Avisynth and laptop overheat

[Silveringking]

Hi here's the question I want to use avisynth to improve quality of the rips of my dvds, but I do have a question, I heard avisynth is especially hard on laptops because those don't have a cooling system good enough to prevent the laptop from overheating.

Since that could be harmful to my Asus S550C, I have two questions:

A) Is that true?

B) If that is true, is there a way to prevent the overheating? Should I buy a mini pc or something?

Thank you so much!

[FranceBB]

Avisynth it's not "hard" itself, as it's just a frameserver, but some calculations made by certain type of filters are.
Besides, when you use avisynth to filter images or videos, it will output a lossless video stream which is then saved or compressed by a codec, which makes other calculations.
That generally leads to intensive CPU usage and that's why laptops may overheat.
Anyway, check your CPU temperature with Speccy and you'll be fine.

[Silveringking]

And if overheat in the middle of filter applying, what do I do? Just cancel everything?

[manolito]

All modern CPUs have built-in thermal throttling. This means that they will reduce speed when the CPU temperature goes higher than than the specs allow, and in extreme cases they will even shut down completely. You may lose speed when some applications cause a high CPU load over a longer time, but you will not destroy the CPU. Then again some laptop manufacturers take advantage of this safeguard and do not provide sufficient cooling for high CPU loads. This is the main reason why laptops often run slower in real life than desktop PCs with identical CPU capabilities.

Your Asus S550C should be fine running AviSynth and its filters.


Cheers
manolito

[GMJCZP]

If your concern is overheating you could also encode in parts.
StainlessS make a script for this job: Here. (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1714171#post1714171)

You should also make sure your laptop is on a straight surface, never on the bed.

There are fans that are placed under the laptop for refresh.

[raffriff42]

If you encode with VirtualDub, there is a "speed limit" slider on the encoding status dialog.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2lou08785tddwnm/vdub-throttle-01s.png?raw=1 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/bcwm5613n6pe3zf/vdub-throttle-01.png?dl=0)



There's also a program called Battle Encoder Shirase (or BES for short) that can throttle any program, including x264 & ffmpeg.
http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/how-to-limit-cpu-usage-of-a-process-in-windows/

I used to use both of these a lot, before getting a desktop with proper cooling.
I would target CPU temps around 90°C, which is really hot, but 7-10°C under thermal throttling.

[Emulgator]

And to add some more useful info to the already very good suggestions:
Internal Laptop coolers collect lint and dust much faster than desktop PCs due to their narrower fin pitch (like 1.5..2mm),
so get congested sooner than thought.
So regularily opening laptops and vacuuming dust and lint clots off the cooler is a must, especially when encoding.
Although knowing that I ran into repeated encoding breakdowns myself just 4 weeks ago,
one laptop with a 130W desktop/server CPU had such considerable air intake that I now need to clean that one every 6 months.
Other laptops with 44-55W notebook CPUs seem to need that only once every one or two years.

[kuchikirukia]

If you encode with VirtualDub, there is a "speed limit" slider on the encoding status dialog.


There's also a program called Battle Encoder Shirase (or BES for short) that can throttle any program, including x264 & ffmpeg.

Better way is just to manually downclock. It's really easy to do it by setting P-state. Just go into Advanced power settings and adjust the maximum processor state.

https://s31.postimg.org/6xm28ecrr/Capture.png (https://postimg.org/image/6xm28ecrr/)

A CPU downclocked to 1GHz running at 100% load will run cooler than if it were at 2GHz @ 50% load since it downvolts as well.

OP, you can download HWMonitor and that will show you your temps and the frequency your CPU is running at. (Just be aware your CPU downclocks automatically at idle, so if you're idle it will show something like 800MHz.

A setting of 99% Maximum Processor State in power settings should prevent the CPU from going into turbo, and that will be most of your gains.
Oh, and that 0-100% in power settings only represents 7 or 8 steps, so most of them won't do anything. My i5 4670k downclocks to the next step at 99%, 98, 93, 87, 81, 78... and now I'm bored of clicking through these numbers so I'm gonna stop.

[raffriff42]

Good suggestion. I was thinking of my old laptop running XP where max processor was not available.