Inconsistent computer heat

[sethmachine]

Hi,

So I've been using Windows 7 via Bootcamp and been running the world editor.

As expected, it gives my computer a burning fever.

But not all the time!

Unless my hand has gone numb or I'm not playing with a full stack of cards, there are times when I have the World Editor open, along with Python and Notepad++, and my computer is actually cool.

What would cause my computer to be hot sometimes and cool others given the same programs/resources are being used?

 

[chobibo]

My poor guess is that it has something to do with dust... Also, an idling application doesn't use much processing power, I think, so it would explain why it wouldn't heat up.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Thermal cut off. The system is forced to underclock when temperature exceeds a certain amount. To prevent it doing this at high frequency it only resorts to normal clock after it falls bellows a certain cut on temperature (this also makes sure that all the computer has cooled, not just the immediate area around the sensor).

The system will still appear to function normally as the reality is you do not need >3 GHz multi core processor to use WorldEdit and some text editing programs. I think WC3 was even designed for 600 MHz processors.

There are also some other heat safeties which are obviously not causing this.
Intel processors will literally shut down their clock in the case of a exceeding a critical temperature. This is designed to stop them exploding in the case the heat sink falls off during operation. The amazing thing is that they can continue operating without any errors as soon as cooling is applied. By the way this literally happens in less than a second if you remove the heat sink (something you should never do). AMD was notorious for not having this feature but I think they also have it now (or at least should...).
Discrete GPUs should also have this critical cut-off temperature (although set differently based on engineered specifications). However usually it manifests as a driver crash long before it is reached.

 

[edo494]

I think WC3 was even designed for 600 MHz processors.

according to the box it requires 400 MHz pentium 2 or higher and 128 mbs of ram. Thats some low spec lol

 

[Velmarshal]

Clean it of all the dust and then test it out if it works properly.