Why processors generate heat

Information about IEC is available at www. The heat transferred to the chassis of the notebook, while noticeable, is not a safety issue. HP takes all potential safety matters and concerns seriously and maintains a dedicated team to promptly address them if they occur. Material - The material used for the computer's chassis plays a significant role in heat dispersal and allows heat to pass through it.

Lower performance computers that generate less heat may use materials that are less permeable to heat, such as certain types of plastic. When working on such a computer, you may not notice the heat output. Higher performance computers, on the other hand, may use materials that are highly permeable to heat, such as certain polymers or metals.

These materials are used to help in dispersing the heat generated. When performing processor-intensive tasks on such a computer, you may notice the heat output. Design - The size and shape of a computer's chassis, not just the type of material used, also affect how heat is dispersed. There is a minimum amount of free space inside the notebook chassis.

Fans are required to draw the cooling air across the heat generating components and through carefully designed channels. As computers become increasingly thinner and smaller, more subtle chassis designs to used manage air flow and heat dispersal. Generally speaking, a higher performance computer will need more space for heat dispersal in comparison to a lower performance model.

A high performance computer that is too small cannot effectively disperse the heat it generates or have sufficient space to place the required heat sinks and fans. Fans - The fans draw in cool air from outside the chassis and blow it over the heat producing components inside.

The more heat the computer generates, the more rapidly the fans must spin to move the required amount air to help disperse the heat. Customers sometimes comment that they can hear the fan more on a high performance notebook than they would on other notebook models. Vents - The flow of air into and out of a computer is critical to dispersing heat from the various hardware components. The strategic placement of vents in the chassis can maximize the free flow of cooling air through the device.

A higher performance computer may have more vents than its lower performance counterpart. What activities generate the heat? However, the type of activity being performed affects the amount of heat generated or dispersed at any given moment. Heat in the computer can be affected by the physical environment in which the computer is located, and even by local weather conditions such as high humidity.

How can you manage the heat in a computer? Your computer's basic heat profile is determined by its hardware specifications and how you use the computer.

If you find the heat output of your computer unpleasant, there are a few things you can to do to try reduce the heat slightly. Unblock the vents - Inadvertently blocking the air vents by pressing them up against a cubicle wall or placing the notebook in an enclosed space, can cause a computer to heat up to higher temperatures as there is no outlet for the hot air building up inside.

If you unblock the vents, the computer's temperature might decrease. Nasty chemical interaction with other parts of the silicon, it turns out. What causes current to flow?

This is "switching" or "dynamic" power. It's proportional to switching speed and the square of the voltage; hence the drive from 5V to 3. The insulators are not perfect, and in some places are very thin. Transistors may not be fully "off". If a FET has an off resistance of a megaohm, and you put a million of them in parallel, it looks like a 1 ohm resistor.

This is "leakage" power. It's proportional to number of transistors. I spent a decade working at a startup on power optimisation. When a CPU is "idle", although it uses a minimum amount of current, it generates heat.

As the processor starts to "process" information, the individual transistors switch states. This switching also generates heat. In addition, the switching frequency affects the heat generation rate, the higher the frequency the higher the heat generation rate. Since the heat dissipation capacity of the chip is fixed, it can overheat if it's operated at a higher frequency than it was designed to operate.

Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Its basic job is to receive input and provide the appropriate output. While this may seem like a simple task, modern processors can handle trillions of calculations per second.

As for the use of terms Rousse, stated that the term processor has generally replaced the term central processing unit CPU [ 2 ]. The processor in a personal computer or embedded in small devices is often called a microprocessor. Technically in the article [ 3 ] a comprehensive description on the operation of a computer processor is outlaid. The article explains further that these switches use the most basic logic known to man, known as Boolean logic that is, everything is either on, or off, either a one on or a zero off.

These switches are of course tiny, around 32nm, depending upon the transistor in question, and have been described as containing "merely a couple of electrons".

A single silicon chip can contain thousands of transistors [ 4 ]. To clarify on the concept CPU, is necessary to understand the fundamental issues at hand here, the switch; understand this elusive switch; how it works and what it is made of. This switch is a switch whose state as "on" or "off" is governed by voltage; unlike the lighting switch at home, where up perhaps is "on", in the case of the switches we are talking about High K Metal Gate Transistors , a high voltage is "on", and a low voltage is "off"[ 5 ,[ 3 ].

Processors manipulate information in a signal like structure. To understand this operations there are foundational ideas that must be understood as the writer explains;. Clock speed is the rate at which a processor can complete a processing cycle. It is typically measured in megahertz or gigahertz. One megahertz is equal to one million cycles per second, while one gigahertz equals one billion cycles per second.

This means a 1. The frequency or speed of a processor is, of course, related to the underlying structure of the switch. All of these terms are roundabout ways of describing the rate at which processor's switches can turn on and off, or switch between the high voltage that designates "on" and the low voltage that designates "off" Vcc and Vss.

The rate at which this switching occurs is really, very rapid. This entails that clock speed can be best imagined as a pulse- like signal, switching rapidly back and forth from on to off. The description is shown in Figure 1. In true situation, our switches work on tolerances, accepting anything over some value Vcc as "on," and anything less as "off".

It also takes some time to transit from one state to another, as shown in Figure 2. Overclocking, means running the CPU at a greater speed than intended by its manufacturer [ 7 ].

As previously stated, the clock speed is actually the clock frequency, or the number of times that the transistors inside the processor switch from on to off per second. Therefore, when a processor is overclock, it means that it is force to switch between the two states more rapidly, and some problems arise. Referring to diagram 2, there is some time required for the state of a given switch to change from on to off-there is some time required for the voltage to drain from the gate; increasing the number of times the state must switch per second, decreases the amount of time the processor has to transit between the two states.

The fact experienced here is the issue associated with the processor being unable to make the transition in the time allotted, this is termed instability. Figure 3 is clear representation of this state. Situation encountered in diagram 3 can easily be explained that the voltage cannot switch fast enough between the two states, however there are two solutions. One is to somehow change the value that is recognized as on, or else increase the speed at which that transition occurs.

Increasing the speed is a common thing done every time, that is when the voltage of processor is increased in order to maintain stability; while the peak voltage is actually raised, Vcc is effectively moved down in relation to the maximum voltage, providing for the same effect. By Steve Lander. Heavy Loads A CPU's temperature is directly proportional to the amount of electricity that passes through it. Airflow Issues To move the heat from your CPU to the outside of your computer's case, multiple cooling components work together.

CPU Cooler Failure Most CPUs are covered by a large cooling assembly that consists of three components -- a fan, a heatsink and a thin layer of thermal conductant that helps to transfer heat from the CPU to the heatsink and fan.

System Cooling Failure Your computer's case should also have at least two fans -- a case fan and a fan in the power supply. Related Articles.