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7.2.2
Thermal Monitor and Catastrophic Thermal Protection
Intel
®
Core™ i7/i5/i3 and Celeron
®
processors have a thermal monitor feature that helps to control the processor temperature. The integrated
TCC (Thermal Control Circuit) activates if the processor silicon reaches its maximum operating temperature. The activation temperature that
the Intel
®
Thermal Monitor uses to activate the TCC can be slightly modified via TCC Activation Offset in BIOS setup submenu “CPU submenu”.
The Thermal Monitor can control the processor temperature through the use of two different methods defined as TM1 and TM2. TM1 method
consists of the modulation (starting and stopping) of the processor clocks at a 50% duty cycle. The TM2 method initiates an Enhanced Intel
Speedstep transition to the lowest performance state once the processor silicon reaches the maximum operating temperature.
Note
The maximum operating temperature for Intel
®
Core™ i7/i5/i3 and Celeron
®
processors is 100°C.
To ensure that the TCC is active for only short periods of time, thus reducing the impact on processor performance to a minimum, it is necessary
to have a properly designed thermal solution. The Intel
®
Core™ i7/i5/i3 and Celeron
®
processor’s respective datasheet can provide you with
more information about this subject.
THERMTRIP# signal is used by Intel
®
’s Core™ i7/i5/i3 and Celeron
®
processors for catastrophic thermal protection. If the processor’s silicon
reaches a temperature of approximately 125°C then the processor signal THERMTRIP# will go active and the system will automatically shut
down to prevent any damage to the processor as a result of overheating. The THERMTRIP# signal activation is completely independent from
processor activity and therefore does not produce any bus cycles.
Note
In order for THERMTRIP# to be able to automatically switch off the system, it is necessary to use an ATX style power supply.
7.2.3
Processor Performance Control
Intel
®
Core™ i7/i5/i3 and Celeron
®
processors found on the conga-TC87 run at different voltage/frequency states (performance states), which
is referred to as Enhanced Intel
®
SpeedStep
®
technology (EIST). Operating systems that support performance control take advantage of
microprocessors that use several different performance states in order to efficiently operate the processor when it’s not being fully used.
The operating system will determine the necessary performance state that the processor should run at so that the optimal balance between
performance and power consumption can be achieved during runtime.
The Windows family of operating systems links its processor performance control policy to the power scheme setting. You must ensure that the
power scheme setting you choose has the ability to support Enhanced Intel
®
SpeedStep
®
technology.
