Intel Xeon 1505m v5 High Temperature Concern

[AE3]

Hello,

We recently acquired some new HP ZBook 15 G3 laptops that have an Intel Xeon 1505m v5 CPU in them, and when performing certain tasks some of the cores seem to get unusually hot. By hot I mean getting very close to or hitting the Tj max temperature of 100° C seconds after performing certain tasks. Note that these laptops have all of the correct and most current OEM drivers installed, and they are running stock/vendor voltages (they are not overclocked or otherwise altered).

What is the recommended temperature that these CPUs should remain under? Will regularly hitting the Tj max temperature significantly decrease the life expectancy of the CPU or potentially cause any undesirable behavior?

One thing that appears to be consistent with these laptops is that core # 0 and core # 2 hit considerably higher temperatures when performing the same test on all cores. Note the attached screenshots of CoreTemp; each rise to 100% CPU utilization coincides with a few seconds of running the prime95 "Small FFTs" test. As a side note at least one of these laptops hits the Tj max temperature under normal daily usage (which in our case isn't anywhere near as computationally taxing as prime95).

The red line in the following two screen shots is temperature and the green line is CPU usage.

Laptop 1 (note core # 2):

Laptop 2 (top yellow bar in graph is Tj max temp):

Any assistance with this is greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

[idata]

Hi, uncoolcat, Thank you very much for joining the Intel® Processors communities.

As you mentioned previously, the Tjunction for this processor is 100°C, so any kind of temperature below or close to that values is expected and considered normal:http://ark.intel.com/products/89608/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E3-1505M-v5-8M-Cache-2_80-GHz http://ark.intel.com/products/89608/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E3-1505M-v5-8M-Cache-2_80-GHz As long as the temperature remains at 100°C or lower it means the laptop is working fine, the fact that the processor sometimes reaches Tj max temperature will not decrease the life expectancy of it and will not cause any undesirable behavior, if the processor exceeds the Tj max temperature then that is considered a problem and the laptop might not work properly. Do you have any type of problems with the laptop? When the processor is overheated, the laptop will start to throttle, getting freeze and sometimes it will go off by itself, those are the main symptoms for overheating, so if the computer is not showing any of those problems, then it should be working fine. It is normal for the cores to show different temperatures, the temperature fluctuates on each of them individually, depending on the task they are doing or the application being used, sometimes Core 0 and Core 2 might take the biggest amount of work load, sometimes is Core 1 or Core 4 depending on the tool running. Just in case, on the following link you will find a tool that does an overall test on the processor, including a temperature test, if the processor passed the test it should be working properly, you will be able to see a report of the temperature once the test is completed:https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/19792/Intel-Processor-Diagnostic-Tool https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/19792/Intel-Processor-Diagnostic-Tool Any further questions, please let me know. Regards,Alberto

[idata]

uncoolcat, I just wanted to check if the information posted previously was useful for you and if you need further assistance on this matter?

Any questions, please let me know. Regards,Alberto

[AE3]

Hi Alberto,

Thank you for all of the information and for the quick reply!

The Intel CPU test was executed on a few systems, and it passed on most of them. Note that the computers in question do have some rather problematic device drivers and/or possibly hardware, and on one system the Intel CPU test *may* have caused a system freeze to the point of requiring a forced shutdown, but that particular system has some older device drivers installed on it and I will try the test again on it after a full reimage.

One thing that I forgot to mention is that the CPU temperature range isn't always consistent between computers with the exact same hardware components, drivers, Windows build, BIOS settings, BIOS firmware version, windows power scheme settings, same high amp OEM power supply used, they are physically located in the same environment, they are running the same tests, etc. For instance, one otherwise identical system would report nothing higher than ~72° C while another one would consistently hit 100° C when running the same exact tests. The CPU in the computer that reports the lower temperature lowers the CPU frequency more than the computer does that reports the higher temperature. Can you think of anything configuration or driver related that manages what seems to be thermal throttling like that? Is it normal for there to be up to a 30° C CPU temperature variation between otherwise identical computers running the same tests?

Thanks again

[idata]

Hi, uncoolcat, You are welcome. Thank you very much for letting us know those details, we really appreciate that.

Yes, for that specific laptop, the best thing to do will be to do full reimage and then to run the test again.

In regard to the difference of the temperature value between two processors that are working with the same hardware components, that difference is actually expected, since every processor even if they are the same model work differently, and some features may vary the performance between them, like for example the turbo boost. Also, for a OEM system, there are many different customizations that the manufacturer is able to do, the reason why there is a temperature difference could be related to the thermal grease they used at the moment when they build it or if the fan is not working properly in one of the laptops, those are variants that can create different temperature values. So, yes it could be related to configuration or drivers.

On the link below you will find additional details about this matter:http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/makes-identical-processors-perform-differently/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/makes-identical-processors-perform-differently/ NOTE: These links are being offered for your convenience and should not be viewed as an endorsement by Intel of the content, products, or services offered there. Any questions, please let me know. Regards,Alberto