Thinkpad T43p heating

[boodi]

Good day.
Probably the problem has been discussed hundreds time
I need a fast thrusty opinion

My t43p gpu/cpu temperature this year with summer has increased considerably , gpu goes over 70 and cpu at times goes over 90 .. first time happening , in last 3 years of use

The fan seems to operate flawlessly , it goes full steam with tp fancontrol over 90 and seems it can't manage to keep cpu temperature under 90 in some situations .

Should i follow instruction and open the chassis, for adding some thermal compound over both cpu and gpu ?

[Neil]

Yes. Yes, you should. If that T43p has never before been opened up there is almost certainly a build up of dust, and the thermal compound must have dried out.

[ajkula66]

I also recommend replacing the original M24 fan with M10 which is long fan from T42/p.

Using Notebook Hardware Control or IBM ECW (latter was created by a fellow forum member) to undervolt the CPU and underclock the GPU also helps in my experience.

Good luck.

[boodi]

I will.
And will keep you posted .
first thing in the week end i will open the t43p , remove the dust , and apply thermal compound after cleaning the remain , over both cpu and gpu .
then i will look also into undervolting and underclock the cpu / gpu

[boodi]

As scheduled I bought a 4g artic silver thermal grease yesterday , found time today for the job and I'm in the process .
I just removed the keyboard and fully opened the chassis ; not much of dust around , besides the inside of the fan cooler . I unscrewed the 3 screws in the brass holes of the fan , but the fan won't come off or pull off its place ..it's like glued or something to the bottom..( cpu/gpu chips? )and I'm afraid pulling too strong could damage something .

wait for assistance here

my thinkpad looks exactly like this
http://www.insidemylaptop.com/replace-c ... 43-laptop/

I've swapped literally hundreds of them, sometimes with a few choice words coming out of my mouth, but never damaging anything, and using only a thin screwdriver or a razor blade - for the most stubborn fans.

tryin with a knife blade ( to big ? can't see how can give me an help .. the faces are glued ) , a razor blade ( to loose ? just damaged it , and cut a finger; it bends to much , on the upper side it can enter between the 2 faces but then it bends when using it as a lever ), and dental floss ( after a promosing beginning now it doesn't do literally nothing to the grey thermal paste in between , even after 20 minutes of working with it )

[ajkula66]

The screw above the PCMCIA cage needs to come out as well.

Once that is done, you can use a *very* thin screwdriver/blade to slowly lift the heatsink from the CPU side. You might also have to scrape off some of the compound from the GPU side if it's giving you grief.

Take your time and proceed with a steady hand.

Good luck.

[boodi]

I removed also the screw on top of the pmccia cage .
I kind of removed the thermal compound in excess at the sides ( the 3 visible sides ) of the gpu , with dental floss and razor blade work , but it didn't change the fact the dark paste force is strong

I have a little flat screwdriver which i can insert for some micron maybe close to a mm inside
leveraging on the inside of the contact-border with some pressure didn't work , I'm assuming more strenght will damage something of the chip

edit i YET damaged ( scratches ) the sides-angles of the white cover of the gpu
1 hour working on it at moment..

[ajkula66]

Are you able to lift the CPU side of the heatsink?

[boodi]

it seems so , yes

[ajkula66]

Gently but persistently tap with the blade/screwdriver on the space between heatsink and GPU. They will eventually separate.

Good luck.

[boodi]

since it was 2 hours i was behind it i used a hair drier with a direction cone on the heatsink part over the gpu for just 2minutes and repeatedly pulling the dental floss stucked in between the 2 faces, i finally after some time pulling + hair drier , was able to pull it .
i removed and cleaned all the thermal grease remain over both cpu and gpu ( on gpu it was dried and pretty burned on cpu was not burned and not dried .. ), and applied the new one .

I closed the chassis and now switched on the pc , will do a usual daily session with the loading and running of the java app I use the most to see maximum temperatures where they land and how they settle on loads


next thing will be undervolting cpu
and underclocking gpu

[boodi]

cpu temperature did not reach 80 degrees , it's fairly lower ..
gpu temprature not changed very much instead , it's gone 72-73..

pc still kind of * very * laggy on opening firefox and browsing , at this point all i wonder if some cleaning or system optimization can help....

even scrolling the forum page from top to down is an un-flowing experience
leave alone loading&browsing pages full of images

[ajkula66]

cpu temperature did not reach 80 degrees , it's fairly lower ..
gpu temprature not changed very much instead , it's gone 72-73..

Do bear in mind that it takes time for paste to settle and produce optimal results...

pc still kind of * very * laggy on opening firefox and browsing , at this point all i wonder if some cleaning or system optimization can help....

What type of a hard drive do you have in there?

[boodi]

western digital 80gb 5400rpm

I think the serious lack of speed i am referring is mostly depending on graphic operations
even the pointer at some occasion and times scatters to go from one side to the other of the screen

[ajkula66]

western digital 80gb 5400rpm

That's going to be a three-legged-dog-with-a-bout-of-diarrhea on anything newer than W2K...

[boodi]

ok I will change it
but bear in mind , even with non hard disk operations ( hd ligh off and no data loads/unloads ) i have the aforementioned lag issues ( scatter and hiccup graphics on screen both loading and moving in browsing internet )

in other words : 1 year ago this laptop was faster , never been slower or faster on data operations , which is not likely what I'm complaining in particular

[Neil]

...lack of speed i am referring is mostly depending on graphic operations...

Sure does seem to be the case doesn't it? What operating system are you using? And, do you have the proper graphics driver installed?

Although, the lag when opening Firefox (or any other app) is more likely due to the slow hard drive. The other symptoms do seem like a graphics driver issue.

[boodi]

I will replace the hard drive ( dont know if to opt for an ssd , will check prices ) .

The system is windows 8 .

The graphic driver : I'll upgrade later this week or even tonight if possible to the 10.2 legacy/mobility modded catalyst , as I've read around they can run w8+ati fire gl on t43p supposely without any issue .

Will report on temperatures after 200hrs the thermal paste has broken in , at moment cpu reaches 80 on sustained loads , which is 13 14 degrees better then before ; the gpu still high though , 73-74 that is just a couple degrees lower then before .
It doesn't happen when the pc lays stable , for example on a table in the same position for hours.

I will likely have to underclock it ( after the graphic driver update ) .
What software should i preferably run for doing it ?



Edit : the last thing which possibly will remain unsolved is the occasional freezes that i experience when moving the t43p in different positions ( or, in particular , touching underneath the bottom chassis in some ways, it seems the pc freezes completely : moving it in another position or touching in another manner it unfreezes ).
I thought this was due to the hd anti-shock system but someone suggested that it may be a defective/desoldered part southbridge, and in this case i've been answered there' not very much i could do apart changing mainboard

[boodi]

I tried installing the modded catalyst 10.2 but when insalling it says it doesn't find the hardware ( the fire gl 3200 ati card )

[boodi]

bad experience with the catalyst drivers , after patch and running the setup in compatibility mode they installed recognising the fire GL card, but the pc was much less stable then before , with continuous freeze and windows recover "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" on very basic operations ( opening firefox , can't even imagine opening a video or youtube ) .

Max temperatures reached while running the catalyst drivers were 85 for cpu and 77 for gpu .

Operative System is Windows 8.1

So i had to revert back to microsoft basic graphic adapter drivers , which run quite stable apart for the aforementioned lags.
Any idea ?

[RealBlackStuff]

A T601 Frankenpad comes to mind...

[boodi]

I will get it, most likely later this year
at moment since i began "optimizing" this machine (t43p) and got base knowledge about it lately , I would like to finalize it

So I will change the HD
Most of all I'd have to understand a workaround for having the graphic adapter stable and not lagging under windows 8.1 ( or 10 if i upgrade ) , at moment i tried the catalyst legacy 10.2 altered with mobility modder and they are not stable at all


EDIT: unfortunately from yesterday , even though i reverted back to microsoft basic graphics drivers , something happened and the lag/freezes increased .....
I yet uninstalled catalyst but likely they changed something ( in the reg? ) , or as I noriced temperatures are higher as well and that is the main cause (?);

I imagine something remained changed from the catalyst install / uninstall and did not restore exactly the same cofiguration/files running before ; the graphics seems partially faster , but temperature goes up faster too , and the lags/scatter seem to depend also on it

i will try restoring to a previous windows system restore point, also because i do not think i can underclock the Fire GL3200 graphic card without its ati proprietary drivers running

[shawross]

I have a T43 2.13 Ghz with X300 GPU with the Catalyst 10.2 modded drivers running Windows 10 Pro. Currently using it to stream a TV channel and it is smooth as silk. The stream is not full screen but after the latest updates the CPU and the GPU are both on 61 degrees.

The only issue is sometimes from cold start I get a black screen so I need to put it to sleep or restart it and then it is ok. If I just put it to sleep by closing the lid rather than using shutdown the problem doesn't arise and it starts faster.
I am using RMclock but I only think it makes 2 - 5 degrees difference. My Windows 10 was an upgrade rather than a fresh install. and I use the Edge browser.
I am not sure what you are doing wrong and it sounds like a software/driver issue. But regardless make sure Windows Update is not taking half of your CPU usage because unfortunately you only have have one .

Good luck

[boodi]

thanks shawross..
different gpu .. would like to downclock mine , but I'm afraid reinstalling catalyst drivers as on my gpu they do not work very well resultin in the fact that they mess up even normal operations / with the possibility of compromising even further the stability of the laptop

did you install the modded catalyst after the win 10 pro upgrade or before ...?

did you find any problem or it all just went straight ?





My case :
it may be my gpu - it is a Fire GL 3200 and should run 500 Mhz stock where yours is an x300 and should run 375 Mhz, I wonder if downclocking 100Mhz is possible on mine and if it could make it stable with catalysts - is defective as it seems it can't sustain high temperatures - and system run into freeze/artifacts/lags when on catalyst drivers , with high temperatures combination ( 74-76 degrees gpu + 84 cpu )

even though at moment with microsoft "stock" driver the system runs fine

the IBM startup screen logo is "broken" ( the first screen appearing on switching on the laptop , shows fine blue vertical lines where they're not supposed to )
the catalyst / ATI CCC where not working properly :
I had this issue http://www.drivethelife.com/windows-dri ... vista.html
I checked amd site and there's a lot of supposed reasons for it , i suspect a combination of them on my t43p ..

the 3d tests under the CCC where all compromised - the CCC little windows 3d tests -i.e. anisotropic filtering etc- all carried artifacts ; for this i suspect that I'm better with standard microsoft base graphic driver ....... they -weirdly- show no artifacts and run temperatures lower , at moment the t43p is carrying 3 tasks and both cpu and gpu are 69 degrees, the compromise is some graphical lags , i.e. loading firefox pages and/or managing pictures in general , which are kind bearable if I have no choice ...

[shawross]

did you find any problem or it all just went straight ?

Generally Windows 10 won't allow you to install the Modding program so I had to mod the drivers on another computer. I actually modded the Catalyst program on an XP computer and then I copied the modded software to my Windows 10. From there I installed using the Compatibility Assistant for Vista.

Yes your GPU is much better in theory and the X300 is fighting way above its fighting weight here. Maybe your GPU is not healthy.

Have you tried Windows 7? Which I personally think it probably overall the best ever OS.

I wouldn't use the Microsoft base graphic driver for any Windows OS. Did you restore to an earlier system restore point?

[kfzhu1229]

I have a T43 2.13 Ghz with X300 GPU with the Catalyst 10.2 modded drivers running Windows 10 Pro. Currently using it to stream a TV channel and it is smooth as silk. The stream is not full screen but after the latest updates the CPU and the GPU are both on 61 degrees.

The only issue is sometimes from cold start I get a black screen so I need to put it to sleep or restart it and then it is ok. If I just put it to sleep by closing the lid rather than using shutdown the problem doesn't arise and it starts faster.
I am using RMclock but I only think it makes 2 - 5 degrees difference. My Windows 10 was an upgrade rather than a fresh install. and I use the Edge browser.
I am not sure what you are doing wrong and it sounds like a software/driver issue. But regardless make sure Windows Update is not taking half of your CPU usage because unfortunately you only have have one .

Good luck

I have a 14.1" T43 with SXGA+ screen upgrade (The original screen is yellowed, lid cracked and hinge broke so I just bought a entire new lid assembly from a high end T41), 2gb RAM, Windows 10 pro runs fine with 1.86ghz.
I also have a 15" T43 with 2gb RAM, 160GB IDE Hitachi HDD (As much as it goes without error 2010 or bios mod) UXGA and Pentium M 780 2.26. Your black screen issue is a video driver compatibility problem with Windows 8/8.1/10's fast startup. I have that as well, but I have changed the sleep combination FNF4 into turn off the monitor, you press that, everything becomes safe and sound. (BTW it is not only for X300, but I have tried an AMD chipset Toshiba machine with X1200 and same problem in Windows 10) And yes keep track of Windows Update. If it is updating, DO NOT USE YOUR PC... In XGA you do get around that temperature but with UXGA you get 70-80 Celsius so you'd better set it up to fan 7 or 64.

[boodi]

I finally found a local business that says he have big bunch of thinkpads unused ...spoken at the phone and eventually they have t41,42 and 43 too .
Willing to "test" and sell some of them ( still have to discuss the price don't know if i can get them for a bargain or not ) on my interest .

What do you think ..
am I better with a t42 or a t43 , in case i have to choose ( he says it has both the machines , and I will have to go and look and buy all-in-once one possibly in the week end , or monday ).

I will look which one carries a sxga+ ips , which carries a uxga+ tft , and the 2gb ram will be a plus as i woudn't have to upgrade
then I will likely have to take a choice minding about graphic adapter and temperatures , and problems which i might have .. i do not think i can have this person run TCP or temperature test .. i will just be able to look at general specs and conditions , verify they switch ON with no major problems , hear the fan noise ..

Have you tried Windows 7? Which I personally think it probably overall the best ever OS.

I wouldn't use the Microsoft base graphic driver for any Windows OS. Did you restore to an earlier system restore point?

at moment i simply do not have the time to get back and set up again the pc to windows 7 .. will do it maybe later this year after i have a second backup t4x laptop ready to work ...

shawross , i restored the system to an earlier restore point , at moment the pc runs with any heavy glitch freeze or lag ... I am curious to check temperatures during the day loads though , as it seems to me that after trying the catalyst drivers they jumped up some degrees

about using the microsoft stock graphic adapter driver , I can't a see a different solution at moment ..

[RealBlackStuff]

Building a T601 Frankenpad from any 15" T60 with SXGA+/UXGA and the Intel-motherboard from a 14.1" 4:3 T61 will probably be cheaper than buying such an unknown T4x.
Your fixation on T43/p cannot be justified, the way you struggle with everything...

[shawross]

Personally I would give the T42 a miss and only checkout the T43's. The T42 was great for XP but IMHO that is their limit.

The T43 has the better chipset that runs DDR2 memory and PCIE GPU. They run a bit hotter but they will even run Windows 10.

There are 2 types of T43 though. One has a ATI X300 GPU and the other has a Intel 900 GPU. I would go for the one with the X300 GPU.

The way to tell is through the Model type number. After you login to this forum you can click on the MTM at the top and if you input the model type number you will see the specs it had when it was made. My machine is a Type 2668 44M and I think the Intel ones are Type 1871.

I would buy very carefully and make sure you can boot up the machines and checkout RAM, HD's and screen condition.

The T4X series is virtually redundant now and not something you want to pay much money for. Really fan noise wouldn't worry me too much but screen and just general condition I would inspect carefully. Play in lid hinges annoys me and any cracks are to be avoided. Also hard drives can get noisy when they get old and whether they are T42,T41 or T43 the hd's will work in any machine. Maybe your HD from your T43p will run in the T43 if it has X300 GPU.

[boodi]

Building a T601 Frankenpad from any 15" T60 with SXGA+/UXGA and the Intel-motherboard from a 14.1" 4:3 T61 will probably be cheaper than buying such an unknown T4x.

I've yet sent 2 pms to persons that -supposely- have one of those ready ...

one will be available supposely shortly .. but has the nvidia card ..

Your fixation on T43/p cannot be justified

not sure how to intend this


I will offer around $100 for 1 ( working and if possible loaded ) t43 if its unused and getting dust or waiting to be .. not much more..then if there's some upgrade to make or if it will not ne a good optical condition item , i will try to get it for less then $100 .
Even more likely $200 for 2 if i find 2 that appeal me : I like t4x... ! i think I'm not alone in this forum ..there must be reasons


if someone can build me a frankenp for $200+ in 1-2 weeks - as i have no time at momento to do it , but I'm in need for a backup-work machine as soon as possible if you read the thread..
then he is seriously welcome

other then this , the t43p I am using still , before May has worked ..flawlessly .. served me well for 3 years , for all the use i put into it ... as i said somewhere else i've been even in the market recently for a laptop replacement , or to keep this as a backup machine , but cant find an equally good 4:3 screen ..

It works still and after applyin the new thermal compound temperatures are lower too, even though i suspect the graphic card has gone defective before . it still works , slower and with microsoft stock drivers though .

I have also a t61 which is fast as much as possible and needed for my use , obviously it doesn't have the much wanted 15'' 4:3 , a frankenpad would do it , but I need quite fast a second/replacement machine and i do not have the time to research all that i need , to buy , setup and build a t601 at the moment .
Price for having someone build me a definitive 15'' t601 machine ( which would find use quite only for running my ordinary daily java applications , as i have a lenovo tablet which is practical for all the rest on the go ) seems to be pretty high too , much higher then a t43p ..quite overkill for the intended purpose
makes more sense researching components and build one for passion , the moment that i have the time to do it

Personally I would give the T42 a miss and only checkout the T43's. The T42 was great for XP but IMHO that is their limit.

The T43 has the better chipset that runs DDR2 memory and PCIE GPU. They run a bit hotter but they will even run Windows 10.

There are 2 types of T43 though. One has a ATI X300 GPU and the other has a Intel 900 GPU. I would go for the one with the X300 GPU.

The way to tell is through the Model type number. After you login to this forum you can click on the MTM at the top and if you input the model type number you will see the specs it had when it was made. My machine is a Type 2668 44M and I think the Intel ones are Type 1871.

I would buy very carefully and make sure you can boot up the machines and checkout RAM, HD's and screen condition.

The T4X series is virtually redundant now and not something you want to pay much money for. Really fan noise wouldn't worry me too much but screen and just general condition I would inspect carefully. Play in lid hinges annoys me and any cracks are to be avoided. Also hard drives can get noisy when they get old and whether they are T42,T41 or T43 the hd's will work in any machine. Maybe your HD from your T43p will run in the T43 if it has X300 GPU.

i will look all those things as I get there and i'm allowed to do it... then if I find all in place , i will make my offer and possibly get one good thinkpad , likely a t43 as you suggest and if is there..