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I keep seeing thermal issues come back to bite some of the smartest companies with products designed by the world's best engineers. Everything from batteries to

I keep seeing thermal issues come back to bite some of the smartest companies with products designed by the world's best engineers. Everything from batteries to laptops to phones is severely affected by heat, and improper thermal design can lead to some huge issues. For example, the biggest thing affecting battery life is thermal load. The biggest thing affecting the maximum sustained power of a laptop or phone is the thermal design. Anyone can slap a cheap, powerful chip in; good thermal design is much harder. I think people are going to start realizing this more and more, especially as powerful chips get extremely cheap.

zengid 8y ago
That's really interesting. Do you have any suggestions on some further reading?
bri3d 8y ago
Don't forget the infamous Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death, caused by incorrect thermal management causing balls on a BGA package to lift from the board underneath as it deflected.
- Puer 8y ago
  Which is ironically also how you fixed it. I'll never forget the "magic" of wrapping my Xbox 360 in several towels and overheat for 30 minutes to supposedly resolder it back together. It worked for another 6 months after that until it completely and finally died.
  - lloeki 8y ago
    The problem was more precisely that thermal variations combined with the way the heatsink was attached and pushing on the middle of the CPU repeatedly warped the board due to thermal expansion, causing the balls to unseat. Heating the thing would help reseat the BGA thanks to thermal expansion but would certainly not reflow soldering (not enough heat). The proper fix was to try to reseat the BGA by whatever means and change the way the heatsink was attached so that pressure on the BGA/board was even. I did that on two units and they survived for years after their first RRoD, and on a third unit right from the get go, and that one never suffered of any issue.
- macNchz 8y ago
  The Xbox 360 is the only thing I’ve ever bought the 3rd-party warranty for at an electronics store. I don’t really know why I did it that day, but I sure was happy to have paid the $20 or whatever when I wound up exchanging FIVE of them before I got one that lasted more than a few months. What a mess.
r00fus 8y ago
Is the Intel upgrade treadmill is starting to show its age? How much longer can we keep making the chips "faster" when the tradeoff is increasingly just more thermal issues? Can't wait for a decent A-series chip MacBook.
- megaman22 8y ago
  Well, we could go back to having laptops that are thicker than a Bic pen and have actual cooling systems in them. I have physical spiral bound paper notebooks that are thicker and heavier than my work notebook.
- StillBored 8y ago
  Why do you think putting an ARM in a laptop will solve anything? If you want 5-8 year old x86 performance buy a HP envy and see how well your full blown desktop apps run. https://www.cnet.com/reviews/hp-envy-x2-snapdragon-835-review/ https://www.cnet.com/reviews/hp-envy-x2-snapdragon-835-revie...
  - kalleboo 8y ago
    Apple's A11 benchmarks twice as fast as the Snapdragon 835. And if Apple was going to put an ARM in a laptop, they would surely design a chip specific to that use case with even higher performance than one that has to go into a passively-cooled smartphone. (not saying I'm convinced an Apple ARM would actually outperform the x86 but that waving around Snapdragon machine doesn't prove your point)
    - sheeshkebab 8y ago
      I don’t want an iPad for my laptop (I love my iPad but it’s utterly unfit for anything but browsing around)
- earenndil 8y ago
  The 'intel upgrade treadmill' consists of reducing transistor size and upping clock; the former of which reduces thermal issues, and the latter of which increases them.
Shivetya 8y ago
some of it in Apple's case can be ascribed to their quest for reducing the thickness of the laptops to the point we lost not only ports it may be affecting their ability to adequately cool them

zengid 8y ago

That's really interesting. Do you have any suggestions on some further reading?

bri3d 8y ago

Don't forget the infamous Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death, caused by incorrect thermal management causing balls on a BGA package to lift from the board underneath as it deflected.

Puer 8y ago
Which is ironically also how you fixed it. I'll never forget the "magic" of wrapping my Xbox 360 in several towels and overheat for 30 minutes to supposedly resolder it back together. It worked for another 6 months after that until it completely and finally died.
- lloeki 8y ago
  The problem was more precisely that thermal variations combined with the way the heatsink was attached and pushing on the middle of the CPU repeatedly warped the board due to thermal expansion, causing the balls to unseat. Heating the thing would help reseat the BGA thanks to thermal expansion but would certainly not reflow soldering (not enough heat). The proper fix was to try to reseat the BGA by whatever means and change the way the heatsink was attached so that pressure on the BGA/board was even. I did that on two units and they survived for years after their first RRoD, and on a third unit right from the get go, and that one never suffered of any issue.
macNchz 8y ago
The Xbox 360 is the only thing I’ve ever bought the 3rd-party warranty for at an electronics store. I don’t really know why I did it that day, but I sure was happy to have paid the $20 or whatever when I wound up exchanging FIVE of them before I got one that lasted more than a few months. What a mess.

r00fus 8y ago

Is the Intel upgrade treadmill is starting to show its age? How much longer can we keep making the chips "faster" when the tradeoff is increasingly just more thermal issues? Can't wait for a decent A-series chip MacBook.

megaman22 8y ago
Well, we could go back to having laptops that are thicker than a Bic pen and have actual cooling systems in them. I have physical spiral bound paper notebooks that are thicker and heavier than my work notebook.
StillBored 8y ago
Why do you think putting an ARM in a laptop will solve anything? If you want 5-8 year old x86 performance buy a HP envy and see how well your full blown desktop apps run. https://www.cnet.com/reviews/hp-envy-x2-snapdragon-835-review/ https://www.cnet.com/reviews/hp-envy-x2-snapdragon-835-revie...
- kalleboo 8y ago
  Apple's A11 benchmarks twice as fast as the Snapdragon 835. And if Apple was going to put an ARM in a laptop, they would surely design a chip specific to that use case with even higher performance than one that has to go into a passively-cooled smartphone. (not saying I'm convinced an Apple ARM would actually outperform the x86 but that waving around Snapdragon machine doesn't prove your point)
  - sheeshkebab 8y ago
    I don’t want an iPad for my laptop (I love my iPad but it’s utterly unfit for anything but browsing around)
earenndil 8y ago
The 'intel upgrade treadmill' consists of reducing transistor size and upping clock; the former of which reduces thermal issues, and the latter of which increases them.

Shivetya 8y ago

some of it in Apple's case can be ascribed to their quest for reducing the thickness of the laptops to the point we lost not only ports it may be affecting their ability to adequately cool them