Why Do Electronics Get Hot?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2017-05-06
·
861 words · ~4 min read
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closed loop coolers, blower style fans,
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heat sinks the size of a small child. PC enthusiasts have been looking
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for ways to keep their rigs from turning into little mini ovens or large ovens as
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it were for a very long time. And even
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people who aren't tech heads have had to fight smartphones, game consoles, or
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even televisions that get too hot. But
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while there's plenty of discussion online about how to set up the most
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effective cooling solution, a question you don't often see asked is why the
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heck do our electronics heat up so much in the first
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place? Okay. Well, before we dive into the specifics, it's important to
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understand one of the fundamental laws
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of the universe that ultimately causes heat generation, not just in computers,
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but in everything from car engines to light bulbs. I'm talking about the
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second law of thermodynamics. And while
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there are a bunch of smart guy sounding ways to state the second law, for the
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purposes of this video, it's pretty easy to understand. Whenever energy is used,
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some of it becomes waste heat. Now, we
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could just say that since electronics use energy and therefore generate waste
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heat, they need to be cooled and end the episode there. I mean, I'm feeling kind
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of hungry. Lunch break, right? But we're all about viewer satisfaction here at
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Tequicki. So, let's dive a little deeper. If you watched our previous
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episode about motherboard components right up here, you'll remember that
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nearly all electronic circuits feature resistors to limit the flow of current
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so that the sensitive parts of your system like your processors and RAM
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modules get the correct amount of power since too much can cause them to
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function incorrectly or even damage them. And this energy that gets resisted
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has to go somewhere. So, it ends up as heat that needs to be dissipated. And
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with as many resistors as there are in modern electronics, that heat adds up
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pretty quickly. But what about the hottest parts of your computer? Your
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central processing unit or CPU and your
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graphics processing unit or GPU? Well, processors are made up of
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millions or even billions of tiny
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transistors which switch on and off. you
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know, zeros and ones to run programs.
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And since modern processors run through billions of cycles a second, these
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transistors can generate lots of heat
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due to the extra current that they use while you're putting a load on your
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processor, such as while gaming or video
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editing or compressing files. The heavier the task you're running, the
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more of them need to be switching. And this is all happening within a space of
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a few square centimeters, necessitating
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those hunks of metal or heat pipe type
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coolers that come directly into contact
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with the CPU or GPU package carrying
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heat away usually to a large metal
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radiator structure to be dissipated into the surrounding air. Again, usually by
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fans. And this is interesting. Even if
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you're only using your computer for things like Facebook and Microsoft
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Office, you still won't get very far
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without a cooler as some current is
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always running through your processor. This is called leakage, even when it's
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idle. So, seriously, don't try it unless your goal is to start another one of
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