Why are the two temperatures so different? How hot is too hot?

Asked by Lori Headrick

I have two temperature readings in the Hardware Sensors Indicator in Ubuntu 12.04:
1. Under "libsensors" in the preferences something is entitled "temp1" ( this was default; I did not name it)
         This temperature is currently 89.0 Celsius. It tends to go up as far as 95 Celsius, then it begins to cool, coming down as low as 77 Celsius, then it rises again. At times it gets hot and stays hot for a while before cooling.

2. Under "udisks" in the preferences is "Toshiba MK8032GSX".
         This temperature is currently 46 Celsius, and fluctuates only a couple of degrees either way. I have never seen it get hotter than 50 degrees Celsius.

I know my laptop has a built in sensor that automatically shuts it down when it gets "too hot", but that has only happened in Windows (without graphical sensors to tell me how hot it was), and only on hot days in summer. My laptop has never automatically shut down from being too hot while running Ubuntu.

   What does each temperature represent? When is my computer "too hot"? I am running a Toshiba Satellite laptop circa 2005 with an Intel Celeron M processor.
     Thanks for all you do....

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Alex Murray
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Best Alex Murray (alexmurray) said :
#1

Hi

libsensors generally provides CPU and motherboard temperatures so I would say temp1 represents the temperature of the CPU. The value of up to 95C is pretty high but not abnormal for CPUs in laptops (this is around the upper range of temperatures for CPUs) and if it automatically cools down once it reaches this value then I think you have nothing to worry about.

udisks (as the name sort of suggests) provides hard disk temperatures so the Toshiba MK... is the make and model of the hard disk in your laptop and this is the temperature of that - and 50C is quite a normal temperature for a disk and nothing to worry about either.

I wouldn't be suprised if your laptop automatically shuts down if the CPU temp gets much above 95C since as I said above this is in the upper range of the operating temperature for most CPUs. Hope that helps.

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Lori Headrick (redlea1) said :
#2

Thanks Alex Murray, that solved my question.