CPU throttling as a cooling strategy

kwyjibo · 25 Jan 2009 at 20:15

With my recent overheating problems on an Acer 5930G, it got me wondering about the legality of using the throttling mechanism as part of the overall cooling strategy.

E.g. you play a game for 5 minutes, lappy heats up too much, CPU/GPU throttles to 40% of its normal speed and temperatures drop over the next 1-2 minutes. Then CPU/GPU speed up again until the lappy overheats again. Repeat until you get annoyed and quit.

What if Acer Support try to fob me off with an excuse like: "it's supposed to throttle down to prevent damage to the CPU/GPU".

It means that this CPU spends 20-40% of the time at the lower speed, and my question is whether this is a prima facie case for obtaining a refund (albeit after 4 months) because the laptop was advertised at 2GHz but has inadequate cooling for 2GHz?

beermonster · 25 Jan 2009 at 20:24

If its still under warranty it should get repaired, I've seen heatsinks fail, if its blocked due to dust and fluff a can of compressed air can clean it out.

But it should be able to run 100% load with no throttling out of the box.

Steeps · 26 Jan 2009 at 16:03

Good luck dealing with infoteam, they wouldn't replace a digitizer that wouldn't draw in a straight line/kicks out so you're going to have a real hard time getting them to "fix" a throttling cpu

philjohn · 26 Jan 2009 at 17:04

Steeps said:
Good luck dealing with infoteam, they wouldn't replace a digitizer that wouldn't draw in a straight line/kicks out so you're going to have a real hard time getting them to "fix" a throttling cpu

You're going to have a hard time getting Acer to fix anything (and within a reasonable timeframe) - worst warranty experience I've ever had.

Have you tried undervolting the CPU and GPU?

ShakenNstirred · 27 Jan 2009 at 02:26

its not fault so i cant see them doing anything

ChrisLX200 · 27 Jan 2009 at 02:43

It's not a fault, it's a feature...

beermonster · 27 Jan 2009 at 03:03

ChrisLX200 said:
It's not a fault, it's a feature...

No its a fault not a feature, speedstep is a feature which extends battery by underclocking the cpu, throttling is something thats built into the cpu so as not to cause damage if the cooling system should fail, if its a 2.0 gig cpu but it cant run at 2.0 due to the cooling system being at fault then it should be repaired.

philjohn · 27 Jan 2009 at 10:02

If you don't get any joy with the warranty route you could go down the "not fit for purpose" one, but be prepared to actually follow up on any threats of legal action. You can do it all as a "litigant in person" and it would only cost you the filing fee (~£45) and your time.

Jokester · 27 Jan 2009 at 10:18

If the CPU/GPU are throttling the cooling system is either faulty or not fit for purpose.

ChrisLX200 · 27 Jan 2009 at 10:28

beermonster said:
No its a fault not a feature, speedstep is a feature which extends battery by underclocking the cpu, throttling is something thats built into the cpu so as not to cause damage if the cooling system should fail, if its a 2.0 gig cpu but it cant run at 2.0 due to the cooling system being at fault then it should be repaired.

Missing smiley, wasn't a serious excuse for an obvious fault - just thinking of the response you likely get to a complaint