Will disabling cores potentially destory them?

[brythespy]

I have an i7-3610QM (laptop) and so far, it's acting bad... It never moves a heavy game to another core, and instead stays using one core until it gets hot and then throttles... It's stupid. Yes I have HT enabled.

So, what I did was disable two of my cores, and now everything seems fine. I did it via BIOS.

Now someone I talk to is saying that's bad, and that I'm lucky that the cores didn't die already and that I should re-enable them right now.

I called his bullshit. So is he right? Or is it a steaming load of bull.

Also, quick question without making a new thread, when the cores are disabled, are they like, really "Dormant"? or do they still pull energy.

 

[ethereal essence]

As far as damaging your cpu goes... I don't see how it would do anything to it. Does turning off your pc damage your cpu? essentially that is what you are doing. I doubt it would be different on a laptop. What disabling cores would do is give a higher ceiling for turbo/overclocking but this is a laptop. The CPU multiplier is locked so it won't turbo any higher than it did before.

As for whether the disable cores pull energy... it all depends. It could completely shut down the cores (this is common) however it is possible that a little bit of energy makes it do the disabled cores. Either way the energy that would get drawn would be minuscule if it does still draw energy.

 

[photonboy]

Disabling cores isn't bad.
I don't know if any current still leaks, but if so it's less than having them on.

It sounds like the game can only use two cores, but the extra heat by having all four causes a problem. I'm surprised it would matter that much though.

If you have VSYNC OFF your game tends to run your computer hot since there's no frame rate cap. You may wish to try VSYNC ON OR OFF.

You may wish to also try just disabling one core to get the best balance if this is going to be permanent.