Cooling a T61 with NVidia 140m

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2ndgencamaro · #1 Post by **2ndgencamaro** » Fri Jul 01, 2016 3:03 pm

I had this laptop sitting on a desk all day long. Typically I leave it running with the lid closed. Today, I noticed it was very warm to the touch so I opened it up and started Speccy. Nearly every temp reading was in the mind 90s. I shut it down and used a small compressort to blow out any dust. I did get a little. Than turned it back on and let it sit for an hour running. The temp was now in the upper 70's to maybe 82c. So I downloaded TPFC and set it to manual 7 and the temps are now in the upper 50s. That still seems high for the system under light load. Is there any other tricks I can do to get this unit cooler? cpu: T7250. I think this unit has a pre 08/08 motherboard. Considering its age and residual value, I do not think I will be sinking any money into it.

brchan · #2 Post by **brchan** » Fri Jul 01, 2016 3:10 pm

Take off the keyboard and blow out the fan from for a better cleaning. The heatsink will benefit from a fresh application of thermal paste (AS5 or Tuniq TX-4 are good) as well.

I believe Nvidia did start changing batches in February 2008 until they fully switched over in 08/08, so it may be possible you have a defect free gpu.

2ndgencamaro · #3 Post by **2ndgencamaro** » Fri Jul 01, 2016 7:44 pm

Did not realize that I posted this in the X6x forum. If a mod comes across it go ahead and move it. Sorry.

The date code on the computer is 08/01. The other possibility is the MB was repaired under warranty prior to my obtaining it. Is there any way to know if it has been replaced? Software examination of the motherboard? It would be nice to step to a 35w Penryn processor. I think I have some AS somewhere. I will give that a try as it cannot hurt.

brchan · #4 Post by **brchan** » Fri Jul 01, 2016 7:49 pm

You can install a penryn cpu in the older merom T61 boards, but you will have to press a key to skip an error screen on every boot. You can get rid of this, enable SATA II, and remove wifi-whitelist using Middleton's BIOS update.

If your board has lasted this long without any problems, then it will probably stay that way for at least a little longer. There are still some older T61 nvidia boards that aren't showing problems.

ajkula66 · #5 Post by **ajkula66** » Fri Jul 01, 2016 9:08 pm

2ndgencamaro wrote: The date code on the computer is 08/01. The other possibility is the MB was repaired under warranty prior to my obtaining it. Is there any way to know if it has been replaced? Software examination of the motherboard? It would be nice to step to a 35w Penryn processor. I think I have some AS somewhere. I will give that a try as it cannot hurt.

That board is almost certainly a Penryn board. The FRU number should be under the RAM slots. When you open the system up to clean it, take the # down and post it here and we'll take it from there.

JBUK · #6 Post by **JBUK** » Mon Jul 04, 2016 6:19 pm

I don't know which o/s you are using but make sure you have power saving options turned on so that the CPU will switch speed when it is idling.

aldywaani · #7 Post by **aldywaani** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 7:28 pm

Check the following:

Task Manager, check background tasks that consumes most CPU or RAM usage.

Virus Scanning
Windows Update
Malware / trojan activities

Power Management BIOS setting
Windows Power Settings
These two should be on 'Enabled & Energy Saving Plan' if you tend to leave it idle for hours

Additional info:
Sometimes old machines did not necessarily to update os or device driver to it's latest version.
If you have no issue with it, don't update.

new versions may have a hotfix, but it also may consume more resources.

I'm a bathroom singer

2ndgencamaro · #8 Post by **2ndgencamaro** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 10:00 am

Sorry for the long delay but I had three other thinkpad projects crop up since I started this thread. The SO's T510 had to have its LCD replaced. Something heavy fell on the lid and while the bezels were fine the old lcd developed a vertical white band a little over an inch wide. I took the time to put a 1600x900 lcd into it which was a step up. Then I had two W500 computers that were merged into one good computer. This project was posted here in the W500 forum. Than a T500 fan quit.

After all of that I now feel a little more comfortable opening up these thinkpads. Now back to the T61. First I found that the unit hates to run with the lid closed. A significant amount of heat is trapped inside the unit when the lid is closed and pushes the temps up by at least 20 degrees C. So the unit will typically run around 60c with the lid open but upwards of low 80s C with the lid closed. Today I opened it fully up and cleaned out all of the dust and cat hairs, or at least 99% of it. The motherboard had the following number under the memory - 11S42X6844ZVF1AA7CR18F. I think I am going to keep my eyes open for a used Penryn processor for this T61 just to cut down on the generated heat. Can I put a Pxxxx (1066 Mhz) processor into this unit, or am I stuck with using a Txxxx processor (800 Mhz) CPU? Many of the Pxxx processors are 25w processors while the Txxxx processors are 35w.

Thanks in advance.

#9 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 12:02 pm

Put in Middleton's BIOS first: http://ali.dj/blog/sata-ii-support-for- ... 61-x61-r61
Then upgrade the CPU to a Penryn T8100, T8300, T9300(favorite) or T9500.
Pxxxx (1066 Mhz) won't work unless you do some pin-modding, not recommended.

2ndgencamaro · #10 Post by **2ndgencamaro** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 3:20 pm

A question was asked regarding OS. It is Win 10 upgraded from Win 7. I also think I already put the middleton BIOS on the computer. When I went to download it, I already had it. The hard drive in HWINFO reports that it is a 6Gb/s drive operating at 3Gb/s. Speccy also reports it as a SATA III drive operating at SATA II.

The dust removal appears to have had a drop of 4-5 degrees C. Now running 56-57 C.

I also noted that the computer has a modem card. Can this be removed and save power (heat)?

I will not drop a Pxxxx processor in it. No pin mods for me.

After a quick look at eBay, the T9500 processors (~$40) are twice as much as the typical T9300 cpu (~$20). Seems excessive when you consider the slight speed difference.

#11 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 4:20 pm

T61 runs native at SATA-I.
Thanks to M's BIOS it turns to SATA-II.
T61 can't run faster than SATA-II, regardless of drive.