In one embodiment a method includes operating a component coupled to the system at a first steady state average power consumption, measuring the temperature of the component to produce a first temperature measurement, operating the component at a second, higher power consumption for a first time period, and measuring the temperature of the component at the end of the first time period to produce a second temperature measurement. A transient thermal metric is calculated based at least in part on the first and second temperature measurements, and the transient thermal metric is used to infer the thermal coupling status of a heat dissipation appliance that is nominally thermally coupled to the component.