CPU temperatures

[wove]

I think my oldest laptop maybe needs some new thermal paste. It is a Core2Duo. The temperature gauge I downloaded puts its temperature at 162ºF (72ºC) at idle after running for a half hour. The other internal temperatures for GPU, RAM, and memory controller are similar. All of those have heat sinks on them. I have no idea what would be considered normal operating temperatures for those chips.

Overall the device is very clean inside with the fans being dust and gunk free. I am sure the thermal paste has never been replaced. I was curious if anyone knew what was considered normal operating temperatures for 2006 hardware.

[crosscourt]

Average temp for a core 2 duo at idle is 45-55c. Max temp I believe is around 105c, so 72c if your laptop is active isnt an issue. Cpu will throttle if it gets too hot and immediately save itself. Make sure the laptop isnt sitting on your lap and has good airflow beneath and around it and the fan is running. You didnt mention the laptop model nor the cpu model so there could be something specific to that system.
Reducing power settings will cause the laptop to run cooler versus high performance settings. Check the bios and make sure that speedstep is enabled. Changing the thermal paste probably wont make a huge difference overall unless this problem has been going on all along.

[bin]

IS it the same if you take the battery out and just run off the mains connector? If the battery is old and never reaching full charge then it keeps on trying to charge which generates heat .........

[dai_trying]

Whenever i buy a new laptop I nearly always change the thermal paste as a matter or course, especially if it is older than a couple of years. I even changed the liquid metal (cpu) and thermal paste (gpu) on my best laptop (Ryzen 9 5900x) shortly after getting it as it was a "refurbished" unit (used) which just gives me peace of mind when using it.

There is always a case to replace it (IMO) and as you have a concern I would say yes change it and you don't have to worry for quite some time again.

[wove]

Thanks for all the solid advice. Changing thermal paste is something I usually do and would have probably done to this 2006 laptop, but of course I was out of thermal paste. I have ordered some and when it arrives I will clean out the old stuff and replace it. The laptop is the top of the line 17" Macbook Pro from 2006. Not really a daily driver machine, but an outstanding time capsule of tech at time.

It was initially purchased by an elderly lady who passed away not long after. It was not used again, passing through the family, loosing the power adaptor in the process. It ended up with a grand niece who sold it to me. Once revived and checked out, I found the battery reports 95% of original capacity with 8 cycles on it. The hard drive reports 65 hours of run time. It was built in October of 2006 and sold in February of 2007, with the last file written to the hard drive in May of 2007. (So this thing was in service for 3-4 months before being retired and placed in a drawer.)

I located the install media for the machine on the Internet Archive and installed the original OS and software. It has a 160GB 7200rpm Seagate SATA drive in it. I used Homebrew and MacPorts, to update the system certificates and update the BSD subsystem as well as compiling and installing a new(er) version of webkit. So while a great deal of internet stuff has moved beyond the capabilities of this machine the graphics and office software has really not changed much at all.

I am really heavily motivated to keep this machine chugging along and I will be replacing the thermal paste as soon as new supply arrives.

[crosscourt]

If the laptop has always run hot, changing the thermal paste may make a difference but if the heat issue has occured recently, it more than likely is caused by something else. Certainly if its easy to reach change the thermal paste but the quality of the fan and heatsink in a laptop has a huge affect on its ability to cool. Fans in older laptops can have issues and depending on what OS or software youre using it can affect the power/cooling features of your laptop. Bin's comment on the battery is a good one and certainly could be an issue. Also depending on where you use the laptop ambient temps can make a huge difference on the laptop temps.

@Dai I really hate liquid metal as Ive seen many where the liquid metal has gotten on the motherboard and wasted the system. Playstation 5s have a lot of issues with LM and I find it isnt worth the risk.

[dai_trying]

@Dai I really hate liquid metal as Ive seen many where the liquid metal has gotten on the motherboard and wasted the system. Playstation 5s have a lot of issues with LM and I find it isnt worth the risk.

I have to say I'm not a fan of liquid metal and when I changed it I first tested normal (good quality) thermal paste to see if it would work adequately, but the difference was quite noticeable and so I had no choice but to get some liquid metal for it, it made around 20 degrees C difference on my machine so it was a no-brainer really. Also this laptop has a seal around the cpu which keeps the metal from spreading out to the board, I would never use it where there was no safe guard in place as I had also read other peoples woes of destroyed main boards when they applied liquid metal.

Also to note that liquid metal will not always be appropriate as it can cause a reaction with some metals like aluminium which could negate the effects of the cooler, for anyone interested this article might explain this better.

[crosscourt]

Because of the change of temperature, expansion/contraction, many laptops show leakage past the seal and I stood in my friends repair shop looking at a pile of laptops that all died due to LM issues. When you have to rely on LM to solve your cooling issues in a laptop, the design needs to be rethought and less compromises made. For instance Xbox uses a better cooling design and doesnt need LM but Playstation has to use it because of their unique case design.

[dai_trying]

I haven't experienced any issues at all with my laptop since changing the LM but I treat all my devices with care, I think a lot of people just throw (exaggeration?) their tech around and of course due to the nature of gallium any excess would move, which is another point if the LM is applied "properly" there would not be much excess to move. I do think it is a wonderful solution to having a harder working processor kept cool though.

[wove]

I was surprised that a question of the expected temperatures of C2D processors would generate so much discussion. I took a side trip to YouTube and it appears that “thermal paste” sort of occupies its own sub-genre. I do like YouTube, but a large portion of the videos on most topics are opinion pieces. It is so rare that presenters/producers provide any credentials and rare that any supporting documentation is provided.

Thermal paste falls under process engineering and there is a huge body of research that has been done on it. Much of the research points to application failure being a much bigger problem than failure of the material itself. The future of thermal paste looks to be carbon nanotubes embedded in a sodium-silicate-based paste.

I am pretty sure that my application of a bog standard commercial thermal paste will raise lots of eyebrows amid the thermal paste aficionados. The anecdotal evidence of my past use of thermal paste, however leads me to believe that it will work out just fine.