[072707]

What temperature range should my Mobile Intel Pentium 4 - M CPU 2.20GHz 512MB RAM be operating at.

It is in a Dell Inspiron 8500 notebook computer.

Is there a specifications page that you can point me to that will show this information?

It rather easily climbs to 70/72 degress Celsius, where the fans come on; especially while surfing FF with multiple tabs.

Fans bring it down to low 60s pretty quickly.

Have gotten temperature down to high 50s, but ONLY with 12 inch external fan blowing on it.

Got it used. Could it possibly be overclocked? How do I tell?

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That is about right for the Pentium 4s and Pentium Ds. They are very hot CPUs. That is about what my Pentium D is doing. But yours is a single core so maybe it should be a lot cooler.

[jackflash1991]

That is about right for the Pentium 4s and Pentium Ds. They are very hot CPUs. That is about what my Pentium D is doing. But yours is a single core so maybe it should be a lot cooler.

[Titan8990]

Jackflash is right, Pentium 4s run hot. 70C is pushing it a bit though. With the way that the chips are designed when they reach a certain temperature the CPU slows down so supossidly the chip will never burn out even without a cooler. I would just keep that external fan on it.

[072707]

Thankyou both for replying. They do run that hot hunh? Windows XP has a built-in CPU idler, right?

Anything else I can do to get it to run cooler without wearing out the fans?

Incidentally, I did remove the bottom "intake" fan compartment and there were a fair amount of dust bunnies in there, including on the radiator fins. I removed what I could, but it did appear that dust had obviously penetrated much farther in to areas of the machine that are out of reach. From what I have been reading Dell was class-action sued over this/similar design issue on a different model; the only thing it looks like they have changed is addition of the bottom access to the intake "fan compartment".

I wish I had know all this before of course; then I would have avoided Dell entirely. Always something....

[jackflash1991]

Anything else I can do to get it to run cooler without wearing out the fans?

I would not worry about "wearing out the fans". If you know how to, you can browse through your BIOS and you can have your fans trigger at a lower temp. thus cooling the CPU better and then you can overclock better.

Edited by jackflash1991, 23 August 2007 - 08:14 PM.

[072707]

...browse through your BIOS and you can have your fans trigger at a lower temp.

I browsed through the 7 pages of my A08 bios version several times. No option to change fan temps.

Thankyou again for replying

[james_8970]

If ever in doubt, look at Intel website.
http://processorfind...spx?sSpec=SL6J5
http://processorfind...spx?sSpec=SL6LR
There was a revision between the two processors, regardless the pysical chip won't begin to degrade till temps hit near the 100*C range. These processors are designed to run very hot.
James

[SOORENA]

I know they run hot but at stock speed they are not supposed to exceed 50 degrees idle and maybe 60 something during a process. I had a friend who opened up his laptop and replaced the thermal gel on the CPU and that brought the temperatures down by alot. It seemed that it had dried up after a while.

Soorena

[james_8970]

Regardless it'll be fine, the CPU will not deteriate, also I don't recommend changing the thermal paste as you'll void the warranty by doing so.
James