Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:40:44 -0500
To: Folkert van Heusden <folkert@vanheusden.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: spreading the heat?
Message-ID: <20071121204044.GB1299@csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
References: <20071121203736.GG30153@vanheusden.com>
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From: lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Lennart Sorensen)
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On Wed, Nov 21, 2007 at 09:37:36PM +0100, Folkert van Heusden wrote:
> I was wondering: if a quad core runs 2 processes at max cpu usage, won't
> that wear out the chip? As the heat is not egally spread out, some parts
> will expand more then other parts, may give damage won't it?
> So what I was suggesting maybe if that is the situation for longer time,
> maybe such processes should be scheduled to other cores as well?

If intel didn't design it to survive having a non SMP OS booted on it
using just one core 100% (say you boot DOS which doesn't have any
idle/sleep stuff in it, just actively spiing looking for input), then
the design is wrong.

I highly doubt that so I wouldn't worry about it.  After all that metal
bit on top of the cpu is called a heat spreader for a reason.  I would
be surprised if you can get more than 10 degrees C difference between
different parts of the core, although that's just a guess.

--
Len Sorensen
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