>So my open question is: Do sudden temperature changes cause physical harm
>to CPUs, especially those that have only recently been turned on?
Yes it does but.... this depends on your processor & cooling methods to a
certain extent. It's generally accepted that sudden temp changes will
slowly degrade your processor over time but it depends on the severity and
frequency of the changes. A extreme example of this is If you are using
exotic cooling such a peltier (solid state heat pump) without a cold plate,
a metal plate between the peltier & the CPU to buffer the change in heat,
then your core temps will change very very drastically and your processor
MTBF (mean time before failure) will be significantly shorten (down to 6
months to 2 years would seem reasonable). Hence practically everybody adds
a thick cold plate usually copper to minimize this as much as
possible. That is the extreme case in most cases the temp changes are much
less and the frequency of change is less as well so the loss of CPU life
span is fairly insignificant (what does it matter if a CPU designed to last
10 - 15 years is cut down to 7 or 8).
As for as CPU temps on boot up my experience has been that AMD thunderbirds
& durons heat up very very fast so by the time you boot into Windows the
core will be running pretty close to the temps it will be leveling out at
(assuming you are using some form of air cooling). The temps reported by
the BIOS on the other hand takes a while to level out because of the way
the temps are taken. The reason this happens is fairly complicated and
beyond the scope of the question. P3 on the other hand normally hits that
plateau about 10-15 minutes after booting but overall temps in the P3's are
generally less hence the change in temps are generally less as well. So in
my opinion I wouldn't worry about being "careful" with the CPU right after
boot up because the actual boot up & shut down are where the most damage is
done anyway.
Shane
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