Is 75 °C temperature too high for a laptop?

Question

My laptop, a HP DV6, runs at an average temperature of 75 °C.

I measured the temperature with acpi -t from the terminal in Ubuntu 10.10. Is this temperature normal?

Answer 1

I would say it's a bit too high, for me the red zone starts at 70C. But I also like to make a connection between weather and CPU temperature. During summer time, when it's 45 outside and 35 inside, CPU heating to 55-60 is ok, though I try to overload it less, by using lightweight alternative apps if possible (for example vimprobable2 instead of firefox + a ton of addons for browsing).

Answer 2

I have noticed that laptops tend to get hotter than their desktop counterparts and, for me, anything higher than 70 would be verging on the side of "too hot" (then again, the only time It've seen it higher than 70 is a heavy gaming session, or a short minecraft one ;)).

It may be worth checking a few things:

• Instead if using it on your lap, find a table or hard surface to put it on. Even a large hardback book would be better as it would allow air to circulate better than warming up your legs.
• If you've had it for longer than a few months consider taking it apart and give it a bit of a clean. Fans in laptops tend to gather dust like it's going out of fashion so give it a good clean.
• It, of course, may depend on your location, but if the room your laptop is in is warm then this isn't going to help. See if you can cool the room down, or point a fan at the machine.