Thinkpads Forum

I've been having persistent delays of typically 1-3 minutes with one of my T60's. It runs Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit and has an Intel 330 180GB SSD, which has 2 partitions. Event log indicates that I'm getting errors on iaStor, the read exceeding timeout. Yesterday this happened a few times. I typically get this daily, it's always frustrating. The machine will just not respond at all. What I usually do is press Control+Alt+Delete and wait for the blue screen to show up and then I know the system is again functional, I hit Cancel and continue with my work.

It's been suggested that I might have an overheating machine. Of course, it could be a bad SSD (mine is nearly 3 years old, but was only installed 1.5 years ago... the warranty is for 3 years), but before trying to pursue warranty replacement I figure I should try the easy stuff. I have been told by one guy who needed warranty relief for his Intel SSD that he was given the runaround and that in any case they were only willing to prorate his relief by the factor of what time was left on his warranty. I haven't pursued replacement yet therefore.

It was also suggested that before opening up the machine and checking the fan for dust or whatever that I check a software temperature application. Is there something like that I can use to assess and determine if the internal temperatures are excessive?

I made a thread on this problem I've been having at Anandtech Forums in June where I got these ideas: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread. ... to=newpost. Thread title is 'SSD error, how to proceed?'

You can install ThinkPad Fan Control and monitor the temps. Version 0.62 will work fine on your machine.

With that being said, I would tend to believe that the SF controller in your SSD has seen better days.

Install TPFC and report back the temps, then we'll take it from there.

Good luck.

I installed TPFC 0.62, rebooted and took a couple of photos of the utility's screen. I wanted to crop the shots and get that posted at a hosting site. This particular machine didn't have photo editing software. I opened it in Paint but didn't see a way to crop it the way I wanted (the image was larger than my 23" display), so I tried installing the software that came with my old Samsung V3 digicam around 10 years ago. Simple software, but very easy and intuitive to use and lets you see a collection of photos (for me, JPGs), and edit any of them at will using a link in the title bar to a photo editing software, which I also installed. Problem is, the installs seem to have screwed up the machine and it wouldn't boot. I attempted restores, which seemed to fail, but the machine finally booted anyway. After restore, TPFC wasn't installed, so I installed it again, in the same location. Then the machine wouldn't boot! Finally it did boot after Windows tried to repair itself and TPFC is running. The photo apps weren't installed, just a few vestiges. Well, I have a copy of Photoshop LE, which I've never installed, I'll try that, fingers crossed. This machine has problems. Last time I did Windows Update things didn't work out. I haven't tried since, that was around a month ago.

Well, I'll just post here TPFC's readings that I see right now. What do these imply in regards to the machine running too hot or whatever:
--------------------------

TPFC.62

Temps

1 cpu 75 C
2 aps 37 C
3 crd 36 C
9 bus 43 C
10 pci 50 C
11 pwr 56 C

all act (selected radio button is "act")
- -
Fan Control

State
Fan 3

Switch
73 C

Speed
3539 RPM

Mode (radio button)

BIOS
Smart (selected)
Manual

(0-7) 7
----------------

I have been using TPFC on some of my Thinkpads over several years. I don't know whether to run in BIOS or Smart Mode, the default being Smart Mode, which is what it's in right now.

Your CPU is quite hot. The rest seems fairly normal. Some cleaning and re-pasting of the heatsink might be in order.

One should run TPFC in the Smart mode.

In addition to looking at your SSD and temperatures, I'd also run a memory diagnostic just in case. You can download the latest version of memtest86+ at: http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

rkawakami wrote:In addition to looking at your SSD and temperatures, I'd also run a memory diagnostic just in case. You can download the latest version of memtest86+ at: http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

I ran memtest86+ not long ago on it, should probably run it again. I found that one of my sticks of Crucial memory was bad and got a warranty replacement not 4 months ago.

ajkula66 wrote:Your CPU is quite hot. The rest seems fairly normal. Some cleaning and re-pasting of the heatsink might be in order.

What kind of temp should I expect? It's running the T5500, not a very powerful CPU. Here are the system specs:

Lenovo T60
1953CTO ThinkPad T Series T60
Intel Core 2 Duo processor T5500
Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit
14.1 SXGA+ TFT (Displaying to 23" and 19" LCDs by virtue of model 2504 mini dock)
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
3 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz SODIMM Memory
Intel 330 180GB SSD

So, clean off the CPU and spread a little Arctic Silver 5 on it?

Do I want to have a look at the fan, make sure it's clean?

Muse wrote: What kind of temp should I expect? It's running the T5500, not a very powerful CPU.

Your idling temps should be in the 50s at the most.

So, clean off the CPU and spread a little Arctic Silver 5 on it?

Do I want to have a look at the fan, make sure it's clean?

Yes to both.