New T60p: Heat and noise observations
Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 7:51 pm
I've had my T60p for less than 2 weeks and I owned a T42p for more than 2 years before this machine and a couple of things stand out immediately about the T60p's cooling system.
I chose to talk about the T60p cooling system because other than that, it is a perfect machine. The system came with an ALPS keyboard and my T42p has a NMB keyboard, the main difference between them is that the ALPS seems to be the louder and feels more plasticky (coin that and add it to websters). However, it is still a very high quality keyboard, Acer and Dell keyboards offer no competition. I also have the samsung screen, 2gb of ram, and the Athero ABG wireless chip. All in all, nearly flawless machine, portable and powerful.
The problem I have with the system is that its fan is about four times louder than my T42p when I'm doing everyday tasks like programming and surfing the web. At the 6X multiplier and with NHC active, the processor reads 56 degrees celsius and the fan is noticeable and iritating. With my T42p, at the lowest multiplier I can at lower the voltage to .732 and it runs ~40 C and the fan is pretty much off. I also downloaded TP Fan Control and the GPU idles at 65-67 degrees celsius, if you know anything about MOS, you know that bad things happen at high temperatures.
So I opened up the machine (took off the palmrest, keyboard, and bezel), and took a look at the cooling system. One immediately noticeable problem with the system is that the thin heatsink barely extends over the ATI graphics chip and a thick thermal pad is used to transfer heat from the heatsink and the gpu to the heatsink. There is almost no contact for half of the ram chips of the v5200 gpu. I'm not a thermal and fluids guy but I know that metal is a better conductor than a rubber/plastic/hybrid pad of some sort. So I'm thinking that the high temperatures could be caused by the poor contact between the GPU and the heatsink and the insulation effect of the thermal pad. One immediate solution I'll probably look into is adding a thin piece of 1"x1" copper plate between the gpu/ramchips and heatsink and adding some AS5 so that more of the heat can at least be transported to the heatsink where it can be dissipated. In the long run though, the hot temperatures and shoddy cooling system cannot be good for the longevity and reliability of the machine.
Dan
I chose to talk about the T60p cooling system because other than that, it is a perfect machine. The system came with an ALPS keyboard and my T42p has a NMB keyboard, the main difference between them is that the ALPS seems to be the louder and feels more plasticky (coin that and add it to websters). However, it is still a very high quality keyboard, Acer and Dell keyboards offer no competition. I also have the samsung screen, 2gb of ram, and the Athero ABG wireless chip. All in all, nearly flawless machine, portable and powerful.
The problem I have with the system is that its fan is about four times louder than my T42p when I'm doing everyday tasks like programming and surfing the web. At the 6X multiplier and with NHC active, the processor reads 56 degrees celsius and the fan is noticeable and iritating. With my T42p, at the lowest multiplier I can at lower the voltage to .732 and it runs ~40 C and the fan is pretty much off. I also downloaded TP Fan Control and the GPU idles at 65-67 degrees celsius, if you know anything about MOS, you know that bad things happen at high temperatures.
So I opened up the machine (took off the palmrest, keyboard, and bezel), and took a look at the cooling system. One immediately noticeable problem with the system is that the thin heatsink barely extends over the ATI graphics chip and a thick thermal pad is used to transfer heat from the heatsink and the gpu to the heatsink. There is almost no contact for half of the ram chips of the v5200 gpu. I'm not a thermal and fluids guy but I know that metal is a better conductor than a rubber/plastic/hybrid pad of some sort. So I'm thinking that the high temperatures could be caused by the poor contact between the GPU and the heatsink and the insulation effect of the thermal pad. One immediate solution I'll probably look into is adding a thin piece of 1"x1" copper plate between the gpu/ramchips and heatsink and adding some AS5 so that more of the heat can at least be transported to the heatsink where it can be dissipated. In the long run though, the hot temperatures and shoddy cooling system cannot be good for the longevity and reliability of the machine.
Dan