Many years ago, sometime in the Windows days, it was like that. Apparently, my computer’s default settings were to enable overclocking by default under certain conditions which were never quite clear to me, leading it to run nominally about 2700 MHz, if memory serves, at the cost of making the question in my signature one I could ask myself while trying to play not particularly intensive Flash games for more than a few minutes.
When the computer reached 95°, it would respond instead by automatically underclocking to 800 MHz. Until adopting Open Hardware Monitor, which is how I could learn any of these figures, the corresponding lag was my only clue anything was unusual, beside the computer being hot to the touch. I discovered by chance one day that, if I shook the computer for several seconds when it was like that, it would enable its internal fans until it had cooled to 62° and return the processor to normal 1900/2700 MHz. Trying to play a strategy game over an hour or two would therefore involve several breaks, every twenty minutes or so, to rattle the computer and activate its fans. Only later still could I learn how to set my internal fans always to run, and to underclock the computer to 1400 MHz* and limit CPU usage to half with Windows 7’s power settings. Sometime since then, the internal fans failed, but this computer has always got an external one. My signature question was something a friend asked me in a Discord voice call when I noticed the fan’s power cable had slipped. I only ever recall my computer shutting down from overheating once or twice, both in the Windows days for reasons forgotten to me.
The coldest temperature I have ever recorded my processor to be is 1°C. That is not a typo, but really one degree above freezing. It was on 18 Ⅺ 20, when I was just starting up my computer in the morning. There were six degrees frost that night, and because I thrive in the cool, I had a fan set in the window to blow the frigid air into my bedroom, without any heater or fire in the room and the heating vents blocked up with books. My temperature records for the 24 hours before, that is, my usage across 17 Ⅺ 20, survive in this file, and attest that my computer was running about 35° (±5°) for most activities, rising to 45° (±5°) in a block when I was presumably doing something a bit more intensive before falling back, and again at a steady 52° when running the same Flash game that used to make me throttle my computer. (The processor obeyed Newton’s law of cooling whenever I was away from the keyboard.) Weather records attest that temperatures ranged from –2° to 5° that day where I was living then.
For comparison, this room has an ambient temperature of 15°. (There is a radiator I cannot turn off.) The average temperature was 46° (±3°) earlier today, 48° (±2°) later, with a few prolonged spikes to the mid- to high-fifties, I think when I was watching Invidious. Plateaux like this are the highest which ever occur, typically in Discord voice calls. Our coldest nights here this winter reached eleven frost. Since getting a thermometer, the coolest I have measured this room to be has been about 10°. Psensor logs give many December days with average CPU temperature about 45°, and on Christmas Eve, when it ranged from –6° to –1° outside, processor temperatures were 40° on average.
Measurements like these, under equal conditions as far as I know (I do not know when the internal fans failed), let me compare how Linux and Windows 7 have treated my processor. It is fair to say that both treat it about as kindly as the other, but processor temperature varies less in Linux. There is not much difference between browsing static sites without JS in Pale Moon and watching a film in VLC in Linux, but I recall this being more intensive in Windows, hence the spikes I reported. The Flash games still behave about the same. My processor reports 70° as high, a threshold it has only ever reached with a working fan playing something like Minetest, and 99° as critical, which has simply never occurred . I want to say I take good care of my computer within the limits my inability to handle hardware myself, evidenced by how long it has survived in my care. Overheating degrades the computer, and I have always sought to guard against it.† Beyond the internal reports, I do not know what a typical running temperature is for a computer from 2012 or today., so I lack the frame of reference truly to gauge my success. At least, it appears sufficient. I get the impression that my computer is more durable than most. I hope some of the discussion here could perhaps give me that context, or even better, share fun stories of your own.
*Checking my record for the anecdote about my cold record also reveals that I was running my Windows processor then at 1400 MHz, not the even lower figure of 1100 MHz which I seemed to recall and think I have reported from time to time elsewhere.
†There had been a time in late 2023 and early 2024 lasting several months, when the battery began to fail, itself causing bizarre output problems, and my room could become torrid, air almost saturated with water and ambient temperatures in the mid- to high-twenties, stifling for me. This was necessitated by my severe wasp allergy, which required me to shut the windows at all times until I could arrange for a fine screen to be installed. My computer has suffered no known damages for this critical phase of my life, which is over 1½ years past and should not be repeated-
