T61 hotter after win 7

[bass1175]

Iam noticing my T61 is running hotter with windows 7, also my fan now is up and down erratically.
I found this thread but no fix

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=85068

I dont have anything installed to cause this and only have 48 processes.

This problem is going on with 2 t61 machines. Both were fine with xp.

More annoying then running hote, the fans are none stop up and down in rpms.

If I use TPfancontrol it stabilizes the rpms but the temp goes even hottern ( if in smart mode).

But hope theres a solution to this without TPfancontrol as the only option is to set it manually on every start up.

Cheers.

[ajkula66]

That pretty much mirrors my experiences with W7 when it comes to temps.

No explanation on the behaviour of your fan, though.

[bass1175]

Iam here digging thru goggle to find a fix. AJ, do you notice the fan speed is not stable, high and low every 5 seconds?

A real shame as this machine performs well with win 7, but cant stand the fan or the heat.

[bass1175]

I also changed out the fans in both my t61 at the same time I installed win 7, but I cant imagine new fans will do that.

I got just the fan and reused the old heat sink, thermal paste is spread on good.

CPU usage is 2% and the thing is on fire now, fan wont stabilize and constant up and down.

Might have to put xp back just for testing purposes.

[ajkula66]

AJ, do you notice the fan speed is not stable, high and low every 5 seconds?

No, that hasn't happened to me yet.

A real shame as this machine performs well with win 7, but cant stand the fan or the heat.

Personally, I'd regulate that via software...even if you have to tweak TPFC to make it behave the way you need it to.

What CPU do you have in there? Undervolting it might also help the issue at hand...

[bass1175]

Hello AJ, both t61 have core 2 duos on them, low end models, t7300 or so. I have one machine that has 5% cpu usage and the other is constant 50% but cant find whats doing this in task manager. The machine with 5% CPU usage, is behaving exactly the same way as the 50%, regards to temps and fan speed. And have no clue whats utilizing the 50% cpu usage on the second machine. Eveyrthing is on 0 or 2% in taask manager.

I had plans passing these down to family members, since we upgraded with the t410, and I would have no problems using tpfc and balanced mode for the CPU, but the folks Iam passing this down to cant fiddle with this stuff. I actually did "Adaptive" for the CPU and dropped the CPU to 1ghz and the temp dropped a little, not by much though, and the fan kept on with the constant variable RPMs.

Iam calling it a night and will investigate further tomorrow. Just got on my t410 again, sweating from my t61.

[Bánh mì]

My fan almost never comes on. Been running W764 bit forever. Make sure you got all the Lenovo Thinkpad drivers etc. Your T61 is not optimized yet.

[JeffCullen]

Those Merom CPUs don't exactly run cool... load Middleton's BIOS and shove a Penryn in there (T8100, T8300, T9300 or T9500) and enjoy a performance boost as well. The T61 can still hold its own with a T9300 or T9500...

My W500 is much quieter than my T61p when the fan is at full chat... I have heard you can install a T500/W500 fan in a T61 heatsink...

My girlfriend has a Late 2011 2.2GHz quad-core i7 15" Macbook Pro, and the fans in that thing make it sound like a jet engine when she's using Photoshop...!

[wonz]

hello

turn off all visual effects in advenced options it should help a little bit

[RealBlackStuff]

I agree with JeffCullen.
The T8100 is only about $15.-
It runs much cooler than the T7300, which is one of the worst heat-producers in the Merom series.
And Middleton's BIOS should be on it, regardless.

[bass1175]

Thanks for all the recommendations, I downloaded and updated the bios and all drivers and for some reason the fan is stop and go every 2 seconds, from high to low.

Both machines are doing this.

Both machines got a new fan.

Both machines got windows 7 64-bit

Even when the temp is at 48 C, the fans are up and down in RPMS for both machines.

Iam certain this was not the case before my upgrades.

Anything other recommendations?

Thanks to all.

Update,

I decided to take the fan back out and reapply the thermal grease, maybe I put too much and causing this. Will report back.

[billyj]

I have a T61 with T7300, Middleton bios, Win 7 x64. When idle, the CPU stays in the 37-42 C range. The system cooling policy when on battery is set to passive, min. processor state to 0%, thus the fan tends to be off most of the time. On AC power, the fan kicks in, runs for several minutes and then turns off.

A few suggestions to you:
- Check Bios, Config, Power to make sure SpeedStep is enabled, as is Power management for CPU, PCI bus and PCI express. For battery, I have "optimized" or "balanced" settings, for AC it is "maximize" or some such.
- Check the Win 7 Power Plan settings to make sure there are no obvious issues, such as min. processor state at 100%. When set up right, you should see different fan behaviour when on power vs. battery.
- Install Process Explorer and check out the CPU utilization. It has much better, fine-grained accounting of processor utilization than Win 7 Task Manager. It should help you identify why one laptop is at 50% CPU utilization and what is consuming the cycles.
- Install Core Temp and check the temps you are reaching. This is to understand if the issue is excess heat, or insufficient cooling, or fan control. You should see frequent CPU frequency adjustments even when idle, and maximum frequency under load.

I would strive to get the CPU utilization down if excessive when the system should be idle (mine is around 20% in ProcExp, 2-5% in Task Manager). Then, I would make sure the CPU temps are reasonable, given reasonable ambient temperature. If the temps are high while CPU utilization is low, the cooling is not sufficient. If this is all good, then it would seem to be fan control. I'd suspect the latter as the fan should really not spin up and down every few seconds.

[bass1175]

Thanks for all the support, first thing to ensure proper installation of the fan, I removed it and this time used Arctic silver rather then the generic thermal paste that came with the fan. I still had the same problem.

Now only dealing with one machine at a time, as I have two like this.

The temp is at a constant 60 to 75 degrees.

I indeed found a few threads on other forums of people blaming windows 7 for this same issue.

I downloaded process explorer and the system idle process is at a constant 40 to 50%, not sure if this is normal or not.

I started disabling devices in device manager and still had the same problem.

I started in safe mode and the problem remained.

I let the machine run over night, watching the temp remain at 60-65 degrees for two hours and woke up to find the temp finally at 50 degrees
I used the machine for an hour and it remained at 50 degrees, I thought the problem was solved until I restarted the machine and it shot back up to 65 degrees and stayed there all day.

This is a process indeed, eating up my CPU usage, but I cant tell which one. As all the programs running are nothing note worthy of this, with most in the 3% range and not many of them.

I will try to take a snapshot of process explorer in hopes you guys can figure this out with me.

Thanks.

[Medessec]

I would really stick to the above suggestions of upgrading your laptop's CPU to a newer Penryn CPU. It will mean flashing Middleton BIOS as they've said, but I'm pretty sure this will solve the heat problem.

A constant temp of 60-75 at idle is a rather unhealthy temperature for your laptop to be running at. If you did a clean install of Windows 7, which I assume you did since you mentioned you had XP, I think that Windows 7 may be the problem, but it isn't at the same time. The hardware is quite simply-too old.

New heatsinks, thermal paste and dusting will only get you so far. With a Merom CPU, I'm not surprised after all this work that the computer's still running hot. If you've got the tech know-how to peel away the panels to look at the heatsink and other hardware, you've probably got the knowledge to do what is necessary to upgrade the CPU.

[bass1175]

Everything recommended above was done, including bios upgrades ( I mentioned above) and software upgrades. Powermanager settings changed, Bios settings changed per Bills.

Upgrading the laptops CPU is great to do after I solve this issue, I didnt have this problem before and as confirmed above this CPU is capable of running at 45 degree temps. Which is where my temps were before my W7 install and fan replacement

60-70 degrees is not the normal for this processor at idle.



Under system I have a 15% usage for CPU and its steady at such. Would hate to change a CPU with an ongoing software issue.

My t410 shows this at .91%

My t420 shows this at 1%

Both my t61 shows this process at 15 to 20%, the two machines I have issues with.

[RealBlackStuff]

If you have applied fresh AS5 or AS Ceramique, you should know that this takes up to 200 (powered ON) hours before it settles in.
After that you should have some (~5) degrees temp drop, but not the 20-25 degrees you are hoping for.
Check that the cooler sits flat and flush on top of the CPU, if it is warped, i.e. no proper contact, you would have higher temps.

[billyj]

In my experience, there is not that much difference between the Merom and Penryn in terms of CPU temps. Both processors tended to be in the 37-42 C range, with Penryn of course generating a bit less heat, thus the fan running less, if at all.

The CPU temps you are seeing are in my opinion high, I agree 60-70 is not normal for idle state, Merom or not. BTW, my idle state with all the Win 7 proccesses running can be above 20%, of course it is 20% of the low frequency range, i.e. 800-1000 MHz. The point is that the heat generated at this load is still easily dissipated without the fan running (ambient being 20 C).

One other point - the fan is not driven by CPU temperature, but some other internal sensor. I can tell by the way the fan comes on and off.

Here's what I would try:
- Turn off antivirus and search. They run unpredictably and in the background, thus utilizing CPU when the system is idle. You do not want that. Also kill all user processes, e.g. Firefox can easily consume 20% doing nothing.
- Set the refresh interval in ProcExp to 10 or more seconds, sort the processes by CPU utilization. This should give you a more stable sampling, with the true CPU consuming processes consistently at the top.
- Another way to try to identify the culprit is to look at total CPU time consumed by individual processes after the system has run for a while (hour or more).
This should allow you to find out what is consuming CPU cycles.
- Watch the CPU frequency in Core Temp - it should be at the low range. If it is consistently high, then you eiter have a true CPU hog, or SpeedStep is not working right. BTW, is the SpeedStep LED on? It is the one left of the battery LED, kind of a tilted Z in a circle.

BTW, when you pulled the cooler, did you see a very thin, even, translucent layer of thermal paste on the CPU? If not, then you do not have a good contact, perhaps the cooler is bent, and that would explain the temps. If you are not sure, you can do a quick experiment, put more paste, seat the cooler and screw it in place, then remove it and check how the paste has spread.

[ac12]

My T61 with Win7 at idle (Win Task Manager showing 0% CPU) is cycling between 50-55C
I have TPFC.62 running in smart mode. It is configured for the fan to turn on at 55C and turn off at 50C.
I never had anything but Win7 on mine, so I have no temp reference for XP.

However as has been mentioned, I see the CPU usage periodically going up, so there are background tasks that are kicking off.
If it makes a difference, my T61 is configured for max performance on AC.

At Fan1 speed of 3000rpm, I cannot hear the fan, but I can feel the warm air being pushed out.

[Medessec]

@ac12-

sorry to ask, but what CPU do you happen to have? Sounds like a Merom from the temps.

[ac12]

Hi Medessec
Win7 shows it as T7700 @ 2.4GHz

Unlike the G40 w the Celeron CPU, the T61 seems OK to me so I never bothered looking into a CPU upgrade. But now you guys have me thinking.

[Medessec]

Heh. Well, upgrading your G40 was a very good idea to keep it usable. You'd only have to look into upgrading the CPU in a T61 if you really needed the power. Most of the time, the Meroms will do you just fine for basic tasks and use. Mostly because... better CPUs worth getting such as the T9300 or T9500 are a bit... pricey to most people. The T8100 is alright, but it's not a worthwile upgrade except for the cooling.

It also seems you do have a Merom. You said you can't hear the fan, but you can feel the warm air being pushed out... so that is a bit intriguing, alongside the OP's case here.

[bass1175]

My problem is finally over.

I installed win 7 but with 32 bit rather then my previous 64.

Monitored temps after every software install and after every update, and the temps remained 48 degrees at idle 58 while processing.

I will never know what was causing this overheating, I currently have the same software installed as I had with the 64 bit, still the temps remained normal.

So 32 bit it is but not sure if that was the culprit. I have a few more updates, and will monitor after each one but for now the problem is gone with a steady 47- 50 degrees max.

[91011]

Sounds similar to a recent clean, Win 7 64bit install I did on an x201. Never checked temps but the fan was running full out all the time.

Normally I do TVSU first and then Windows Updates but that time I reversed the order and got the fan problem.
Reinstalled in my normal sequence and the problem went away.
Installed a third time with Windows Updates first and the problem reappeared.
Another member I spoke with also has this occur.

[bass1175]

I was just about to report this sequence as I think its related as well. When I had the overheating issue, I had done win7 update first, this time I decided to do Thinkvantage updates first, and the problem disappeared.

Perhaps Windows is installing wrong drivers, and best to do TVSU first.

[ac12]

Medessec
Just to let you know, I am going to do the CPU upgrade.
I picked up a T9300 for a decent price and have the Middleton BIOS upgrade on CD.
Just waiting for when I have a good block of free time to tear into the T61.
Also have a BT module to install at the same time.