Thinkpads Forum

My GPU temp shoots to 110C and has some artifacts on screen after 20min of 3D games/softwares under both Linux and Windows. I have sent it back to Lenovo for repair twice, the problem still exists. My machine type is 2007-66U.

I just talked over the phone with one Thinkpad technician named James Rosell. He claim that they don't see the problem I'm having because they only test the machine with their own software. So they claim the machine is perfect fine, despite the fact that high temp GPU and artifacts I saw when running 3D games. He said that " you should've know The T60 is not capable to run 3D games like World of Warcraft, and it will gets as hot as 110C with those 3D applications", and the only thing they can do is to wait until the video card is dead so that the machine will report some error code and then they will know where the problem is, other than that they won't do anything.

I don't know why I spent the money for 3yr warranty, but I'm very disappointed about the tech support Lenovo has right now. They don't even admit that the high temperature was caused by the heatsink system.

Update: I just filed a complaint on bbb.org (Best Business Bureau) about the terrible technical support I received from Lenovo, and hope it works. I suggest those who have similar experience with the Lenovo tech support to file your own complaint on bbb.org. We should have been given the service that we paid for.

Has anybody documented opening up their T60s, removing the heat sinks and re-applying it using Arctic Silver 5 compound?

I'd like to do this in the near future to see if this helps the heat dissipation. Last night I opened up the palm rest and keyboard and took a look at the innards. The heat piping on the left side of the machine is packed tight with several segments — I'm not sure which area covers the GPU.


**EDIT: Found the layout of the parts **
Here for the 8744J2U


Weird thing is, even with the sensors saying that the GPU is up around 73C, when I opened it, nothing was hotter than warm to the touch. Same with the T60 case outside, it never gets hot and the air coming out is nowhere near as hot as the air that came out of my macbook. It makes me wonder if the cooling pipes/plates are not transferring enough heat away from the GPU to the fan.

T60p 2613H5U

Doing nothing, just a web browser open:

CPU 87°C (0x78)
APS 52°C (0x79)
PCM 50°C (0x7a)
GPU 96°C (0x7b)
BUS 57°C (0xc0)
PCI 69°C (0xc1)
PWR 70°C (0xc2)


Trying to work with large PSDs or authoring a DVD or burning a CD, machine turns off without warning, in rare cases goes to sleep.
After this happens, I can usually not boot Windows at all until I leave the machine in peace for 10 - 20 minutes.

The fan never seems to do much, always very very quiet.

Since I use Photoshop, extreme multitasking and burn DVDs every day, I can not use the machine anymore.

The support ticket has been unresolved for 2 months now, after many on-site appointments, exchanging all possible parts, and after having the machine taken from me for a week, still not resolved, nothing was fixed, still turns itself off.

I spent so much time with their techs, the time and having to be available for these appointments all the time that sometimes lasted for up to 3 hours was worth more for me that a new machine or a couple of new machines.

So now I am going back to using my T43p ...
The new machines that they have on offer don't have 1600 x 1200 and I can't work on anything but that ..

Never had such bad support for a problem with a Thinkpad.

Wah this is really bad!! when did you guys buy your thinkpad!! I would really complain to BBB.org. This has become totally unacceptable IMO.
Luckily my thinkpad didn't exhibit a problem at all.

So did anyone else notice that the new T61's are using nvidia cards? I think that ATI just dropped the ball and isn't able to provide cards that don't overheat. BTW, my 2007-4AU gives the following at idle.
X1300 under vista:
CPU 51°C (0x78)
APS 44°C (0x79)
PCM 43°C (0x7a)
GPU 77°C (0x7b)
BAT 50°C (0x7c)
BAT 35°C (0x7e)
BUS 47°C (0xc0)
PCI 56°C (0xc1)
PWR 52°C (0xc2)

T60p (8744) - w/ FireGL5250...

Not sure if its due to heat (the TP fan util doesn't seem to work under Vista) but this new machine would lockup, reboot, or shutdown if the video on it was stressed. This includes simply running the "video" portion of the Lenovo bundled PC Diagnostics. As well, the spinning cube in ATITOOL and even a DirectX8 screen saver would cause video errors ranging from the driver crashing (and Vista reloading it) to total machine shutdown.

In my case, the machine is only 9 days old. Called for local repair, but a replacement system board is on backorder until June. Calling Lenovo sales, and will try to get the machine replaced with a new one. Wish me luck...

Gary

garyd9 wrote:T60p (8744) - w/ FireGL5250...

More info...

Lenovo is going to replace the machine with another 8744 (however, due the the fact that I can't be without a machine for weeks, I gave them a CC number so they'd ship me a new one BEFORE I return my existing one.)

I've also been playing around with the ATI driver, and found that if I set powerplay to "max battery", the machine won't crash.

Out of curiousity, I backed up my vista install, and installed XP... That gave me access to TPFanControl, and let me see what was going on. With the ATI set to "max performance", if I run ATITool and do nothing but show the 3D spinning cube, the GPU temp shoots up to about 120 degrees (in about 3 seconds) and the machine dies. If I lower the ATI settings to "balanced", the GPU shoots up to about 108 and hovers there. Idle GPU is around 78-80.

garyd9 wrote:

garyd9 wrote:T60p (8744) - w/ FireGL5250...

More info...

Lenovo is going to replace the machine with another 8744 (however, due the the fact that I can't be without a machine for weeks, I gave them a CC number so they'd ship me a new one BEFORE I return my existing one.)

I've also been playing around with the ATI driver, and found that if I set powerplay to "max battery", the machine won't crash.

Out of curiousity, I backed up my vista install, and installed XP... That gave me access to TPFanControl, and let me see what was going on. With the ATI set to "max performance", if I run ATITool and do nothing but show the 3D spinning cube, the GPU temp shoots up to about 120 degrees (in about 3 seconds) and the machine dies. If I lower the ATI settings to "balanced", the GPU shoots up to about 108 and hovers there. Idle GPU is around 78-80.

The heatsink is not making proper contact with the GPU. Simple as that. Open her up, remove and clean the heatsink (clean the gpu) and reapply thermal grease. Carefully check that the heatsink is maing uniform and physical contact with the GPU.

I hvae two t60p's here with the v5200 (produces more heat then v5250) and running on max performance with a large overclock... I can get one to hit 104°C after a good 30 minutes of running atitool, the other system wont go above 99°C. Again, this is with a significant overclock. At stock clocks they wont even hit 90°C on max performance.

okashira wrote:The heatsink is not making proper contact with the GPU. Simple as that. Open her up, remove and clean the heatsink (clean the gpu) and reapply thermal grease.

Only one problem: that'll void the warranty. I checked over all the maint. manuals, and the "thermal grease" (along with the heatsink/fan assembly) isn't customer servicable. (or, in IBM speak, it's not a CRU.)

Yeah, I know.. how would they know... They'd know because I'd have some reason that it'd really need service, but would forget to open it up, clean off my AS5, and put back the generic white goop.

Anyway, if the replacement ThinkPad has the same problem, I might go ahead and bring it over to a local shop that does ThinkPad warranty service and specifically ask the tech to open it up and re-apply the thermal paste (or just replace it with AS5) to see if that helps.

Following thread at OS2 World shows how the parts looks like within the T60. I have had issues myself, or rather fears, when I got the system. The system temp are as everybody elses system and I've just learned to live with it. Okey, the fan isn't that loud but it would be nice if the system sometimes could stay quite. As already said loads of times, a system that idles and have a GPU temp at 68-71 celcius seems a bit odd.

My GPU temperatures with x1400 are (2007-63G):
74C with cooling
84C without cooling..

I tried to tune a littlebit cooler and replace thick thermal compound with thermal grease. But shape of the cooler doesn't allow that without modifications.

Temperatures are with Vista.
OS, GPU clock and GPU memory clock should be mentioned here also.

My GPU temperatures with x1400 are (2007-63G):
74C with cooling
84C without cooling..

I tried to tune a littlebit cooler and replace thick thermal compound with thermal grease. But shape of the cooler doesn't allow that without modifications.

Temperatures are with Vista.
OS, GPU clock and GPU memory clock should be mentioned here also.

My GPU temperatures with x1400 are (2007-63G):
74C with cooling
84C without cooling..

I tried to tune a littlebit cooler and replace thick thermal compound with thermal grease. But shape of the cooler doesn't allow that without modifications.

Temperatures are with Vista.
OS, GPU clock and GPU memory clock should be mentioned here also.

My GPU temperatures with x1400 are (2007-63G):
74C with cooling
84C without cooling..

I tried to tune a littlebit cooler and replace thick thermal compound with thermal grease. But shape of the cooler doesn't allow that without modifications.

Temperatures are with Vista.
OS, GPU clock and GPU memory clock should be mentioned here also.

Small question -- when you guys talk about "idle" mode -- did you make sure in your task manager that there is really no background task doing some processing work? The reason I am asking is that I am surprised how high some of the numbers are you posted (mine are considerably lower), and that when I notice things getting hot, it's usually because of some application that is either doing some work in the background or that was not properly quit.

Anyways, here are my numbers (T60, T7200(2GHz), ATI X1400, Vista, free of most Lenovo bloat, fan @ 3430 RPM, CPU rather idle):

CPU 48°C (0x78)
APS 41°C (0x79)
PCM 38°C (0x7a)
GPU 55°C (0x7b)
BAT 37°C (0x7c)
BAT 35°C (0x7e)
BUS 40°C (0xc0)
PCI 50°C (0xc1)
PWR 54°C (0xc2)

Well I finally opened it up and took a look at the heat piping around the GPU. I believe the problem is in the thermal adhesive that Lenovo uses to transfer heat from the GPU to the copper piping.

This photo is 100% accurate:


I have the same gray pads between the heatsink and my GPU, and I believe it's that gray layer that's keeping the GPU temps so high, especially since immediately after removing the keyboard, the copper heatsinks are not hot at all even though the GPU at shutdown was measured around 75C.

When I have some more free time I will go through the trouble to replace the gray pads with proper thermal grease like Arctic Silver 5. I believe that will make a big difference in the GPU temps a lot of us T60 users have having issues with.

nandaiyo wrote:Well I finally opened it up and took a look at the heat piping around the GPU. I believe the problem is in the thermal adhesive that Lenovo uses to transfer heat from the GPU to the copper piping.

This photo is 100% accurate:


I have the same gray pads between the heatsink and my GPU, and I believe it's that gray layer that's keeping the GPU temps so high, especially since immediately after removing the keyboard, the copper heatsinks are not hot at all even though the GPU at shutdown was measured around 75C.

When I have some more free time I will go through the trouble to replace the gray pads with proper thermal grease like Arctic Silver 5. I believe that will make a big difference in the GPU temps a lot of us T60 users have having issues with.

A forum member has already replaced the pads with AS5 and got a significant reduction in temps. Somthing like 20°C ( too lazy to find old post) I will be doing the same to my t60p after finals...

bim wrote:I tried to tune a littlebit cooler and replace thick thermal compound with thermal grease. But shape of the cooler doesn't allow that without modifications.

Can you elaborate on this?

It would be interesting to see what results you would achieve.

I also own a T60p (fire gl 256 mb ram) and a T60. The T60 doesn't run as hot as the T60p. The T60p has constantly running it's fan at 3500 rpm, which is very annonying. Tpfanctrl reads about 70 C for the gpu chip (and I underclocked it with overdrive) while watching a 1080 showcase hd demo. The cpu always stays < 50 C.
I'm planning on updating tpfanctrl to keep the fan at 2900 and only switch back to the bios if the temperatur of the gpu reaches 70 or 80 (which is pretty high). But I think there is actual no difference in temperature either if the fan is rotating at 2900 or 3500. I would also love a lower rotating fan speed, but that seems impossible.

Compared to the T60 which was cheaper than the T60p, I shouldn't have bought the T60p since you get much better value for the T60 and much less background noise.

PS. My laptops are relatively new, they were build 2 weeks ago. (April). Does the warranty void if I open up the laptop and change the heatpads?

bluelu wrote:PS. My laptops are relatively new, they were build 2 weeks ago. (April). Does the warranty void if I open up the laptop and change the heatpads?

Absolutely yes.

okashira wrote:

bim wrote:I tried to tune a littlebit cooler and replace thick thermal compound with thermal grease. But shape of the cooler doesn't allow that without modifications.

Can you elaborate on this?

Well, problem is that the reason why they have choosen to use thermal pads instead of thermal grease might be that the space betwen the GPU and the copper is way too big. The thermal pads are 2,5mm thick and as you noticed (I took the photos couple of minutes after that IBM service guy removed and replaced the original one with a new... no improvement, actually worse) the GPU hasn't really maked it mark that well into the pad.

I can also confirm that the heat pipe itself wasn't that hot at all, more or less not at all. So the heat is not at all being transfered to the copper.

Current status isn't that Lenovo hasn't returned my calls, yet.

I got a x1400 here as well and lately my t60 just turns off after playing d3d games. Using tpfancontrol i was shocked to find out the gpu heats up to above 105°C
I will call lenovo on monday and see what they'll recommend.

Just an idea, but I would actually suggest that ALL of you calls Lenovo on Monday and makes a warrant claim regarding the heat issue. If they get loads of issues reported with the GPU heat this might wake up someone at Lenovo.

I'd not even call that thermal pads. Looks like standard blue tac poster mounting "gum". What kind of engineering is that?
So in response to Kulivondont's reply about the T61 and nVidia... the problem isn't ATI that doesn't know how to design cards that don't overheat, it's the apparent fact that Lenovo lack all knowledge of engineering the most simple part of a cooling system.
This should be a problem of low-end laptops only.

I'll probably be on the hunt for some adhessive AS and some AS 5 along with two thin, mirror finish copper plates when i get mine, depending on what the temps are like. If you need to do it properly, you should DIY.

goodgirl wrote:T60p 2613H5U

Doing nothing, just a web browser open:

CPU 87°C (0x78)
APS 52°C (0x79)
PCM 50°C (0x7a)
GPU 96°C (0x7b)
BUS 57°C (0xc0)
PCI 69°C (0xc1)
PWR 70°C (0xc2)

Thats about the levels I had a couple of minutes ago. Really freaked my out, I opened task manager, and Firefox was using 50% of the processor. I love FF, but if its going to do that, I am going to have to move back to IE.

If the pads are 2/5mm thick what can you use to replace them? I imagine that a 5mm thick layer of AS is not going to be feasible.

hoplite wrote:If the pads are 2/5mm thick what can you use to replace them? I imagine that a 5mm thick layer of AS is not going to be feasible.

If the temps are too high, i'll buy a small sheet om 2mm thick copper. Polish it, and use AS adhessive to mount it on the heatsink... Then AS5 whill have to do the rest...

I'm seeing the following on a T60p with ATI FireGL V5200:

CPU 59°C (0x78)
APS 42°C (0x79)
PCM 39°C (0x7a)
GPU 75°C (0x7b)
BAT 50°C (0x7c)
BAT 36°C (0x7e)
BUS 46°C (0xc0)
PCI 53°C (0xc1)
PWR 54°C (0xc2)

This is idle just reading this forum. When I activated my '3D Pipes' screen saver the temp was up to 79 C for the GPU. This is using AC.

23 C ambient.

garyd9 wrote:With the ATI set to "max performance", if I run ATITool and do nothing but show the 3D spinning cube, the GPU temp shoots up to about 120 degrees (in about 3 seconds) and the machine dies.

new machine is here. Same test under the same conditions... After 2 hours running ATITOOL's 3D spinning cube, temp never got over 98C. While FAR from anything I'd accept on a desktop machine, at least the new thinkpad doesn't lockup or crash when stressed. I guess I should be happy with it, eh?

(Also, the new machine has a much nicer screen (LG) and keyboard (NMB))

garyd9 wrote:

garyd9 wrote:T60p (8744) - w/ FireGL5250...

More info...

I've also been playing around with the ATI driver, and found that if I set powerplay to "max battery", the machine won't crash.

Out of curiousity, I backed up my vista install, and installed XP... That gave me access to TPFanControl, and let me see what was going on. With the ATI set to "max performance", if I run ATITool and do nothing but show the 3D spinning cube, the GPU temp shoots up to about 120 degrees (in about 3 seconds) and the machine dies. If I lower the ATI settings to "balanced", the GPU shoots up to about 108 and hovers there. Idle GPU is around 78-80.

Interesting. I loaded up a 3d App with Powerplay set to "Optimal Performance" and my GPU shot up to 100 C within 15s or less and then my thinkpad locked up and I had to power it off.

I'll try setting it to "Opitmal Battery Life" even though I'm connected via AC. It's already dropped from 95 C to 86 C within 30s of changing this setting.