Thinkpads Forum

Hi,

First post here - I've done some searching, but haven't found a thread that really has the answer that I'm looking for. I have a work-issued T60 that I think is great...except for one thing - it's pretty warm, and the fan never shuts off, even when running on battery. (I haven't tried any of the utilities like tpfancontrol or anything else yet, but I did upgrade to the latest BIOS.)

I need a new personal machine, and was giving serious consideration to the T61. I'd pull the trigger tomorrow, except I don't know whether the fan noise and heat problems have been resolved. Some posts on here indicate yes, some indicate no, and some say it's not a big deal in the first place.

Is there anyone out there who has used both who might be able to comment on whether the T61 is a lot quieter/cooler than the T60? Thanks in advance!

i probably shouldn't comment since i don't own a T61 but i own a T60 and it's not that warm. Surely the fan doesn't turn off during AC mode but mine does turn off during battery operation even if it's only for a few mins. The fan doesn't get that loud eitherway but in that regard the T61 i saw was pretty quiet even with the fan running and it was definitely cooler in the lap.

If you want a T61 then get one

It probably depends more on how you set them up.

I had a T60 (Vista, discrete graphics) and the fan ran all the time, which drove me crazy, so I stopped using it. Recently I dragged it out, put XP on it and turned the graphics card down ("optimal battery life"), and the fan ran only about 50% of time. Installed TPfancontrol and set it to keep the fan off under 60C, and the fan now is mostly off. Result happiness.

I recently bought a T61 (XP, slowest penryn, integrated graphics), and out of the box the fan is mostly off. It seems to be consistently about 10C cooler than the T60 (I think the fan comes on at 50C). I'd guess most of the difference is the integrated graphics. The fan, when it's on, is just as noisy as the T60.

Incidently, the hard drive on the T61 (WD 80GB 5400) is quieter than any 5400 drive I've heard (and much quieter than any 7200 drive), so mostly the T61 is close to silent. However, with Vista, discrete graphics, and heavy load, I expect a T61 could be as bad as the T60 originally was.

Fan noise is lower on the T61 for 2 reasons - 1) the heat exchanger was redesigned, 2) because of this, the fan no longer has the highest speed setting.