Like a lot of t43/p owners i've read and read again all threads discussing about fan noise. I made some tests on my t43/p.

Symptoms (I think most of us have these one) : my t43/p will be quiet during the 10 first minutes and then it will fan in a middle rpm (louder than a t40/41/42).

I saw that even with a fine tuning making the tp consume very few current (I mean powerplay set to min perf, cpu 800MHz at 0.700Vcore, LCD to min, all hardware not used --> disabled), my t43p will continue its annoying fanning activity. In these conditions it eats 13 watts and in a 21°C room, the cpu will stay at 41-42°C. Most of laptops won't eat less current in an idle state. Anyway, in these conditions, the fan will blow quite cold air.

Until here, nothing that was not discussed in other threads. In these other threads, a possible cause identified was that the fan is triggered by a lot of temperature sensors and that some components would need a constant air flow through the case to keep them "cold" enough.

To verify (not very professionnal) this theory i tried this :
I booted twice my t43p (each time from cold).
1st time : dynamic switching and idle (keeping the cpu at 800MHz at 0.700Vcore). The cpu temp raised slowly. when the cpu temp reached 38°C, the fan began to blow.

2nd time : max perf and not undervolted (keeping the cpu at 1866MHz at 1.308Vcore), and I ran prime95. The cpu temp raised quite quickly. The fan began to blow at 50°C !!!

My conclusion (hope it's right) : in these situations, the fan was not triggered by the cpu temp sensor.

After a lot of brainstorming I thought (and it's here where i need other's advice) : what component is there in a t43/p and not in previous model.

The chipset !!!
is it possible that the northbridge is always working at 533MHz even in an adaptative power scheme and that this chip is monitored and requires consequently this constant air flow ?

If it was the case, what solutions to keep it cooler ?
- bind a copper pipe from the northbridge to the rest of the copper cooling system
- put an alu heat spreader to have a better dissipation surface
-...

I set this thread with a poll to avoid stressed people to have to write an answer with just their opinion whether they think it's the chipset or not.

I noticed that everyone was questioning whether or not it was the BIOS that was responsible for the poor thermal management.

I did a little digging and it seems there is an "Embedded Controller" that seems to control all of the thermal aspects of our laptops.

If you open your "Thinkpad Configuration" application, under system information/details you can see your Embedded Controller version.

For T43p's the current version is 1.03

This version can also be downloaded from IBM's support site and one will notice that under "Summary of changes" it notes;


Version 1YHT26WW (1.03)
Note: This version of Embedded Controller Program will only work with BIOS Version 1.00b to 1.04.

* (Fix) Adjustment for CPU thermal sensor error.


Now I don't know if this will fix our problems, I have not seen anything great about the thermal management of our laptops so I'm hoping they will have an updated version soon.

Here is the link for T43p's
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-59120

If you have problems with the link, Go to IBM support and search for "Embedded Controller" under downloads

But even with the northbridge running at 533 MHz always, won't explain why many T43/p models
are so quiet (and that too without using CHC or any other undervolting software)!

Be sure that it was the first thing i did. Updating all that was "updatable". I'm currently running the version 1.03 and the version 1.22 for BIOS.

My t43p is not very noisy by the way. I just wonder why this ennoying fan "fans" at the same speed whether i'm playing or surfing. It keeps always its middle rpm behaviour. I consider this speed/noise as quiet while gaming (I mean quieter than my previous laptop - acer travelmate 4500 dothan 1.5, 1gb ddr333, radeon 9700). But for surfing and other office activities, I want my t43p to be either "fanless" or not noisier than a t40/p, t41/p or t42/p.

Again : i made my t43p consuming around 13 watts (not more than previous versions of thinkpad). If these 13 watts are dispatched between LCD, CPU, mem, GPU/mem, hdd, CHIPSET, I'm sure that it doesn't require such a storm to keep it cool.

To be more accurate (in a 21°C room):
idle situation : 800MHz at 0.700Vcore, powerplay set to minperf, cpu stays at 42°C.
load situation (gaming) : 1866MHz at 1.164Vcore, powerplay set to maxperf+fireglV3200 overclocked to 480/300 core/mem in state of 400/250, cpu will stay at 66°C-70°C
If the cpu/gpu don't require more fanning at 66°C, I don't know it's them that require the middle rpm behaviour at 42°C.


Were there also 14'' quiet t43p ? I saw in this forum that almost all of 15'' were quiet but I wonder I find a 14'' t43p that would be as quiet as previous version (only for office purpose).

There is a problem in heat management!!!
BTW don't ask me to return the thinkpad. I bought exactly the same model for my father and its behaviour is the same...

I will seek this problem until the end of my life

Confirmation : chipsets (northbridge & southbridge) are becoming very hot (i mean more than 50°C when idling though it's an estimation ; i burned my fingers on them ). I opened my t43p and built a homemade cooling system for that (not very professionnal but it works). I used arctic silver and an aluminium plate for the northbridge. I bound both chipsets to the copper cooling system by using aluminium sheets (like for cooking).

It's not perfect. I really want to rebuild that system with some copper but I haven't the material. Nevertheless, my t43p reduces sometimes it's fan speed to the same as previous versions (40, 41, 42).

I think it's a big step in our seek since it means that ibm/lenovo won't be able to fix the fan issue by a software patch. I think the solution is to evacuate chipsets heat by using the copper cooling system that is just next to them.

I have to find copper sheets (like aluminium cooking sheets but in copper). Because i don't think "aluminium heat pipe" would be great for that job, though it reduces the chipset heat problem.

They changes mother board but still .... having same heating issue. can't keep on my lap after browsing internet for 30 mins.

Since this is not a very CPU intensive work I assume it's north and south bridge. producing heat.

nrj45, this is great information. I am debating whether or not to open the thinkpad and start with some anti-heat additions for the chipset.

When you said the following:



I am curious, how did you get to run at 42C?? The lowest I can get (constant) is 45C, with short drops to 44C.

Rhino, thanks for your interest (i feared i was the only "geek" to try finding a solution instead of waiting on ibm/lenovo ).

- I'm running CHC (800Mhz at 700mVcore)
- powerplay set to minperf
- unused hardware disabled (CardBus controller, ethernet, floppy controller, modem, lpt).

BTW, if i set the LCD to min, i have about 13 watts consumption.

I wonder why the engineers didn't include the chipsets in the cooling system... The chipsets aren't far from the big copper plate of the long fan piece.

I took some photographies of my t43p during the process. Send me a private message with your email if you are interested.

Do anybody know in what kind of shop can i get copper sheets ? I really want to "upgrade" my "aluminium heat pipe".

It sure seems to me that the NorthBridge is where this problem is rooted.

(sry for saying Southbridge in email nrj45)

I am thinking about arctic silver and custom copper plating tonight... We'll see if I feel like doing this later..

just a bit on the DIE of the northbridge before applying the aluminium plate you can see on the 1st pic i sent to you.

Now I have to go sleeping a bit (02:54 am in switzerland)

enjoy tuning the cooling system of your t43p

While this is from my other thread, I think it makes sense for people reading this thread to learn.



I noticed this too.

While the fan is working hard, take out the slim-bay drive/battery and leave it open. Then put your fingers next to the open sli-bay slot. You can feel the system sucking in air, which suggests that when the bay is used, much needed air is having trouble entering. We are talking at opposite ends of the laptop.

I just purchased:
-Arctic silver type compund
-Random Heatsinks small in size (ram hs)

My next steps are to:
-Take apart the T43p
-Measure the amount of space I have above the ()bridge to work with
-Machine down the heatsinks to work in space measured
-Apply arctic silver and heatsinks (strategically) to keep chipset cool

I will update this thread once completed, hopefully around 3am PST.

Just to inform you about my T42, seems that your T43's run both hotter and take alot more energy.

At the current moment, I only have the ethernet cable attached, and the power consumption is between 10.5-11.4w, screen at 3, everything else minimal (.7v).
When I remove the cables, and type for example, consumption will go as low as 10w, put the screen to 0, I've gotten 9 and, it'll fluctuate a little but it'll be around 9ish.

Temperature of the room seems avarage, 20 perhaps, or a bit more. Machine's temp has been stable for the whole time, 38 degrees, HDD at 33, fan hasn't been on at all.

Then plugged in again, temp rose to 40, fan went on, and hasn't been off since, even when the temperature went back to 38.

Machine more or less idling, the only process that jumps with its CPU load is lovely Firefox and it's poor memory managing, 0-20% jumps all the time.

I have the T43p completely broken down.

I have found a few things so far that concern me:

-Fan & copper plate were mounted a little off, so the ATI GPU had some wierd kind of burn happening to the side of it where the copper wasn't covering. That, or, the wierd red rubber-like glue'ish material had burned from the copper plate onto the top of the GPU. For a brand new T43p, it doesn't look right.

-Redish rubber-like glue'ish material between GPU and copper plate. What the heck is it? It is not like the silver compund you see on the CPU, this is wierd. It is mostly hard, however it is brittle. I used my fingernail on some that had been squished out the side and it came off easily (& cleanly).

-In addition to the redish rubber-like glue'ish material, there was a little "mat" or "pad" covering it. This pad, or mat was what made contact with the GPU. At first I thought it was something that IBM manufacturers forgot to remove, something that kept the redish stuff from touching anything prior to install, but now I do not know. The mat or pad comes right off with tremendous ease. I peel it off (not sticky) and place it back on no problem... I need to find out what this is.

-No cooling for the Northbridge. None, zero, nada, zip. The way the fan works, it won't even cool the chip if it had to. That is my current theory as to WHY the fan runs constantly. This chip NEEDS to be cooled, or, the sensor(s) need to be altered. I am going to try to mount a heatsink to this chip when I go back to the workbench.


Notes:

Air suction comes from "above" the audio jacks and will not be a problem. On previous T series models it has been similar. That does not concern me too much.

Sticker strip covering north end of the keyboard is a joke. You will only know what I mean once you take apart the thinkpad case.

More to come later..
Stop at nothing until we find the answer!

I'm back, and, yes the laptop is running 2C cooler. Fan noise, however, has not subsided.

Detailed post with pictures coming in next few minutes )

We (t43/p owners) are definately getting somewhere...

I had gone through many different ideas as to how to setup a heatsink or heat plate to help dissapate the heat, especially from the northbridge.

As noted above, in one of my recent posts, I had concerns about the wierd redish rubber-like material on the heat plate. Here is a picture, however, the red looks black because of my camera phone (only digi cam on me - sry):



My original plan was to take a (RAM) heatsink and machine it to smaller specs. You can see my heatsink in the middle of machining here:



After machining the top of the heatsink, I then machined underneath. I made it so that it could sit on top of the northbridge chip AND the GPU. Since they are not level, it took some measuring and trial an error. In the end I had a good fit. The only problem was, I couldn't mount the heatsink and get it to stay in place. Arhg. So, I decided to scrap that project and move on to another.

This time I decided to use a piece of thin metal, very high quality material. The theory was to get the heat to the copper plate so the heat transfer can take place and the fan can do its job as it needs to. Also, to allow for extra cooling on the northbridge, which we have come to think of as the problem with the fan running. I took the piece of metal, cut it into a shape that was (imo) good for mounting on the GPU, northbridge chip, and also the chip above the GPU. 3 Birds with 1 stone. After cutting the material, I used a vise to make bends in it to ensure that it would sit perfectly. Here is a picture of the metal after most of the bends:



Next I mounted the metal underneath the copper plate (in order to secure it tightly). This mounting also made the other 2 contact points on the other 2 chips secure. I made bends on the ends of the metal to also add additional security to the device. Before mounting, I placed silver thermal compound on each of the contact points (chip meats metal etc). Here is a picture after installing the metal piece and mounting the thinkpad devices back in place:



So that outlines what I did. I do have many more photos (same quality -sry), but I think these show the general steps I took.

Now, for the results:

-Fan noise is still the same.
-CPU temp showing a consistant 2C cooler! )

I have some more ideas, and I hope to have this thing apart and be back at it again tomorrow.

If we don't give up, we should be able to find out answers to our questions by the end of this thread. Which not only will help us, but all of the future people who have these problems.

Take care..

I wonder if ibm/lenovo would make available a new cooling system. The same as now but with the copper plate that would cover the chipsets that are just next to it now...

I ordered Zalman Ram Heastsinks. I think I can easily machine those down to work well with the system. I have ideas. I think they will arrive Thursday. I will post my setup with them then.

Friday is my last day for sending the Laptop back to IBM/Lenovo. It is the end of the 30 day return period (I asked a rep, it is 30 days).

I am going to continue to do everything I can here to fix this for the sake of all T43/p owners, however if I can't by Friday I might be sending this thing back!

I bought a copper sheet (1.5m x 50cm x 0.3mm). I am now testing my new copper based cooling system .
Pics will soon be available.
Enjoy

Do you guys think we can swap the heat sink 26R8197 on a 1875 model with 26R7957 on a 2686 model? I found the 1875 model have the copper for Northbridge, but not my 2686 model.

I finished the copper version of my cooling system. i have some pics. They are available here : http://rapidshare.de/files/4302613/nrj4 ... m.zip.html

[edit]
Guess what ? the fan even stops sometimes !!!

How's the fan noise between these 2 models?

Do anybody know a soft to display rpm of the fan on t43/p ?

If I may ask, doesn''t the fiddling with the cooling system violate your warranty? I mean it doesn't seem that weird for IBM, or Lenovo now, to refuse the repair after seeing that one has built a whole layer of gadgets, pipes and metal sheets on top of the usual hardware.

And just for clarification, are we all talking about the fan running while being on AC, or both?

I need a reference for this part: 26R8197 Heatsink

If the unit is the same in specs, except it has a thin copper plate extending to the northbridge, then YES, it should work. But, be careful, as there is not much room between the northbridge and the wireless PCB (as you can see in my picture above). So this extra piece of copper stretching to the northbridge MUST be VERY thin. Since the northbridge is not the same level as the GPU, the copper must bend or be suited to fit perfectly on both surfaces in order to provide maximum contact of the surface area(s).

NRJ, send me the pictures! ) Use the same email address as before.

NRJ, I don't know of software that will monitor the RPM. Maybe you can use a decibel (dB) meter? That *might* be able to give an accurate reading on how much the cooling enhancments are helping.

Of course it violates the warranty (since i had to ship my father's t43p to replace the palmrest due to fingerpring reader hardware problem even if i asked to replace the piece myself ).

If i have some problems, i simply remove my cooling system, clean the chips where i put thermal paste with isopropylic alcohol and ship my t43p.

Here is the link for the pics you requested : http://rapidshare.de/files/4302613/nrj4 ... m.zip.html

Thanks for the link to rapidshare.de

link doesn't work.
Is there a ".html" at the end of the link?
But even if I take the .html out, the link still doesn't work.

Click the link, scroll to the end of the page, choose free download, wait the 20 seconds this site requires before making the link available, right click save as...

Got the files. Thanks.

Nice work.

I think you should ask IBM to adopt your design. Just a simple piece of metal which solves the fan issue and it can surely boost the sales and decrease the return rate of T43.