Merom (Core 2 Duo) Notebooks consumes 80 watts under load

PC Magzine tests some Core 2 Duo notebooks and finds Merom literally hot. Now, your laptop will have a more violent explosion.

Some people say 80 watts was measured when it's plugged into the AC outlet. They say, if using batteries, the Core Duo will clock down and save power. I find this argument unavailing. You can't argue that Core 2 Duo is fast at 80 watts, then argue it's low power at half the speed.

In a Tomshardware test, Turion 64 X2 frags Core Duo in most of the tests. The 2GHZ Turion TL60 frags the Core Duo 2GHZ T2500, 7 to 4. Toms also benched the two thin & light notebooks, the Turion TL60 of course frags the 1.86GHZ Core Duo T2400 (7 to 2). Moreover, Turion 64 X2 is 64 bit.

You should note that these reviewers are not very bright dudes. They can install and run benchmark programs, but whenever they try to figure out something themselves, they make themselves look like fools. Remember Anand's so called negative Opteron scaling? This is the case here. Toms' so called multitasking benchmark is simply stupid. He runs multiple different programs simultaneously and measures the final completion time. Obviously, the result of this test will be determined by the slowest single threaded program and OS scheduling algorithm is a major factor. The better way to do multitasking test is lauching multiple instances of the same program.

Some people keep saying Intel CPUs were not the cause of laptop explosions. They are wrong. Batteries won't explode by itself, therefore the explosion was caused by something else. If you take the batteries out of the notebook, the batteries won't explode--even Qanta airline folks understand this. If you take out the CPU, the batteries won't explode. Thus, the Intel CPU is a key factor in the explosion of notebooks. I have analysed this and my findings were conclusive. It was obvious that the Intel CPUs could not sustain a fire of several minutes, but it was the initial cause of the explosions. Some IBM folks pointed out that CPU heat is causing laptop to explode.

I have previously conjectured that the Core Duo CPUs melted and/or exploded, creating a short circuit and leading to subsequent explosion of the capacitors and batteries. So far, there is nothing to disprove this analysis.

Some readers have taken my last senetence above out of context. Let me summarize my analysis again:

1) Batteries won't explode by themselves.
2) Therefore, explosion was caused by something else.
3) If you take out the Intel CPU, the batteries in Intel laptops won't explode.
4) Therefore, Intel CPU is a neccessary factor for the batteries in Intel laptops to explode.
5) Furthermore, I have shown Intel laptops' max power consumption is large and its spike may be off normal operating parameters.
6) All other elements of the notebook are less likely candicates of the cause of laptop explosion due to their lesser current reqiurements and lesser power densities.
7) With others ruled out, Intel CPU is the only direct cause of explosion of Intel laptops.

Some readers brought out problems with G4 laptop fires. That only proves that the G4 is also bad. It doesn't proven Intel is good.

Get it?

As for the sequence of events, my analysis was that Core Duo first overheats, resulting a short circuit, then the large current and the failure of Sony batteries' cutoff mechanism result in secondary explosions.

How did a short circuit develop?

There was an INQ article showing a picture where the pins of an Intel CPU melted. Now, consider the situation where two melted metal pins, one ground and one positive make contact with each other -- that's a short circuit. The power on that short circuit is V^2/R, since R is near zero, the power is extremely large. A battery stores about 50WH, now imagine that much of heat releases in a fraction of a second, most of the heat is inside the battery. The result is catastrophic as evidenced by those explosions.