laptop i5 8250u overheating

[zinwei]

Hi,

 

I own a Acer laptop for work but it keeps overheating sometimes, staying at 90c+ degree for few seconds during when I started to build a program in Visual Studio (btw, I am a programmer). When the program is compling, the mouse cursor started to lag for few seconds during the CPU hit the highest temp, then back to smooth.

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

I did something to the CPU maximum processor state which set to both 99% and 100% to test and below screenshots are the result. 99% ran at 1.7GHz peak and 100% ran at 3.4GHz peak, one has turbo and one has not.

 

This happens since the day 1 I got my laptop in January. The laptop is fine and awesome because most of the time I am using it with a monitor and a external keyboard so I do not feel the heat and the heated part is from the speaker which is hardly to get touch when using the onboard keyboard.

 

I did reset the whole OS twice but still the same result.

I have talked to Acer local distributor and they gave me a brand new same model laptop to test and end up the same.

They even offer me to exchange with another laptop but I rejected as I needed a laptop model like Acer Spin 5.

Later they also updated me that the Acer HQ from Taiwan had run some test and they claimed the result is normal and acceptable.

 

Below is my laptop model & specs,

Model : Acer Spin 5 SP513-52N-58QD

OS : Windows 10 Home

CPU : Intel i5-8250U

RAM : 8GB

Storage : 256GB SSD

GPU : Intel UHD Graphics 620

Reference : https://www.acer.com/ac/en/MY/content/model/NX.GR7SM.003

 

I wonder is there anyone experiencing a similiar case as mine and is there any solution to this problem.

I am curious is it a windows 10 problem? CPU problem? a combination of windows 10 + CPU problem? or is it because my laptop does not has a dedicated GPU chip so the CPU stress out itself.

[Jurrunio]

undervolt the CPU. Intel XTU can do that.

[NelizMastr]

This is by design, to be honest. Keep in mind the CPU is intended to run at 1.6GHz and will give you added performance through Turbo when the cooling allows it. It obviously doesn't right now, so you'll have to accept throttling (which isn't actually throttling until it runs below 1.6).

[zinwei]

10 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

undervolt the CPU. Intel XTU can do that.

Noted I will download and try it out.

3 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

This is by design, to be honest. Keep in mind the CPU is intended to run at 1.6GHz and will give you added performance through Turbo when the cooling allows it. It obviously doesn't right now, so you'll have to accept throttling (which isn't actually throttling until it runs below 1.6).

What do you mean by design? The CPU is running 3.2~3.3x GHz all the time which mean in Turbo mode and I don't feel any extra performance and the cooling is awful in 90c.

 

And do you know how to do throttling as you said ? "so you'll have to accept throttling (which isn't actually throttling until it runs below 1.6)"

[NelizMastr]

7 minutes ago, zinwei said:

What do you mean by design? The CPU is running 3.2~3.3x GHz all the time which mean in Turbo mode and I don't feel any extra performance and the cooling is awful in 90c.

The CPU is designed to run at the highest speed it possibly can within its thermal envelope. This means it'll go to max turbo until it reached 100C then step down the clock speed to maintain a balance between high speed and <100C temperatures. So with a sustained load, it'll run in the 90s to maintain a higher clock speed and thus higher performance at the cost of thermals and acoustics. There's nothing you can do about this as the chip was designed this way.

 

It's not going to run 3.5GHz at 70c full load all day, even with an undervolt.

[Jurrunio]

4 minutes ago, zinwei said:

The CPU is running 3.2~3.3x GHz all the time which mean in Turbo mode and I don't feel any extra performance

Run cinebench r15 with max processor state to 99% and 100% respectively, and you'll see the difference. It might not affect system responsiveness, but it should have a greater effect on compile times

[zinwei]

9 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

The CPU is designed to run at the highest speed it possibly can within its thermal envelope. This means it'll go to max turbo until it reached 100C then step down the clock speed to maintain a balance between high speed and <100C temperatures. So with a sustained load, it'll run in the 90s to maintain a higher clock speed and thus higher performance at the cost of thermals and acoustics. There's nothing you can do about this as the chip was designed this way.

 

It's not going to run 3.5GHz at 70c full load all day, even with an undervolt.

Thanks for the explanation. I think I will consider an undervolt when using the laptop without an external keyboard when plugged.

 

12 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Run cinebench r15 with max processor state to 99% and 100% respectively, and you'll see the difference. It might not affect system responsiveness, but it should have a greater effect on compile times

Yeah it sure makes a different one in turbo and one isn't.

[JoostinOnline]

You should get one of these.  It works wonders for me.

[zinwei]

5 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

You should get one of these.  It works wonders for me.

Yeah but too bad my table is too small for that

[zinwei]

I ran cinebench and monitoring the Package TDP maxed out to 25W @ 90c+ @ 3.4GHz for few seconds, then it continues at max TDP 15W around 80c+ @ 2.3~2.4GHz.

 

Anyone know how to set the optimal undervolt setting for this CPU? by using Intel XTU

[JoostinOnline]

20 minutes ago, zinwei said:

Yeah but too bad my table is too small for that

Then get a smaller one like this.

[Jurrunio]

2 hours ago, zinwei said:

I ran cinebench and monitoring the Package TDP maxed out to 25W @ 90c+ @ 3.4GHz for few seconds, then it continues at max TDP 15W around 80c+ @ 2.3~2.4GHz.

 

Anyone know how to set the optimal undervolt setting for this CPU? by using Intel XTU

Find the CPU core voltage offset (or sth similar in name) first. Apply -0.05V, then run prime95's small FFT test for 5mins (it will get very hot btw, make sure the charger is plugged in) and see if it crashes within 5 mins. If it doesnt, add another -0.01v to the offset (so it will be -0.06v for the second attempt), stress test again. Repeat till it does crash or Prime95 spits out errors, then raise the offset by 0.03V and call that your stable undervolt.

[genexis_x]

Sounds normal to me. Almost all 8250U laptops hit 100C under medium-heavy load

 

Spin 5 13 don't have good cooling (typical Ultrabook 1 short heatpipe)

[zinwei]

On 7/16/2018 at 6:44 PM, Jurrunio said:

Find the CPU core voltage offset (or sth similar in name) first. Apply -0.05V, then run prime95's small FFT test for 5mins (it will get very hot btw, make sure the charger is plugged in) and see if it crashes within 5 mins. If it doesnt, add another -0.01v to the offset (so it will be -0.06v for the second attempt), stress test again. Repeat till it does crash or Prime95 spits out errors, then raise the offset by 0.03V and call that your stable undervolt.

I have undervolt my i5-8250U with CPU core voltage offset -0.100V and Turbo Boost Short Power Max to 15W, should enough for my daily programming usage and the temperature is keeping min. 41c and max. 74c after normal running and idle around 30 mins.

 

On 7/16/2018 at 8:33 PM, ZM Fong said:

Sounds normal to me. Almost all 8250U laptops hit 100C under medium-heavy load

 

Spin 5 13 don't have good cooling (typical Ultrabook 1 short heatpipe)

I see, my laptop hit top 96c then it started with Power Limit Throttling down to 2.2~2.3GHz. I owned a company laptop last time with i5 5th or 4th gen, CPU temperature never go up to 80c, is it because of the CPU designed TDP limit is to 15W max?

 

I have read your aspire review and know that you have undervolt the CPU, may I know how do you apply to the setting that keep you max 3.1GHz only?

[genexis_x]

30 minutes ago, zinwei said:

I owned a company laptop last time with i5 5th or 4th gen, CPU temperature never go up to 80c, is it because of the CPU designed TDP limit is to 15W max?

8th gen ULVs run hot. They can't hold their turbo clocks at 15W, For 8250U you're looking at ~25W power consumption at 3.4GHz all core in Cinebench R15. The thing is, many cooling solution in normal laptops/Ultrabooks are not designed for >15W, therefore thermal throttling occurs. 8250U is bascially a 7700HQ which can be found in many powerful laptops with better cooling solution.

 

TDP doesn't matter much, it's not a useful info TBH.