High PCH chip temperature while idle on MSI laptop. What should I do?

Question

I have a brand new MSI GS63VR 7RF laptop, and just installed Ubuntu 16.04. Then I installed lm-sensors and ran yes | sensors-detect.

Here is what I get when I use the 'sensors' command:

pch_skylake-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +72.0°C  

acpitz-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +51.0°C  (crit = +100.0°C)
temp2:        +27.8°C  (crit = +119.0°C)
temp3:        +29.8°C  (crit = +119.0°C)

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Package id 0:  +50.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0:        +47.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1:        +49.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 2:        +49.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 3:        +49.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

Upon boot the 'pch_skylake-virtual-0' temperature rises from room temperature to ~70°C and stays at that temperature, and I do not hear much noise from the fans.

Plus fancontrol does not work as described in this question: Fan control on MSI laptop: no pwm-capable sensors?

72.0°C is not high. Perhaps it could be cooler, maybe you need to update UEFI, but in any case it is not worrisome. — , Nov 21 '17 at 03:41
I have a xps 9550 (KDE Neon) and pch_skylake-virtual-0 is around 43 when is on battery and 70 when is on AC. On windows (performance mode) I notice that on AC is much colder than linux. I think there is some problem with the power management, 70 degrees is too much. — Buntupana, Jul 03 '18 at 08:46
i have a Dell Latitude 5501, it comes with nvidia + intel gpu. I blacklisted nouveau driver to use intel chip exclusively and after that I started noticing the fan blowing, even in idle mode. PCH temp is 71°C. To validate, I reenabled the nouveau driver and indeed: laptop is silent again! also, every time I run sensors to check temp, it has dropped a bit. After 5 mins, it is at 64°C. My hypothesis: disabling nouveau driver renders nvidia chip in a default state (like in bios mode), causing it to run at default fan rpm. That or intel driver really consumes much more power than nvidia chip.. :) — mx1up, Feb 03 '21 at 21:18

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 12 '18 at 13:04

+72.0°C isn't too high. If the temperature does get too high and the fan does not kick into action the kernel will try to throttle back the CPU so that the CPU does not hit the critical trip point (this is known as passive cooling).

In theory, the fan will kick in at some firmware controlled trip point and if that is not working the kernel will start to try various passive cooling techniques - so you may notice the CPU gets sluggish if that happens because the CPU frequency gets scaled down.

I believe that modern Sandybridge CPUs have a TJmax critical thermal threshold of 100 degrees C, so your system should work OK in the upper 90 degrees C without much to worry about.

Pradeepsinh Sindhav · Answer 2 · 2018-04-14T12:06:42.560

My sensors output:

I have MSI GV62VR-7RF. This is a normal temperature for pch chips; it would be running at the same temperature on Windows. So it's ok for your laptop to have pch on 72 degrees.

>80 degrees is high and >90 degrees is harmful for pch chips.

My MSI laptops's pci is running on almost same temperatures for both windows and Ubuntu. You should not worry about it.

Note: my laptop runs at 70 to 76 degrees pch temperature on boot, while after 1-2 hours it drops to 66-70 degrees.

Also install powertop. by sudo apt-get install powertop and run sudo powertop --auto-tune on startup it will keep your pch chip much cooler.

Powertop is fantastic! From 82 to 58 degrees in just half a minute! — afrish, Oct 09 '20 at 10:22

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 05 '18 at 16:23

You can get the temperatures from the same place where sensors gets it without installing the package first. Use this one-liner:

$ paste <(cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/type) <(cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/temp) | column -s $'\t' -t
INT3400 Thermal  20000
SEN1             53000
SEN2             52000
SEN3             55000
SEN4             58000
B0D4             49000
pch_skylake      72500
x86_pkg_temp     50000

pch_skylake is the temperature sensor for the Platform Controller Hub. Here's what Wikipedia says about it:

The PCH controls certain data paths and support functions used in conjunction with Intel CPUs. These include clocking (the system clock), Flexible Display Interface (FDI) and Direct Media Interface (DMI), although FDI is only used when the chipset is required to support a processor with integrated graphics. As such, I/O functions are reassigned between this new central hub and the CPU compared to the previous architecture: some northbridge functions, the memory controller and PCI-e lanes, were integrated into the CPU while the PCH took over the remaining functions in addition to the traditional roles of the southbridge.

And because "a picture is worth a thousand words", here is a schematic:

............

_{Image: By Anas hashmi - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9817206}

High PCH chip temperature while idle on MSI laptop. What should I do?

3 Answers3