T42p GPU overheating...

[agarza]

10min ago I was playing NFS Porsche Unleashed against a buddy online, when suddently the screen went mildly white. It reminded me when I got this laptop that it came equipped with the Short Fan. After replacing the fan with the M24 assembly the problem was gone.

I think the cause is the ambient temperature, I'm in my dorm room at about 30C!, I'm sweety with a ceiling fan on medium speed with the room window opened halfway through. I thought Zalman STG-1 was doing it's job (I replaced thermal goop on CPU & GPU) with this thermal grease.

Has anybody experienced a GPU overheat needing to hard power off the machine due to excess ambient temperature?

[RealBlackStuff]

See this: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=41227
You need to check if the layout of your TP corresponds with the cooler layout, and if the coolerstand fans need to 'blow' or 'suck'!

[richk]

There shouldn't be thermal grease on the GPU. There is a special material on the fan pad that shouldn't need anything to conduct heat. If you have an M10 graphics processor, like many/most T42p machines, you should have one of the newer long fans 13R2657. If you have the other long fans, you should have pulled off the protective cover over the GPU pad.

[agarza]

I believe the long fan on my T42p is from a T43p model. I don't know the FRU, I would have to open up my machine, but I'm sure it's better to remove the pink film, remove the brown goop and apply Arctic Silver 5 or similar to have better heat dissipation.

Is just that I found weird that I found strange that because of ambient temp the GPU overheat (>100C) that cause the laptop to freeze. Here are my temps right now:

CPU 45°C (0x78)
APS 48°C (0x79)
PCM 37°C (0x7a)
GPU 49°C (0x7b)
BAT 37°C (0x7c)
BAT 33°C (0x7e)
BUS 0°C (0xc0)
PCI 0°C (0xc1)
PWR 0°C (0xc2)
XC3 0°C (0xc3)
(This temps are with fan running with BIOS EC, at 1x Speed)

The CPU in 6x Multiplier undervolted @ 0.716V, the fan would never turn off running in BIOS Mode, I've to use Smart Mode in TPFanControl to have a quiet laptop at nights. Quite annoying

[richk]

Are you saying you removed the thermal pad? It is 1/16" thick!! Does that mean you but a layer of arctic silver that thick?

[agarza]

Are you saying you removed the thermal pad? It is 1/16" thick!! Does that mean you but a layer of arctic silver that thick?

Nope, I simply bent the cooper heatsink (The GPU portion) and made it to contact the GPU chip. I first used AS5, then Zalman STG-1.
I'm sure there's contact between the chip and the cooper of the heatsink. What has been your max GPU temp at load?