Chill out

  • Authors:
  • Alexander A. Balandin

  • Affiliations:
  • Nano-Device Laboratory, University of California, Riverside

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Spectrum
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Heat is one of the worst enemies of electronics. Sit on the sofa with your laptop and you quickly feel the heat on your lap. Often though, overheating can be hard to diagnose. You may notice random errors occurring no matter what program you're running. This is especially true if you use your computer to play advanced video games, which can really tax the microprocessor and the graphics card. If your machine frequently experiences fatal errors or "the blue screen of death" on such occasions, chances are it has thermal management problems. And overheating doesn't just degrade a computer's performance; it can also shorten its useful life.