Does thermal throttling cause long term damage?

[itakemycoronawithalime]

If someone has a 16" MBP or any other for that matter. If they are just sick and tired of trying to mitigate throttling with third party programs, is it an issue to just say "F IT" and leave it?

I often touch 90's in bootcamp when in programs before the fans ramp up and im tempted to just leave the laptop as is and "use it".

Am I causing damage over time?

 

[jerryk]

No. The thermal throttle is there to ensures the processor stays within its operational limits.

I do machine learning and have left MacBooks sitting in the 90s for a day or two while training models. Never had any ill effects.

 

[itakemycoronawithalime]

No. The thermal throttle is there to ensures the processor stays within its operational limits.

I do machine learning and have left MacBooks sitting in the 90s for a day or two while training models. Never had any ill effects.

hah and I was bent about seeing it hit 90's for a few seconds.

I guess I was under the impression that if it sits in the 90's its going to continue to rise as it heat soaks but I am now assuming that there is an actual mathematical formula where temperature is a reflection of wattage and as Long as it stays at a certain range of wattage it can't continue to climb in temp no matter how long it sits at that wattage for.

 

[wegster]

Eh, depends on the design and design criteria, to some extent.
Hopefully and 'should be' as stated - nope, longevity was part of the design considerations of overall thermals as well as the entire system.

Historically, this hasn't always been true across all manufacturers. It may have been made worse as the world was forced to ROHS (basically lead-free solder), or maybe just lazy design, or not in design criteria.

A number of HP laptops with discrete GPUs would encounter GPU issues. They were repairable, involving head guns, or even stressing the laptop running closed - they were IIRC BGA chips, and some of the solder was effectively breaking down or losing contact (unsure whether due to it actually flowing, components warping slightly, whatever - but likely heat-induced), so the 'fix' was basically 'more heat and make it melt back in place.'

The above is an over-simplification, but also Apple NVidea had rounds of GPU failures, possibly heat/design related. Unsure on final cause there, and mine held up well, but it may have been thermal effects over time.

Even if a specific component is 'fine' long-term at a given temperature, there is still effect to the rest of the system - CPU or GPU itself may be fine, but if individually or cumulatively the effect is adding heat to other components - the overall system may still fail earlier. Whether or not the entire system longevity was part of design considerations, or what definition of 'longevity' actually was used, if any - in unknown to me, at least.

In short - don't obsess over it. It'll probably be fine for the life of the laptop, but only Apple answering the above (and more) in detail could 'guarantee' it...

 

[jerryk]

hah and I was bent about seeing it hit 90's for a few seconds.

I guess I was under the impression that if it sits in the 90's its going to continue to rise as it heat soaks but I am now assuming that there is an actual mathematical formula where temperature is a reflection of wattage and as Long as it stays at a certain range of wattage it can't continue to climb in temp no matter how long it sits at that wattage for.

The manufactures are all over this. They do not want warranty claims cutting into their margins because someone ran their system hard for an extended period of time. That goes for chip, SSD, and other component markers, and integraters like Apple.

 

[caupljx]

Unfortunately my old 2011 MacBook pro 15 inch is known for the AMD graphic card failure due to overheating, so I’m always a little worried about potential long term damage from thermal throttle even with new models.

 

[Alex W.]

Yes it does, chances are thermally there are Hot spots in areas of the board that will cause thermal failure overtime. For example the 2011 gpu faliures were a gpu thermal related issue where the solder was fracturing from thermal shock (very hot and then cooling off) so i would always say if your system is throttling out of designed spec (meaning lower system clocks, increased heat) i would be concerned.

Almost all system throttle to some degree, it just depends how badly they throttle down to.The 2011 MBP with GPU throttled to .800 Ghz while using a gpu load, causing an issue with the system not being a 2.3ghz rated system any longer.