Thinkpads Forum

My ThinkPad T60 model 2613-EBU is running at a processor temp of 60 degrees C when at max performance and ~56 degrees C when at max battery. I can't even touch the bottom without being nearly burned. is this normal?

BigPaul2006 wrote:My ThinkPad T60 model 2613-EBU is running at a processor temp of 60 degrees C when at max performance and ~56 degrees C when at max battery. I can't even touch the bottom without being nearly burned. is this normal?

mine is running at 76C right now. at max performance it hits 96C. I would recommand searching a bit about the heat issues. there is also a utility called tpfancontrol which can manage your temps.

mattbiernat, your telling me that your processor hits 96c at max performance? thats ridiculously high, how does your system not fail?

let me define few terms:
max performance (for me) = heavy 3D graphics/gaming.
min performance (only for me!) = web surfing.
i believe (some but not all) laptops are designed to be able to withstand high temperatures. and i don't run at 96C 24:7.
you are lucky you are not owning a macbook/ibook...

i hear what your saying, its just that i didn't know that computers could continue to perform at such a high temperature.

Note- I'm not an expert computer person, so don't kill me if anything I say is wrong. I'm going by experience....

my T60 runs around at a really high temperature too. If I leave it on overnight on the carpet, that spot on the carpet is nicely ironed. I think it's normal, because everyone that I know who has a T60 (and that's a lot of people seeing as that's the school offered laptop) seems to have that problem. I wouldn't worry about it too much, as I haven't actually had any problems because of that. If you're super concerned, just get one of those nifty laptop fans that you power through USB.

The ones that will run a little warmer than others is T60/p 14.1 model especially with discrete GPU.

Hi,

My ThinkPad T60 model 2613-EBU is running at a processor temp of 60 degrees C when at max performance and ~56 degrees C when at max battery. I can't even touch the bottom without being nearly burned. is this normal?

I have T60 2007-FUG (T5600 + X1400) idle temps ~53C and MAX is 75 C (GPU) 65-70C (CPU) - heavy numerical operations (Fluent, rendering). Clean the heatsink, install tpfc, tinkle with power manager properties to choose the most efficient power plan (e.g. one for web surfing second for intensive work), use powerplay schemes (if you have ATI GPU). You can undervolt CPU with NHC or RMClock.

Personally I wouldn't call 60C - 70C hot. My old T43 can run at 80C - 85C and still be stable. I've never experienced any problem with it for the past two years. The T43p can go up to 95C and I heard the MacBook Pro (the one with X1600) have reached 102C. I saw a photo posted by some poor guy who got burned otherwise I wouldn't have believed it either. If I remember right, the maximum temperature for modern laptop CPUs is 100C.

Btw, can the TPFanControl be used on T6 series?

skinnyp220 wrote:I leave it on overnight on the carpet, that spot on the carpet is nicely ironed.

don't leave it on a carpet. this decreases the ventilation and makes your t60 even hotter. unless of course your like your baby this way

My T42p idling or just web surfing lures about the 46C-50C (the fan is set to turn on only when temp rises above 50C).

Heavy gaming and the CPU ramps up to 63C MAX with the GPU reaching about 75-80C and quickly the temps drops to the 60's.

A simple way of getting rid of getting high temps is use compressed air to blow the dust inside the heatsink, other than that involves changing thermal compound/see there's good interface mating between the heatsink/CPU.

I've never had a T6x laptop, but I must say that this problem was also present in some T4x due to poor heatsink contact with the CPU.

Undervolt the CPU for a cooler laptop.

xtr wrote: Undervolt the CPU for a cooler laptop.

to my knowledge nobody in this forum effectively undervolted T60.

to my knowledge nobody in this forum effectively undervolted T60.

Nope, RMClock can "effectively" undervolt T60 - 0,95V for all multipliers (rock stable). I have only problems with NHC... (described some posts above)

mattbiernat wrote:

skinnyp220 wrote:I leave it on overnight on the carpet, that spot on the carpet is nicely ironed.

don't leave it on a carpet. this decreases the ventilation and makes your t60 even hotter. unless of course your like your baby this way

I agree with Mattbiernat. Don't leave your computer on carpet. It's harder for carpet to disapate heat. The surrounding areas will stay/hold the heat. Overtime more and more hit will raise the ambient temperature in the existing area!

I believe any temperature over 70 for a prelonged time is probably not good. May not hurt the machine at the moment; but over time will shorten the CPU/processors Life.

It's like an automobile. It must be cooled! The hotter it runs the slower it will runs!

They are great machine! But why test there limits!

Just my .2 cents.

Mine stay on 24x7, and when I'm not actively using one, I leave them sitting like a tent on the front edges of the upper and lower case. No heat buildup that way whether they're on carpet or on the table or desk. They don't get as dusty if they're on the table or desk, though.

sircas wrote:I believe any temperature over 70 for a prelonged time is probably not good. May not hurt the machine at the moment; but over time will shorten the CPU/processors Life.

but most T60s with graphic cards run over 70 out of the factory. and that depends where you measure the temperature. mostly GPU is the one that gets hot. The CPU runs at 52 right now. so this makes me think that those suckers were designed to take this heat. i wonder if there is some real time data from the factory which describes the optimal temperature for GPU/CPU. I couldn't find it anywhere in the forum.

I had the same problem with my 1.5 year old T60 over heating. It seemed the older it got, the hotter it got (kinda like geriatric women maybe? *ducks*). I finally found a solution. Using the service guide, I opened the machine up, removed the heat sink, blasted all the crap outta it with some canned air, cleaned off / replaced the silver goo heat sink material between the processor and the copper heat sink and WHABAM. Cool as a cucumber. Hopefully this will help others as I was having system hangs, hot laps, etc.