metal surface of that temperature for say 30 seconds, I would
> have felt some pain.
>  
> Also, I noticed that the cooling fan remained at normal operating
> speed, instead of spinning faster, as I usually hear it spin fast for
> about a few seconds when I power it on.
>  
> So, I am not sure whether the problem is the fan or the cpu.

I can't say that I've ever felt air come out of a system that was too
hot to keep my fingers in.  So I think there is something to be
concerned about.

Rarely has my laptop ever revved up to full blast, and even then it was
just toasty on the fingers.  There was a nasty hot plastic smell,
though, if it went full pelt (there were about five fan speeds; ranging
from near silent, quiet whirr with barely warm air, mildly noisy with
comfortably warm air, that might be expected during normal use, then one
or two more hotter ones that I rarely ever experienced).

Installs very rarely went full blast, you might get a few seconds of
highly intensive computations, while dependencies were worked, but it
would drop down again shortly.  Web browsing could cause problems much
more often, with pages that had Flash video going bonkers, or bad
scripting.  The fan would go full blast as the CPU heated up.  Again,
never got to the point where it might cause me any skin damage from the
hot air.

Computers have a couple of ways of not overheating, that may be used in
conjunction; such as slowing the CPU down so it generates less heat, or
speeding up the fan to dissipate more.  This may be automatic, there may
be preferences as to what you'd prefer (such as staying quieter as a
preference, so it slows the CPU down first, then ramps up the fan speed,
rather than speed up the fan, then slow down the CPU).  You could look
in the BIOS for cool and quite options, to see if you can influence
anything.

If you are getting hot air blasting out, I'd be inclined to believe that
the heatsink is attached and working.  If it weren't attached well, I'd
expect inadequate heat dispersion from the airflow, and the CPU to
overheat and shutdown (or burn out).

If the fan seems to run without a struggle, I'd expect that the fan is
okay.  Its the computer that changes the fan speed, so a lack of proper
fan speed changes would suggest the controller rather than the fan.
Perhaps the thermal sensor isn't working well?  Do you have another OS
you can easily try on it (e.g. a live disk).

On my laptop, if I leave it in the BIOS (interrupting the boot-up), the
fans will eventually go fast, though blowing cool air (the CPU is not
heating up).  I think it's a failsafe to ramp up the cooling in case of
a fault.


-- 
tim at localhost ~]$ uname -rsvp

Linux 3.19.8-100.fc20.i686 #1 SMP Tue May 12 17:42:35 UTC 2015 i686

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