Skeptical about claim that stamp creation burns out modern CPUs

James A. Donald jamesd at echeque.com
Thu Jan 1 14:05:14 PST 2004


    --
On 1 Jan 2004 at 10:44, Tim May wrote:
> Further, junction-to-case temperature in a ceramic package
> has a time constant of tens of seconds, meaning, the case
> temperature reaches something like 98% of its equilibrium
> value (as wattage reaches, say, 60 watts, or whatever), in
> tens of seconds.

The time constant for the CPU+plus cooling system is a good
deal longer, and in modern CPUs the large mass of the cooling
system can result in quite long periods, for example a quarter
of an hour, before CPU load results in heat related shut off.

> We also used to run CPUs at 125 C ambient

Today's CPUs will generally fail a bit above seventy
centigrade.  They frequently fail in ways that cause them to
draw increased current, eventuallly incinerating the
motherboard.

To prevent this, always look for the bios option to shut down
the motheroboard in the event of CPU overheating. 

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         James A. Donald
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     49rBlWsHg9Teys0ELS5pT26g56P8tEMtp/mQ3eihl





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