[discardable_dan]

I have a 2019 MBP that runs hot because it's supporting an external monitor. The year before every laptop became a WFH desktop, Apple decided that running an external monitor could be a massive heat issue and nobody would care. It's literally burning out my work laptop, and soon I'll have to ask IT for a new one. Apple doesn't care, though: they already got paid.

As I understand it, though, most of the thermal issues are to do with the north bridge and the video card. Basically, Intel's power model for USB is built around performance, not thermals. GamersNexus actually has some interesting videos about this, but at the end of the day Intel shit the bed on northbridge performance while developing USB-4 support.

I wildly speculate that this is a massive part of why Apple moved to their own silicon: to get away from Intel, who is clearly losing every competition they're in. (I don't know why Apple didn't go toward AMD, but I expect GPU hang-ups were part of it.)

[millzlane]

They finally made the device a little thicker. Apple could have put a better quality heat sync and fan in these models, they chose not too.

[znpy]

As GP pointed out, apple doesn't care, they already got paid.

I'll go further and I'll say I think it's actual dishonesty on their side: they're providing additional thermal headspace to their own cpus, when instead they have constrained Intel for years.

It's still pointless to point this out, apple users are going to buy apple stuff anyway...

[jgwil2]

*heat sink

Edit: why is this downvoted? This is a legitimately confusing mistake; people may think it has something to do with synchronization.

[goldenkey]

It's pedantic and the way you did it was rude.

You ought to have commented: "I believe you meant heat sink, not 'heat sync', am I correct?"

The average HNer is above average in intelligence and does not require a minor typo to be explicitly corrected.

[mleonhard]

If you're worried about thermal damage to your laptop, maybe you can prevent it? Some ideas:

- Leave the laptop screen open. You can turn off the screen by setting its brightness to the minimum setting.

- Power your USB devices from a powered USB hub.

- Point a small fan at the side of the computer.

- Clean the laptop's cooling system of dust and lint. Keep the laptop on a stack of books so the intake vent is raised above any surface that can collect dust.

[discardable_dan]

The laptop is practically new. I keep it standing vertically on its side, with the lid closed, plugged into an external monitor. It's still uncomfortably warm to the touch.

[bouke]

Power draw from the GPU is a lot lower on Monterey. Still not as good as driving only the internal display, but about ~40% lower compared to previous OSs. Lower power mode also helps another 15%.

[discardable_dan]

I don't care about power draw, I care about the fact that my laptop gets physically too hot to touch while running an external monitor.

[amarshall]

There hasn’t been a north bridge for nearly a decade, it’s all in the CPU. With no corresponding north bridge, Intel renamed the south bridge to platform controller hub (or just PCH).

[seanp2k2]

> literally burning out my work laptop

Is there any actual evidence for running a CPU near its thermal ceiling causing premature failure vs a cpu running at a 10-20c lower temp?

When I hear people saying things like “my PC is dying”, this is usually due to thermal throttling from dust buildup or malware running causing excessive CPU usage. It’s not like the CPU is getting crispy around the edges and parts of it stop working so only a smaller portion is still available to do work or something.

There seems to be a lot of conjecture out there about the longevity of a CPU vs heat, but I’m wondering if this has ever been actually studied in a scientific way. I understand that electromigration is real, and it could e.g. cause a trace to eventually blow out.

This is the closest thing to a real scientific explanation that I could find https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/5l3ufj/is_there_a... but it still doesn’t go into why / how / the physical mechanics of it.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/cpu-electromigration... Also attempts to explore this in a fairly scientific manner, but it’s focused on over-volting and overclocking vs normal (especially mobile, where CPU voltages tend to be less tweakable) operation.

TL;DR In my experience, CPU/GPU temps don’t matter as long as they are not causing throttling. Running within a few degrees of the thermal limit (Tjunction max ) 24x7 for years won’t affect the longevity of a CPU/GPU in any functional way, and won’t cause slowdowns, only failure, possibly of a subsystem like USB or other on-die subsystems. If anyone has anything showing otherwise, please share it!