# Temperature spikes on start up with i7-9750H



## cioden (Jun 26, 2021)

So I'm new to throttlestop and I've noticed on startup that after opening it prochot will be coloured red. I have a Dell Precesion 5540 and doing some experimenting I noticed it will do this as soon as you click on something during startup. If you give it a minute though it wont show up as red.

I've had the laptop for about a year now and it's always seemed to be fairly warm. It's never shut down from overheating however, though it's not unusual for it to shoot up into the 90's. I use it mostly for Photoshop and other art programs but i've also tested some games on it as well just to see. Some push the temperatures into the 90's. I've also had it repasted and it tends to idle around 40 to 50 C, sometimes even as low as 38C. The attached image is taken right after booting up.

I'm just wondering if these high temperatures are something I should be worried about, or if it's simply due to it being a workstation laptop that doesn't have great cooling.

The specs are Dell Precision 5540
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz up to 4.50 GHz
16 GB RAM
Quadro T1000
1 TB HDD


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## unclewebb (Jun 26, 2021)

cioden said:


> prochot will be coloured red


This information is stored within the CPU. When you first start ThrottleStop, if PROCHOT is red, then your CPU must have reached 100°C for at least a millisecond or two and probably longer. This can happen during boot up



cioden said:


> I've also had it repasted


How long ago? Who performed this procedure? Any idea what thermal paste they used? Some very popular thermal pastes that work wonderful on desktop CPUs can quickly degrade in as little as a week or two when used in a laptop. Desktop CPUs have an integrated heat spreader over top of the cores. Mobile CPUs do not use a heat spreader so a thermal paste that works well in one application might not work great when used in a laptop.

The best thing you can do is learn how to do this maintenance procedure yourself. It is usually not that hard to do. Search YouTube for a guide. It will show you step by step how to do this.  

A properly designed business laptop should not be reaching 100°C during boot up. Your screenshot shows a peak of 9W of power and the CPU is already hitting 68°C.



cioden said:


> a workstation laptop that doesn't have great cooling.


A workstation laptop costs significantly more. It should have great cooling.

Temperatures in the 90°C range are within the Intel spec. If your laptop is not frequently thermal throttling and slowing down then you do not have to do anything. Start watching videos so you will be ready when it gets worse.


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## cioden (Jul 8, 2021)

unclewebb said:


> This information is stored within the CPU. When you first start ThrottleStop, if PROCHOT is red, then your CPU must have reached 100°C for at least a millisecond or two and probably longer. This can happen during boot up
> 
> 
> How long ago? Who performed this procedure? Any idea what thermal paste they used? Some very popular thermal pastes that work wonderful on desktop CPUs can quickly degrade in as little as a week or two when used in a laptop. Desktop CPUs have an integrated heat spreader over top of the cores. Mobile CPUs do not use a heat spreader so a thermal paste that works well in one application might not work great when used in a laptop.
> ...


My apologies for the late response! So a dell technician came in and did the repaste as it's covered under warranty. I believe the compound was arctic silver. They mentioned if that doesn't help then the heat sink may need replaced. I rarely hear the fans really rev up unless doing something intensive.

That's good to know that some thermal pastes work better on desktops then laptops, I had no idea. I know the Precision 5540 uses the XPS body, and I have since heard they have issues with heat. I take it the laptop hitting 9W and hitting 68°C isn't great? Turbo boost seems like it's always on as the cpu speed is always bouncing around. Turning off turbo is the only thing I know that really drops the temperatures. Here's a screen shot of it after letting it run for a bit.


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