Thinkpads Forum

I wrote earlier this year about my two T60p guys, which were badly overheating. They routinely get up into the mid 90s on fairly routine stuff; a video will do that within 30 seconds and even checking for Windows updates or updating my virus definitions will often, but not always, send them into the 90s. They tend to shut down around 95 or 96 degrees C. This is the CPU as measured by TPFanControl. One has a T7200 CPU and the other a T7600.

I found that if I pull the AC, they'll quickly drop into low 70s or 60s.

Once I wasn't paying attention and the temperature reached 102 before I pulled the AC.

Last week, I had the palmrest and keyboard cover removed on one of them to ensure that the fan was working. It was. On a reboot, suddenly I had a dead machine - no beep, no video, fan turning for a few seconds, and then a power down.

Tonight I decided to keep Windows up-to-date, so I put the SSD from the failing machine into the other T60p. Upon trying to boot it up, the second machine ended up in exactly the same state as the first one. Putting the old SSD in, or trying to boot off the DVD with no disk, gives me exactly the same failure.

The SSD in question works fine in an external reader attached to my desktop machine, so I find it hard to believe that it could kill two Thinkpads. But I'm now down to a two Thinkpads, the R61 and X61, and I'm not about to play any further games with the fairly new SSD.

So now I'm sitting with two dead machines. Can anyone clarify the failure mode of a few seconds of fan activity and then a powerdown with no video, no beeps, and brief activity lights?

Art

Sounds like the constant overheating killed the machines. The SSD causeing the deaths is unlikely, and the failing of one after the other may have just been chance. Have you checked that the heatsinks in the machines are mounted properly and that the thermal paste in between them is there? Also, try removing all batteries and reseating the cmos battery.

brchan wrote:Also, try removing all batteries and reseating the cmos battery.

Sacre Bleu!

As the first machine still had its skins off, it was easy to pull the CMOS battery. I let it sit for a couple of minutes, and then put it back.

As the "bad" SSD was still in the external adapter, I grabbed the SSD from the second machine and put it in the first one. It booted!

By the time the desktop was visible, the temp was 99 degrees. I pulled the AC and it's happily purring away.

Guess I'll have to now put the "bad" SSD back into this machine and see what happens.

And then I'll take apart the second one and repeat the experiment.

This is really bizarre. And yes, I'd previously replaced the thermal compound with Arctic Silver and I'm happy with the snug fit of the fan assembly, so I don't understand the root issue of overheating.

Art

If those machines reach the nineties or worse in seconds, the thermal paste may be fresh, but the heatsink is not fitted properly!
Have you checked that the paste has FULL contact between CPU and heatsink?

RealBlackStuff wrote:If those machines reach the nineties or worse in seconds, the thermal paste may be fresh, but the heatsink is not fitted properly!
Have you checked that the paste has FULL contact between CPU and heatsink?

Not recently. I'm well familiar with using a tiny bit of AS, spreading it, and firmly pressing down the heatsink, but I can certainly repeat the exercise.

The first machine now won't boot once again; it was going into an infinite reboot loop with the "bad" SSD, and now is back to the original failure mode. I think it's time to purchase two replacement CMOS batteries before I go any further.

Art

ArtShapiro wrote: I found that if I pull the AC, they'll quickly drop into low 70s or 60s.

Choose another power profile from power manager menu (Fn+F3) - e.x. "Maximum battery life" until you investigate overheating problem. STOP toasting your Thinkpads.