Thinkpads Forum

Heya guys- Im' working on seating this cooler, and I need to make sure I'm doing it right... what temperatures should I be seeing with a Quadro FX 570M?

Right now I'm getting 50C Idle, and after some gaming with all settings on high, the thing tops out at ~75-80C with the fan pushing out hot air quite nicely.

I had the clips unmodified causing serious issues... it would idle at a sporadic 60-70C(which I know for a fact, is not right...) and gaming on it would cause "skip throttling", where every other few frames would be skipped, causing a motion similar to network lag but it's actually hardware overheating. The thing would hit 90C and stay there while it throttled.

Medessec wrote:Heya guys- Im' working on seating this cooler, and I need to make sure I'm doing it right... what temperatures should I be seeing with a Quadro FX 570M?

Right now I'm getting 50C Idle, and after some gaming with all settings on high, the thing tops out at ~75-80C with the fan pushing out hot air quite nicely.

I had the clips unmodified causing serious issues... it would idle at a sporadic 60-70C(which I know for a fact, is not right...) and gaming on it would cause "skip throttling", where every other few frames would be skipped, causing a motion similar to network lag but it's actually hardware overheating. The thing would hit 90C and stay there while it throttled.

Is this a 128MB Quadro from 14" or a 256MB from 15.4"?

Run Furmark for a couple of hours with TPFC on "manual" and report back.

Idle is not bad. I don't game so I can't say what's normal there.

It's a 128MB Quadro. Are the 256MB ones hotter? That's interesting... and fifties in Celsius is a bit hot to me, but hey. I use laptops that CPU idle at those temps anyway.

Run Furmark for a couple of hours with TPFC on "manual" and report back.

I've had it going for about 30 minutes now-it sharply ascends to 80C within 3 minutes with a lot of jitter, before slowly ascending to 85 where it levels off. From there it jump-ropes back and forth between 84 and 85, but remaining fairly stable otherwise. Right before I posted this, the GPU caught a breather when the display turned off due to the laptop being left alone... I've since changed the settings.

What I tried is a shooter with Anti-Aliasing off, but all effects on(Shaders, Shadows, Specular, Particles to Maximum), and a strategy game with all graphics settings to high. This strategy game uses a lot of AI and works the CPU pretty hard, so I can get heat from both to see what a really hot temperature profile would do to the T61.

If you want more details on the nVidia, check this: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=48287

Wow. Really seems like the FX 570M in the 14" models really have a lot of processing room cut out... but from how I've been using it, it's been incredibly impressive.

I think I've sorted it now... by the looks of it, the plate is merely having a very hard time staying perfectly level on the die, so I just needed to adjust it. I need to make sure it doesn't hiccup down the road either... with an FX 570M, any smallest error in cooling can become a potential death penalty for the laptop.

The ultimate test that I've found for the Thinkpad as a whole has been Minecraft... because it works the CPU incredibly hard while also maxing the GPU when put on very high settings. With FurMark and playing most games, the GPU hits 75C and stays level. However-if the CPU is worked very hard, the GPU temp will raise up to a maximum I've seen of 83C. This was done by running Minecraft on Far +64 viewing distance and above, with all settings on "Fancy". The CPU was caught on close to full load the whole time, and TPFC's smart had the fan on "7", desperately cooling the machine.

I think this is the best I can manage... unless there is a better cooler. This fan is dead quiet and everything seems to be just fine. I might work on it some more... fine tune it. But I'll see.

At first I was having issues also with contact between heatsink and die, though on Frankenpad, not 14.1 model.
After getting the brackets to fit properly, applying a good thermal paste and undervolting the CPU, idle was ~45-47C and at full tilt with gaming it topped at ~75-76 C. That was with almost new heatsink and fan.

Trevor:

If this is the T61p you bought from me a couple of weeks ago, let me give you a little history. The computer never ran hot wile I originally had it (but I didn't do the kind of gaming you apparently do - AutoCad was about as tough as it got). However, the computer had to go back to Lenovo for a motherboard replacement in mid 2012. Good news and bad news....... Good news was that it was replaced with a post August 2008 motherboard, fixing the well-known nVidia GPU problem with the early motherboards. Bad news........ CPU intensive activities did cause the temperatures to rise somewhat higher than I expected. On looking at the heatsink, two of the screws holding it down on the CPU were missing - thanks, Lenovo service! After replacing the two missing screws (with the correct screws) the temperatures went back to normal. However, I don't know if the heatsink was perfectly flat against the CPU. So I think you are on the right track, I just don't know how to advise you as to getting a better contact between the heatsing and CPU. FWIW, I put as little thermal past between the two as I can to prevent it turning from conducting to insulating. You may want to experiment with more or less.

Best,

When replacing my mobo with an updated nVidia NOS board I ran into the running hot problem. I apply a thin coat of AC5 on the chips. When I removed the heatsink there wasn't a square imprint of the paste on the heatsink. The heatpipes on the heatsink appeared to have gotten slightly tweaked to where the GPU heatsink wasn't making good contact. I ever so slightly bent the GPU heatsink lower and reinstalled. I got a great contact and run about 65-70 degrees during gaming. I am running a NOS NVS-140M post-08/08 board which, according to TuuS, runs somewhat cooler than the older nVidia boards.

You're temps aren't crazy high but I would recommend removing the heatsink and placing it on a piece of glass. Then look down the glass surface and check the plane of the GPU heatsink compared to the CPU heatsink. Be very careful tweaking the heatpipes because if you pinch one off you'll need a new heatsink assembly.

I just ran some Prime95, with my FX570M overclocked 25% (the settings i use when playing games)

Temps was around the 80s. Didn't have the time to run it more than 10-20 mins. Fanspeed 7 (I have made a custom profile in TPfancontrol. Fanspeed 64 when hitting 83 IIRC).

I have a 44W Core2Extreme X9000, but undervolted to @1.075V