w701 sudden shutdowns, on ac, on load

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walterhemming · #1 Post by **walterhemming** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 2:13 am

I started getting sudden shutdowns. At first they happened right after booting to windows, but now they happen only on load, like rendering on premiere, or running stress test. The power is simply switched off, no bleeps, no lights blinking. It doesn't boot unless I take off battery and ac adapter, and put them back on. I was able to render video on premiere when I was only on battery. The battery is in bad shape. About 30% of the original capasity.

I installed cpu temp software, and got max. Temp of 85C on one of cores.

What do you think? Heat issue? Ac adapter issue? Motherboard?

I have w701 2541, win 7 pro, 12GB ram, system on SSD, data on HDD.

Thanks!!

edit: the shutdowns happen also without battery, on ac only.

#2 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 5:24 am

Welcome to the forum.
Sounds like an overheating problem.
Remove the heatsink from the CPU, clean it up properly, remove the dust bunnies, put on fresh thermal paste (like Arctic Silver 5) and put the heatsink back on.
That should do it.

walterhemming · #3 Post by **walterhemming** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 6:02 am

Thanks a lot. I really hope that'll sort it out. At least it's easy enough to try. I'll test it next week and report back here how it goes.

My w701 has been on pretty heavy use for 4+ years. Animation post production, rendering, VJing etc. Often in dusty environment. I've vacuumed the insides regularly, but the thermal paste is original factory set.

walterhemming · #4 Post by **walterhemming** » Fri Nov 07, 2014 10:29 am

I changed the CPU thermal paste to Arctic Silver 5. While I was at it I changed the thermal paste of GPU as well.

The CPU temp during Lenovo CPU Stress test went down from 85C to 77C, but still after about 2 minutes into the stress test the computer switched off. Same happened during quicktime video rendering in Premiere CS5.

In light use the computer works fine. I'm writing with it right now.

The CPU is i7-720QM.

Any other thoughts?

To me it looks like a CPU related issue.

#5 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Fri Nov 07, 2014 12:53 pm

Try TPFancontrol, 2 versions here: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 47#p713947
Set it to 'full blast' and see if that helps.

precip9 · #6 Post by **precip9** » Fri Nov 07, 2014 1:25 pm

That is extremely hot.

I've never heard it mentioned, but if the welding in the heat sink is faulty, it is possible for the heat pipe liquid to evaporate. Something to consider if the fan is not defective.

walterhemming · #7 Post by **walterhemming** » Sat Nov 08, 2014 12:40 am

I installed the Tpfancontrol and set it to full blast. The stress test ran a lot longer, about 20 minutes, before shut down. The temperature went up slowly but steadily to 79C.

I can hear the fan blowing. It's not that easy to estimate the amount/mangitude of airflow by hand, but there is an airflow.

New fan?

#8 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Sat Nov 08, 2014 6:25 am

Could indeed be that your heatsink is defective.
But why would you want to run a stress-test all the time?

walterhemming · #9 Post by **walterhemming** » Sat Nov 08, 2014 7:55 am

Stress test, rendering in Premiere or any other cpu intensive work will shut down the computer every time. I need to do cpu intensive work most of the time I use the computer. Testing with stress test is a bit more scientific than with Premiere.

I'm going abroad for a month and a half. I decided not to take the Thinkpad with me. When I come back I'll need to decide if I replace the heatsink + fan or just get a new computer.

Thanks for your help so far. I'll report back here when I have more to tell!!

CPC464 · #10 Post by **CPC464** » Sat Nov 08, 2014 3:21 pm

You are always about CPU temperatures but, how are the GPU temps? These 17" Thinkpads have two dedicated fans and two dedicated heatsinks, one for the CPU and another one for the GPU. Coud the problem lay on the GPU fan/heatsink? n any case, when I purchased my second-hand W700, it came from a smokers house, and I had to clean very well all the dust in order to reduce temperatures: both heatsinks, but all the vents too (included the vents in keyboard next to the lodspeaker holes).

With my W700 it happens something curious: I need Tpfancontrol to be installed and working in "smart" mode in order that the GPU fan works properly. Without Tpfancontrol working in smart mode the GPU fan works too slow and late, and the system ends hanging under heavy load because GPU temp goes over 100°C. With Tpfancontrol in smart mode the GPU fan begins to spin fast as soon as the GPU reaches the 70°C, and it rarely goes over 90°C under heavy load.

Maybe this bug (or whatever it is) happens in W701 too, try tpfcontrol 0.62 in smart mode just to see how its behaviour under load...

walterhemming · #11 Post by **walterhemming** » Sun Nov 09, 2014 7:20 am

The gpu temp was about 50C. It didn't seem to rise to danger levels during gpu intensive work.

w701 sudden shutdowns, on ac, on load

w701 sudden shutdowns, on ac, on load

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