page_title: Computer cooling
section_title: Generators of unwanted heat
hierarchical_section_title: Computer cooling / Generators of unwanted heat
caption_attribution_description: The dust on the laptop CPU heat sink after three years of use has made the laptop unusable due frequent thermal shutdowns. By Audrius Meskauskas, Audriusa 13:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
context_page_description: Computer cooling is required to remove the waste heat produced by computer components, to keep components within permissible operating temperature limits. Components that are susceptible to temporary malfunction or permanent failure if overheated include integrated circuits such as central processing units, chipset, graphics cards, and hard disk drives.
  Components are often designed to generate as little heat as possible, and computers and operating systems may be designed to reduce power consumption and consequent heating according to workload, but more heat may still be produced than can be removed without attention to cooling. Use of heatsinks cooled by airflow reduces the temperature rise produced by a given amount of heat. Attention to patterns of airflow can prevent the development of hotspots. Computer fans are widely used along with heatsink fans to reduce temperature by actively exhausting hot air. There are also more exotic cooling techniques, such as liquid cooling. All modern day processors are designed to cut out or reduce their voltage or clock speed if the internal temperature of the processor exceeds a specified limit.
context_section_description: Integrated circuits (e.g., CPU and GPU) are the main generators of heat in modern computers. Heat generation can be reduced by efficient design and selection of operating parameters such as voltage and frequency, but ultimately, acceptable performance can often only be achieved by managing significant heat generation.
  In operation, the temperature of a computer's components will rise until the heat transferred to the surroundings is equal to the heat produced by the component, that is, when thermal equilibrium is reached. For reliable operation, the temperature must never exceed a specified maximum permissible value unique to each component. For semiconductors, instantaneous junction temperature, rather than component case, heatsink, or ambient temperature is critical.
  Cooling can be impaired by:
  Dust acting as a thermal insulator and impeding airflow, thereby reducing heat sink and fan performance.
  Poor airflow including turbulence due to friction against impeding components such as ribbon cables, or incorrect orientation of fans, can reduce the amount of air flowing through a case and even create localized whirlpools of hot air in the case. In some cases of equipment with bad thermal design, cooling air can easily flow out through "cooling" holes before passing over hot components; cooling in such cases can often be improved by blocking of selected holes.
  Poor heat transfer due to poor thermal contact between components to be cooled and cooling devices. This can be improved by the use of thermal compounds to even out surface imperfections, or even by lapping.
caption: The dust buildup on this laptop CPU heat sink after three years of use has made the laptop unusable due to frequent thermal shutdowns.
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