Thinkpads Forum

At the moment I have 2 T61p's. I notice a big temperature difference between them as measured by PCWizard. At idle, the CPU temp on one is about 78C and the other is about 58C. The warmer one has 4GB of Ram and the cooler one has 2GB. Could the difference in RAM account for such a big difference in CPU temperature? I realize I can test this by switching the RAM, but I would rather see what the experts here think before messing with anything.

I am not an expert, but I don't think size of RAM should make such a huge difference. I guess there must be something wrong with 78C idle temperature, either the thermal sensor is dead, or there is some bad contact between the CPU and the HSF.

Is the RAM size the only hardware difference between these two machines?

Curiosity got the better of me and so I switched the RAM between the two machines (yes, they're identical with the exception of the RAM). You're right, the RAM didn't make a difference. I ran SPYBOT Search and Destroy on both simultaneously and watched the temps. The cooler one (now with the extra RAM) now ran about an average of 5C cooler on both cores. Then I switched back the RAM. Still one is hotter than the other, but not by as when I made the original post. As I type the warmer one (now with the RAM again) CPU Temp is 65C (Core 1 is 53C and Core 2 52C). It seems like the core temps between the two machines are more similar than the overall CPU temp. I'm guessing that they're somehow more accurate.