No well-designed laptop should ever shut down due to overheating unless the internals are covered in dust! It should either have enough cooling to run at 100% CPU or the CPU should be throttled well before the CPU reaches 100°C! If I had a laptop doing that, I would reject it.
Just to make sure everyone is up to speed at the end of this long thread, hardware faults were found on the old mobo (thanks to zbook's help). This has been changed. No BSOD's since then.
Also since new mobo and installing Dell Optimizer and setting thermal management to optimised and windows power settings to balanced, the fan has been noticebly less jumpy and active. But still runs at low level virtually all the time I am using it for low level tasks. I suppose it is possible that the hardware faults were increasing heat in the system leading to BSOD's?
zbook is kindly looking at latest system and temp logs to exclude any further hardware issues. If outcome is that there have been no further hardware faults then I can try to work out if the temps and throttling I am still seeing are just how the new processors are are either designed to work, or turn out to work.
I can live with the fan activity as it currently is, low level, most of the time when in use (even though frontline Dell support staff say it is not normal - I'm prepared to believe that they may not be up to speed on this). Obviously I do not really want to accept a situation where the system runs hotter than it should, leading to longevity issues. But last few responses from Dell on temp logs have indicated they think temps are 'normal', whatever the cause.
This is interesting.... and worth listening to end.
The question and issue is the high temps under low load....the following highlights the issue that
itsme mentioned about the high peak max wattage that is configured on this machine (114W). So will update and reset BIOS to defaults as suggested by
Mark K but not sure my BIOS setting have been anything other than default. I will ask Dell again about this high wattage config for PL4
And
this search confirms what has been stated in this thread. But what I think I am seeing recorded is very brief SPIKES to 100 degrees under low load conditions, not constant high temps under those conditions. Does the video above explain this...?
From the Intel website - is 'instantaneous temperature' what I am seeing reported?
Max Operating Temperature
This is the maximum operating temperature allowed as reported by temperature sensors. Instantaneous temperature may exceed this value for short durations. Note: Maximum observable temperature is configurable by system vendor and can be design specific.
And
Is it bad if my processor frequently approaches or reaches its maximum temperature?
Not necessarily. Many Intel® processors make use of Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, which allows them to operate at very high frequency for a short amount of time. When the processor is operating at or near its maximum frequency it's possible for the temperature to climb very rapidly and quickly reach its maximum temperature. In sustained workloads, it's possible the processor will operate at or near its maximum temperature limit. Being at maximum temperature while running a workload isn't necessarily cause for concern. Intel processors constantly monitor their temperature and can very rapidly adjust their frequency and power consumption to prevent overheating and damage.
