Manufacturing flaws on T41p ??

[agarza]

I have my T42p branded laptop for about 3½ months now.
This machine has a T41p motherboard (2373-GEG).
I've been experiencing heat problems since day 1.
First thought was to change the thermal compound in the CPU & GPU with Arctic Silver 5.
Uncouraged by the results, I ordered Zalman Super Thermal Grease.
It arrived yesterday. I put it right away. Cleaned throughly everything with ArctiClean.

Notice my temps have not decreased a lot compared to AS5.

CPU Undervolted with NHC @ 0.732V (600MHz), temp is 46-48C doing normal stuff (browsing, downloading files in P2P program, listening MP3 music)
CPU with normal voltage @ 1.350V (1.8GHz), temp is 53-55C. Very high. Considering people get 44C when watching a movie on their T4x laptop.

Does it matter if a thermal compound was correctly applied (making good contact with the heatsink) to influence the CPU temp when this is undervolted??

This thing gets to 75C (CPU) and GPU to 85-90C playing a racing game (NFS Most Wanted) running the CPU with normal voltage.

I wonder if this is an issue with the T41p chassis, or a matter of the northbridge/southbridge chips fitted in the motherboard?
Or maybe a Dothan, running extremely HOTT. Could be a faulty heatsink?

I mean, is not normal this temps.

Just an observation: I run as a primary hard disk drive a E7K100 60GB which generate a generous amount of heat. But I also have a 40GB 5400 rpm Hitachi HDD running in the Ultrabay Slim.

Wonder if the 2nd HDD makes the interior temp to rise?

I need advices/suggestions to why my laptop is freaking hot. I've applied OK Arctic Silver 5 and Zalman STG, and the heatsink is properly mounted.

I liked better my T30

[djpharoah]

Ok first of all you must know that the T4x series is a very thin shell. That means that everything on the inside is crammed in and there isnt much room for air to hang around.

The heatsink on the t41p has a purple plastic over the thermal paste for the gpu. I personally removed that and noticed temps dropped a bit.

Additionally, your harddrive is the worst thing you can use in a thin low profile laptop like the T41p. The EK7100 is not meant for laptops but blade servers. that is the source of the extreme heat. Remember you have to use things that are within specific limits of the original harddrive

[tselling]

Yes, the 2nd hd adapter will make the laptop run hotter. I suggest leaving it out most of the time.

[agarza]

I should have thought that in the very beginning.

First I would try removing the ultrabay HDD and then see the results.

How is a 7200rpm HDD with 8MB of cache compared to a 5400rpm with 8MB??

Is it faster a 5400rpm with 16MB of cache like Toshiba HDD to the 5400rpm 8MB disks??

[christopher_wolf]

Is it significantly faster? That depends on what you do on your Thinkpad. If you do alot of intensive, high-throughput data transfer from multiple applications and systems at once, then you will notice a difference. For example, if you have a constant stream of files being written to the HDD, and you launch another application that initially needs to load a large amount of data from the HDD into memory; in that case, you will notice a faster HDD.

[agarza]

I tend to use my HDD a lot, transfer files among the primary HDD and the Ultrabay. I also play quite heavy games and don't like having long waiting times.

I'm thinking on reinstalling Windows XP on the OEM HDD, but by now I think is not that important, as winter is coming and there'll be no warmy days.

Right now I'm dynamic switching with the System Power-on time of 10min and the CPU is 40C, downloading some files to the 2nd HDD.

I did also removed the 2nd HDD and played a game. The CPU somehow was like 5C cooler than previously with the Ultrabay On.
THE GPU however did get to 77C.

[Thinkpaddict]

Also, when you apply your thermal compound, make sure to apply just a tiny bit. Do not put a huge glob of it, because in that case you are actually hurting the conductivity of heat from the CPU to the sink. Just put a very thin layer, enough to ensure contact between CPU and thermal sink.

[agarza]

Also, when you apply your thermal compound, make sure to apply just a tiny bit. Do not put a huge glob of it, because in that case you are actually hurting the conductivity of heat from the CPU to the sink. Just put a very thin layer, enough to ensure contact between CPU and thermal sink.

Yes, indeed. I've been experimenting but with the TIM I'm using (Zalma Super Grease) is easy to apply and there's no way to do it wrong, because it has an integrated brush.
My HDD is the one to blame on my CPU temps then

[christopher_wolf]

My HDD is the one to blame on my CPU temps then

Still, that is a pretty hot HDD if, even with its own vent. I guess it is possible that, given the unique characteristics of a particular cooling system, the heat it dumps out in a given period of time could overwhelm the cooling on the whole.

I really need to see if I can get ahold of that HDD in one of the blade servers here so I can get a better idea of its thermal characteristics.

[agarza]

The HDD temp is quite high (43C). I've noticed that the disk temp increase gradually quite fast. And noticed also that every centigrade the HDD gets, the CPU also gets one.

The CPU is 46-50(max). E7K100 temp is 41-43C almost all the time (except when ambient temp is about 23-24C the HDD is 39C)

The Ultrabay 2nd HDD is the OEM Hitachi HDD which is always 37C (sometimes lower), but guess it can run cooler, the temp reading has to be due of the contiguous placing of the E7K100.

The little grill on the front right of the laptop is suppose to dissipate some of the heat emited by the HDD right?

@Christoferwolf: I can sell you my E7K100 for testing purposes

[GomJabbar]

@Christoferwolf: I can sell you my E7K100 for testing purposes

I love it!