T60/X1400: Powerplay kicks in at 80C?

[nelson]

My three month old T60 has a new problem. Sometimes when I'm playing a game like World of Warcraft, the framerate suddenly slows down. If I restart the game it works fine for awhile. The effect is unpredictable. It happens when I'm plugged into AC power. I have the Thinkpad power settings all for maximize performance, and ATI Powerplay is turned on and set to optimal performance.

I'm making a guess here that this is related to ATI Powerplay. In particular the GPU temperature is normally around 70C, but about the time my games slow down the temperature is 80C. Is there some logic in Powerplay that slows down the GPU when things get too hot? The slowdown feels similar to what I see when I'm running on battery.

If it is temperature related, is there anything I can do short of dissassembling the laptop and trying to clean the fans? Not excited about that idea. I am going to try disabling Powerplay next and see if the problem goes away, but then I'm left with a laptop running too hot...

[sergeycentral]

My three month old T60 has a new problem. Sometimes when I'm playing a game like World of Warcraft, the framerate suddenly slows down. If I restart the game it works fine for awhile. The effect is unpredictable. It happens when I'm plugged into AC power. I have the Thinkpad power settings all for maximize performance, and ATI Powerplay is turned on and set to optimal performance.

I'm making a guess here that this is related to ATI Powerplay. In particular the GPU temperature is normally around 70C, but about the time my games slow down the temperature is 80C. Is there some logic in Powerplay that slows down the GPU when things get too hot? The slowdown feels similar to what I see when I'm running on battery.

If it is temperature related, is there anything I can do short of dissassembling the laptop and trying to clean the fans? Not excited about that idea. I am going to try disabling Powerplay next and see if the problem goes away, but then I'm left with a laptop running too hot...

i've had a similar problem happen... try listening to the fan, is it spinning well enough? or it is barely spinning? has this made your system crash yet (for me this was above 80 C)?

its slowing down b/c its getting too hot, its the same way cpus work, you need to keeping everything running cool for good performance...