If you have ever used a laptop in your life, chances are you know what it’s like when it gets way too hot for comfort. It’s uncomfortable!
When you try to pack that many electronic components in such a small space, heat is a real issue and there is actually an entire industry based around trying to keep laptops cool. But other than getting burns on your skin from an overheated computer.
How do you know your laptop is actually too hot?
One easy thing to keep an eye on is your device temperature, obviously, it’s quite normal to see your CPU heat up under heavy use. But if your laptop feels painfully hot or if it’s behaving strangely, download a reputable hardware monitoring utility and check your processor’s core temperatures.
Both AMD and intel specified temperatures of around 100 degrees Celsius as a maximum, but a good rule of thumb is that if your laptop getting over 90 degrees Celsius under load, you should probably try to cool it down.
For gamers out there, this a good guideline for your discreet GPU as well, maybe a short break is required before you start friendly firing on your support units.
But processor temperatures are not the only thing to watch out for, the batteries don’t particularly like excessive heat either, and their tolerance is lower than they are for CPUs.
The lithium-ion batteries are common in modern electronics and should be kept below 45 degrees Celsius. Although they can operate at higher temperatures, up to around 60 degrees or so.
Some laptops will stop charging once the battery temperature hits 45 degrees, if your battery is often running at high temperatures under load, its life might be shortened, and it might even swell upon you, like physically get larger which can damage other laptop components.
I once had a laptop trackpad start to bulge out of its housing because the battery underneath was swollen, and on the subject of high temperatures causing deformation, heat can actually cause the soldering inside the machine to crack.
Infamously, this phenomenon was at the center of a controversy that happened a little over 10 years ago called Bumpgate, which involved Nvidia and Apple.
Nvidia sold a bunch of GPU’s to Apple that turned out to be defective, but the issue wasn’t the GPU dies themselves. Instead, the soldering that held the dye on its package, arranged into small balls called bumps was apparently made of a different material that didn’t behave in a way Nvidia expected once they heated up.
As a result, many of these bumps expanded excessively, leading them to break entirely. Some reports indicated that failure rates were as high as 40%. To this day, the relation between Apple and Nvidia is rumored to be quite frosty.
And Apple started switching many of its Macs to AMD graphics in the wake of Bumpgate, though it’s never been confirmed exactly how big of a role that particular incident played.
But back to heat inside your Laptop, we know that it’s bad, but if your monitoring software indicates your temperatures are too high.
So how hot is too hot for your CPU?
CPU operating temperature should ideally run between 30°C and 40°C, with some going as high as 70°C and 80°C. Anything above that, especially in the 90°C zone, and you’re asking for throttling and failure to occur.
How to Monitor Your CPU Temperature
Checking your CPU’s temperature is very easy. If you’re using Windows, Speccy is a great diagnostics tool that tells you everything about your PC – including the CPU temp. MSI Afterburner is another great tool for monitoring your CPU and GPU temperatures.
Mac users can grab Fanny, which doesn’t go into as much detail as Speccy but sits as a widget in your notification center for easy access to your CPU and fan stats.
Linux fans can check their CPU temperature using the psensor tool.
Average processor temperatures under full load
In General Usage, most processors will have an average temperature between 40-70 °C.
The lower the temperature, the better. Low temperature is recommended for the efficient performance of your Computer.
Here is the optimal temperature range for the most popular Processor Series of Intel and AMD.
Processor | Average temp under full load |
|---|---|
AMD Ryzen 4000 | 55°C - 75°C |
AMD Ryzen 3000 | 68°C - 80°C |
AMD Athlon Gold | 60°C - 80°C |
AMD Athlon Silver | 70°C - 90°C |
Processor | Average temp under full load |
|---|---|
Intel Core i3 | 65°C - 75°C |
Intel Core i5 | 60°C - 70°C |
Intel Core i7 | 55°C - 70°C |
Note: This is the general range of the temperature for most processors. However, the actual Temperature may vary from model to model and from generation to generation. Also, the ambient temperature and the cooling solution being used will affect the average temperature.
GPU Temperature
The Temperature of the GPU usually stays in a normal range unless you start a GPU intensive job.
The optimal Temperature of an idle GPU should be around 35-55 °C. During Gaming and Heavy GPU Usage, the average GPU Temperature is generally around 60-80°C.
A major problem with the GPU Temperature can arise when you play games for an extended period. It is necessary to ensure that even after a long period of gaming, the GPU Temperature stays at least 5-10°C lower than the maximum temperature specified by the OEM.
How do you cool your Laptop?
Well, you start off with the simple things, a good old big glass of ice water. Just Kidding!! Don’t do that, that was a joke!
You can check the ambient temperature of the room you are in, try operating your laptop on a hard level surface to ensure that the air vents will have clearance to breathe.
And blow out those vents with some compressed air to make sure they are not clogged with dust.
If this doesn’t work, it’s not a bad idea to check if any curves you have set are not somehow messed up and if you are still scratching your head, pop off the panel, and ensure all the fans are running properly and aren’t unplugged or straight-up dead.
Now if you haven’t fixed the problem at this point, you gotta start asking questions about your competency as a laptop repair person, just kidding!!
A good cooling pad to sit your laptop on might be a good idea, you don’t necessarily need anything super expensive just find something well-reviewed.
Remember if you are in the market for a new laptop, you can save yourself a headache by reading or watching reviews and making sure the model you are looking at has not been too hot to handle for other customers.
Although there are a lot of great laptops out there, some of them just aren’t designed all that well when it comes to heat dissipations, do your due diligence, so that you don’t end up with a laptop bezel you could fry an egg on, even if you are feeling a little peckish for a breakfast sandwich.
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