NEW T60 Temperature Thread - Especially high GPU Temperature

[chead]

Chead, re T61p and heat, you may want to check out this thread:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=49263

Also below is a post yesterday by FNAFHE in the thread -
No MORE WUXGA on T61P?

"I have a T61p, and the same LCD running 2.4 GHz, great laptop if its running single chanel ram.

If I put in dule chanel (2x2GB ram = 4GB) it will overheat and power off. I'm considering asking for my
monie back if the next one does the same thing (they are sending me a NEW one to see if it will work
'my 2 cents: Motherboard is a design flaw')"

I actually did see that. I think that poster (and possibly some others with similar problems) have their terminology mixed up. "Dual-channel" doesn't mean two DIMMs, but it does seem like having two DIMMs is causing problems for some people in both Vista and XP (but some T61/p owners seem unaffected apparently).

The root of the overheating on the T60p model is the GPU that gets incredibly hot (over 100c under a very moderate load), and I was wondering if that's the case on the T61 also (since it uses a different GPU chipset).

I would feel like a tremendous idiot basically if I bought a T61p to replace my overheating T60p and had the same problems. The "p" models are sold as "mobile workstations" and I write visualization software in OpenGL, so I need something with a bit more GPU power than most integrated GPUs offer, but the numerous quotes from Lenovo reps saying that the "p" models shouldn't be used for "gaming" (my work is similarly demanding of the GPU to many 3d games) is pretty worrying to me..

[rbena]

Another forum discussing T61p temperature:

http://www.notebookreview.com/search.as ... ion=SEARCH

[whakojacko]

I had a few rare occurrences with shutting down due to overheating before, and tpfan control (which I don't really trust) was telling me 77C or higher! for my gpu. Finally cleaned it w/ compressed air today (not just the exhaust, also took off keyboard to get to the fan) and now it reports 64C for gpu, which I still think is too high. However, I can most definitely feel the difference in terms of the top left area being MUCH cooler, so if you keep your t60 near a dusty area (as I do) definitely recommend cleaning it out and seeing how it does.

[Truthfinder]

Would anyone know if there is a program to control and monitor the fan of the T-60.............?

I've seen software for the older T series notebooks, however, nothing for the T60.

Thanks to all who respond

[musika]

Can anyone advise me on how to clean my GPU? I've had my Thinkpad T60 with Radeon x1400 since February of this year, and originally the GPU temperature would climb to around 70-80. However, it's increased significantly since then. If I set Notebook Hardware Control settings to "Max Performance", the GPU temperature can climb to 100 degrees celcius, and the CPU temperature can climb to 85 degrees.

It should be noted that I'm playing computer games such as Half Life 2 when the temperatures start to climb to a worryingly high level.

Here's a screenshot after playing Day of Defeat : Source for 20 minutes.



I'd like to know two things in particular.

1) Should I be concerned? Is there a risk of danger to the laptop if I continue to play at this temperature? I don't usually play because of the fear of permanent damage. The computer never shuts down due to overheating, although it has frozen on occasion.

2) Is it possible to clean the GPU? Would that help? If so, could someone please advise me on how to clean the GPU.

The fact that the temperature has gotten worse over recent months would leave me to believe that this is a problem that could possibly be "fixed" through maintenance.

Help would be greatly appreciated.[/img]

[Pascal_TTH]

It can be due to dust in the fan. You can remove the cooling device and clean the fan by blowing air.

[musika]

I'm sorry but I don't fully understand what you mean. Is there anyway I can get some sort of step by step instruction guide?

[agarza]

Refer to the Hardware Maintenance Guide for your machine, it's easy to remove the heatsink on newer Thinkpads (is a pain in the [censored] to replace it in other brands) and simply blow compressed air in the fan / exhausts where the fan comes out.
This will 90% likely solve your overheating problem. Make sure you don't touch the part of the heatsink where it touches the CPU or you'll need to replace the thermal compound (which is the 2nd step to reduce your laptop spiking temperatures).
Reset the heatsink twisting it a little bit when it has already make contact with the CPU to avoid any air bubbles which might affect heat dissipation.

[PetrVavrik]

After reading this thread, I´m glad, that I´ve R60 with ati x1300. My machine is quiet all the time, and also, stays cool when runing 3D games.
Here is my temp log when browsing web.

CPU 47°C (0x78)
APS 40°C (0x79)
PCM 42°C (0x7a)
GPU 51°C (0x7b)
BAT 33°C (0x7c)
BAT 30°C (0x7e)
BUS 41°C (0xc0)
PCI 43°C (0xc1)
PWR 49°C (0xc2)

[Truthfinder]

I own a T60 and my numbers are pretty much right in line with your R60. My unit may run a point higher at times, but I don't see enough of a heat issue that would direct me to purchase a R60 over the T60.

Oh, and my sytem is quite and the fan can hardly be heard......

I have been and continue to be completely pleased with my T60....

On the other hand, I would certainly consider a R series of ThinkPad. The T & R are nearly identical, as far as I understand. Aside from the Display lid material, the T & R units are the same.


Just my 2 cents worth

[ErickGdelC]

T series are similar, maybe this could help you people with GPU overheating.

my t43p was almost melting, GPU was over 95 °C and ofcourse CPU was over 85 °C...

the reason was the ATI FIREGL V3200 driver.
The last driver is published on ATI support page, but i had to rollback to a version proposed by WVista update.

... so check out your GP driver

good luck.

[suprnova74]

I have a t60 (2007-G4U) that has been overheating as well as of late. It seems to be since I added in a second DIMM. Has anyone experienced a BIOS/cold boot-style 3 beep alarm when it gets too hot? I'm not sure if that's a warning for CPU overheating or GPU and can't find any mention of it.

The system will lock up on me even with TPFanControl using the highest (untested 40 hex/64 decimal) setting, pushing the fan to 4200 rpm.

One thing I noticed is that under the power profile, I modified the ac power settings for the CPU to be adaptive instead of best performance and the fan control to best peformance (guess that doesn't matter since i use tpfancontrol). I did this last night and it's running much cooler. 3D games still work well enough as well. Not sure if the cooling that Lenovo uses is just not adequate for max performance or what...

[starholmre]

I uesd to have chronic overheating problems on my T60 (ATI Mobility Radeon X1400). TPFan Control and third party software monitors both told me that the GPU was far more hot than other components: ie, after a few hours of moderate load usage (not gaming, but web surfing, perhaps watching a few videos, etc.), temperatures would soar to high 70's to sometimes 80s and low 90s.

Often, this shut down my computer. I enabled PowerPlay in the CCC Control Panel, shifted graphics display back to 16-bit, etc. I cleaned the heatsink as well. Still no solution. Lenovo support team shrugged their hands and said, "Sorry, try to to run graphics-intensive software so much." Well, if we include Firefox, Word, and Access as graphics-intensive, then the business functionality of my notebook fleet just goes out the window.

My solution cost me $20. I simply purchased a pair of laptop legs, which raised the back of the notebook unit up to 3-4 inches off the desk surface. Lapworks has some nice ones, but if you google the term you'll get hundreds of competing devices. They're cheap, made of plastic, but they get the job done. Improves air circulation, etc. The back of my T60 is always raised 3-4 inches off the desk and ambient GPU temperature is now, on average, 4-6 degrees cooler. While not much, this is enough to prevent shutdowns when GPU heat spikes due to multimedia-heavy processing. All my T60's now have these installed on their bottoms and it's made a critical difference.

Problematically, the T60's have smaller heatsinks for their GPU than the T61 (assuming we compare T60 and T61 with ATI processors), and the bottom left side of the T60--where most of the heat dissipates from notebook operation--can get partially blocked due to wiring (notice the USB and audio ports on the left side of the T60? Run those wires back past the vent if you're using peripherals, and after a few hours you have a very hot USB/audio cable, and a very noisy fan.) and anything else on the desk surface, like pens, books, etc.

Anyway, so elevating the back edge of the notebook has made a huge difference. Not an elegant solution, but better than watching your LCD go blank when inputting financial data onto a week's worth of spreadsheets.

[dozer]

arggh....I hate super-long links!

The earlier mention of the T61p fan was very interesting.

I.e., that it looked identical in fit/installation to the T60p fan...but is 'formed' downwards to make solid HS-to-GPU contact without 'pads'.

Has anyone tried an actual install of a 61p fan into a 60p ??

If so, please report !

My T60p is a 2623-DDU

ps; fyi, here are my normal temps doing browsing etc...

1 cpu 42°C (0x78)
2 aps 33°C (0x79)
3 crd 30°C (0x7a)
4 gpu 57°C (0x7b)
5 bat 26°C (0x7c)
7 bat 25°C (0x7e)
9 bus 38°C (0xc0)
10 pci 41°C (0xc1)
11 pwr 37°C (0xc2)

RMclock running in Perf-on-demand...VID's set to 1.1 at 12x, all others 1.0v or less.

ATI PP set to slowest, i.e. optimum battery.

tpfancontrol set to '1' for continuous 'low' speed fan...although THAT is the issue with T60's, as far as I'm concerned....that lack of a TRUE low speed for the fan (e.g. 2,500rpm, or even 2,000rpm)

Anyway, GPU runs much hotter than CPU, and temp rockets very quickly, just 2 seconds, with any GPU load; so obviously the thermal-path to HS is very poor.

I was planning to do the 'copper plate trick'; but if a T61p fan is formed downwards to solve the pad-problem....that sounds more elegant, more likely to pass warranty-inspection...and will also have even better (slightly) thermal-resistance than an inserted metal-plate and two layers of goo.

So if you've done it, tell us all about it!

[oarnoe]

So I tried to replace the thermal pads on my GPU with cobber plates with AS5 in between. This helped to lover my GPU temperature about 2 deg C to 60 – 62 deg C. But the fan still needs to run to control the heat on the GPU, even when only running MS-office applications.

I have also been looking at the possibilities to use a T61 fan instead of my T60p fan (Lenovo P/N 41W6405). I see that there are more cobber on the T61 fan in the GPU area, and I have read that the pads are not needed.


Has anybody tried installing a T61 fan in a T60? If so what are your findings.


TPFan control 0.42 readings during text writing
1 cpu 53°C (0x78)
2 aps 41°C (0x79)
3 crd 42°C (0x7a)
4 gpu 64°C (0x7b)
5 bat 50°C (0x7c)
7 bat 33°C (0x7e)
9 bus 42°C (0xc0)
10 pci 48°C (0xc1)
11 pwr 50°C (0xc2)

[crazyfrog]

TPFan control 0.42 readings during text writing
1 cpu 53°C (0x78)
2 aps 41°C (0x79)
3 crd 42°C (0x7a)
4 gpu 64°C (0x7b)
5 bat 50°C (0x7c)
7 bat 33°C (0x7e)
9 bus 42°C (0xc0)
10 pci 48°C (0xc1)
11 pwr 50°C (0xc2)

These figures are actually quite normal considering such a high performance T60p. I don't understad why you and the other people are worrying. They can't just be 2 or 3 degrees above the ambient temperature.

The temperature of my T60's X1400 is always between 70°C-85°C. But it's never generated an error due to thermal issue (it runs at least 12 hours continuously per day for over a year now). After reading through this thread, it seems I should be bothered.

Look at my workhorse T60:

1 cpu 62°C (0x78)
2 aps 43°C (0x79)
3 crd 42°C (0x7a)
4 gpu 81°C (0x7b) (driving the internal monitor at 1400x1050 and an external monitor at 1680x1050 via VGA output)
5 bat 38°C (0x7c)
7 bat 34°C (0x7e)
9 bus 48°C (0xc0)
10 pci 55°C (0xc1)
11 pwr 57°C (0xc2)

[oarnoe]

Its not really the temperature that is the problem but the fan noise! When you upgrade from a T41 to a T60, like I did, its quite normal to expect an improvement, and for the fan noise the “improvement” in this example means a noisier fan.
The general idea is to remove energy from the CPU without the need for the fan to operate all the time.

It can look like the T61 fan FRU 42X4685 can replace my fan (fru 41W6409) expect for the clamp placed over the northbridge. As I see it this fan has 3 benefits over the standard fan. 1. The amount of cobber seems to be more massive, 2. The cobber is designed so that no thermal pads are needed towards GPU, 3. Heat can be transferred to the aluminum plate under the keyboard.

Has anybody tried such a swap of the fan?

[andrey]

I wonder if T61p heatsink (part 42W2460) will fit onto T60p. Has anyone tried that?

[Crunch]

I have a quick question. I use PC Wizard 2008 v1.84 (just came out fyi) to monitor my CPU temp and load. What's considered too hot? 32-bit Vista ran a bit cooler, and with 64-bit, I am mainly in the 60's C when just working with emailing, browsing, posting, etc. When I watch a movie in DVD quality, it goes up to the high 60's/low 70's...but a 720p Bluray will take it into the high 70's/low 80's C.

I know it's supposed to withstand 100C, but that's 212F for us Americans, which means the boiling point!! What should DEFINITELY be avoided as far as temp's, and what's ok to do once in a while, and what's "normal", "as it should be", etc.??

Thanks!

[crazyfrog]

I have a quick question. I use PC Wizard 2008 v1.84 (just came out fyi) to monitor my CPU temp and load. What's considered too hot? 32-bit Vista ran a bit cooler, and with 64-bit, I am mainly in the 60's C when just working with emailing, browsing, posting, etc. When I watch a movie in DVD quality, it goes up to the high 60's/low 70's...but a 720p Bluray will take it into the high 70's/low 80's C.

It can't be more normal than that.

I know it's supposed to withstand 100C, but that's 212F for us Americans, which means the boiling point!! What should DEFINITELY be avoided as far as temp's, and what's ok to do once in a while, and what's "normal", "as it should be", etc.??

Thanks!

The CPU will be fine with 100C and even a little up than that, but it may hurt peripheral devices. So running over 100C for a very long time should be avoided.

[SHoTTa35]

Mine has never reached 100C i don't think. There have been 2 times while i was just watching some youtube/FLV video where the system just shut down and i figured it was due to overheating. It wasn't a Windows shutdown of-course, the system just turned off like that, LCD faded to black and all lights were off. I booted up and checked temps and they were in the 80s so yeah...

My temp on AC under Vista 32bit get pretty high if i leave it in balanced mode. Even though the CPU isn't doing much i think once it has AC power the CPU never ramps down to lower mode. With the high voltages it generates lots more heat and i just see temps go up and up. Same for the video card i guess, by default it's set to "Balanced" also (Vista's power options setting, not Catalyst. It's built in now i guess)

I'm currently downloading some stuff with AC plugged in, these are my temps:

CPU 53°C (0x78)
APS 41°C (0x79)
PCM 40°C (0x7a)
GPU 70°C (0x7b)
BAT 35°C (0x7c)
BAT 33°C (0x7e)
BUS 44°C (0xc0)
PCI 50°C (0xc1)
PWR 49°C (0xc2)
(ambient temp is freaking hot! ok ok.. it's probably like 65F in this room... feels hot though for some reason)

Normally on battery just browsing around my CPU is 44-46 and my GPU is 60-65. Not too bad i guess but i'm still thinking about doing some artic silver on here. Guess i gotta check out the HMM to see how easy it is to come off, even if it's just to put some on the CPU.

Anyone find out if that T61 heatsink can fit yet? With more copper plating to touch the GPU i'd like to swap to that one if at all possible

[SHoTTa35]

few hours later still downloading and all but using the Power Saver profile:

still with AC plugged in:

CPU 45°C (0x78)
APS 34°C (0x79)
PCM 35°C (0x7a)
GPU 63°C (0x7b)
BAT 30°C (0x7c)
BAT 28°C (0x7e)
BUS 37°C (0xc0)
PCI 42°C (0xc1)
PWR 42°C (0xc2)

Ambient still feels about the same.

[Wulfrunner]

After sending in my thinkpad to a Lenovo authorized repair shop, I received a brand new fan and heatsink unit. Everything seemed fine until I tried to do something involving the graphics card (OK, it was Civ4), then my machine turned itself off without explanation. The GPU temperature was skyrocketing to 120C under load and idling in the high 60's...but at the same time the fan exhaust was cool.

Imagine my surprise when I opened up the computer to find that the thermal pads connecting the GPU and Northbridge to the heat sink still had their plastic covers on (think of a sticker with the backing still on...). Some genius had also applied thermal paste to the GPU -- the GPU was separated from the heatsink by a thick layer of paste (some of which looked a little toasted), a plastic sheet, and the thermal pad! I also noted that the CPU had been smeared with a TON of paste and it was all over the place. Finally, the flimsy metal piece meant to apply pressure to the GPU/NB was not making contact with the heatsink and I had to bend it a bit to correct the problem.

I picked up some rubbing alcohol and thermal paste and proceeded to operate. I removed all the thermal paste, took off the thermal pad protectors, added a thin layer of new thermal paste (only to the CPU, not the GPU), and put everything back together. Lo and behold, the computer runs cool and doesn't overheat and shut down anymore.

Needless to say, I'm not impressed with the sloppy service job, but at least my computer works again! I am experiencing idle GPU temperatures of around 54C. (FireGL5250 256MB) Unfortunately, it still runs too hot for my liking (the noisy fan is on more often than not)

[Pascal_TTH]

54°C is a normal for such a GPU in idle. Anyt thermal grease on the GPU is not a good solution.

[StephenX1985]

1 cpu 53癈 (0x78)
2 aps 40癈 (0x79)
3 crd 39癈 (0x7a)
4 gpu 68癈 (0x7b)
9 bus 43癈 (0xc0)
10 pci 48癈 (0xc1)
11 pwr 48癈 (0xc2)
idle for 24hours......half lord

[suprnova74]

I'm load testing my graphics card. I wonder how long it will run before falling on its face at these temps.
t60 with x1400 2007-g4u

cpu 91c
aps 46c
pcm 41c
gpu 104c
bat 50c
bat 33c
bus 47
pci 63c
pwr 68c

i'm taking it in for service tomorrow.

EDIT: Had thermal shutdown at 107c for gpu and 99c for cpu during load testing. Fan was hardly blowing when it failed.

[tquade]

I installed instrumentation in my T60p 8744-J2U and to my satisfaction determinded that the EC reported temperature for the GPU is offset by +20 celcius. So for a reported temperature of 105c via TPfancontrol, the actual is 85c.

Ted

[Kira]

Sorry for necroposting, but I'm running into this issue with my V5200 T60p on Windows XP. I've never seen the CPU go above 65-ish, but the GPU runs extremely hot (over 100) whenever something remotely demanding is going on. Is the best solution for this problem to remove the heatsink and blow compressed air, or has something better/more effective been discovered?

[Troels]

Hi Kira,
if the GPU reaches such temperatures when only something a bit demanding is executing, i think that there's a lack of proper contact between the GPU and heatsink (or gray thermal compound). Remove the heatsink (if the laptop is out of warranty) and remove any dust by compressed air as you suggested. Also make sure that the GPU die made an imprint into the thermal compound material, and make sure that this imprint shows the full die area. After remounting the heatsink, check by pressing lightly that the part of the heatsink going to the GPU area cannot be pressed further down towards the GPU. If it can, remove the heatsink once more and bend the heatpipe, and then reinstall it again.

[Binh]

I installed instrumentation in my T60p 8744-J2U and to my satisfaction determinded that the EC reported temperature for the GPU is offset by +20 celcius. So for a reported temperature of 105c via TPfancontrol, the actual is 85c.
Ted

Very interesting finding. I too suspect that the GPU temperature reading is wrong on T60 / T60p.
My experience on T60p 2007-AD1 as follows:
- Set PowerPlay to maximum battery life (GPU frequency is fixed at 209Mhz).
- Let the computer go to standby mode for 30-60min in order to cool down the GPU.
- Resume from standby and quickly read the temperature. Strange that the GPU temperature is never go below 54C (while CPU temperature is always below 40C). In my opinion, the GPU can not be heat-up so fast, and consequently, the GPU temperature reading is wrong by 15-20C.

Any one can confirm it on his own T60 / T60p ?

P.S. My 2007-AD1 heatsink is copper modded by placing a polished EUR 20 cent between heatsink and GPU. The GPU max temperature is 75-78C under full load and PowerPlay off.