Thinkpads Forum

I've noticed that since I replaced my T61 RAM (2x512MB Hynix PC5300 DDR2) with a G.Skill 2x2GB Kit.
I notice the heat builds up just below the touchpad and it bothers me because I use my T61 on my lap or in my stomach when I'm laying on my bed with the machine.
IS this normal? I recently also changed the thermal paste, but I'm not sure if this had anything to do with the bottom hot issue.

Do you have a hot T61 under the touchpad?

agarza wrote:I notice the heat builds up just below the touchpad.....

Well, that's where the memory goes so I'm guessing that the heat is coming from the new memory (plus all the other stuff that goes on in that general vicinity). Try blowing out under the palmrest/ketboard/heatsink/fan to make sure there are no cooling restrictions.

My T61p each have 3G and they are not noticeably hot.

Here are my temperatures, do you know of any software that could give the readings near the Touchpad/RAM area?

CPU 47°C (0x78)
APS 46°C (0x79)
PCM 37°C (0x7a)
BAT 37°C (0x7c)
BAT 36°C (0x7e)
BUS 44°C (0xc0)
PCI 45°C (0xc1)
PWR 42°C (0xc2)

Regarding these temperatures - I would really not worry about. Some would even call them "cool". I know this can be an issue for your comfort - but for the notebook itself you do not need to worry.

Is strange I though my T61 was supposed to be cooler than my old T42p which had discrete graphics. But it feels almost as hot. Do you know any way to measure the northbridge temperature BTW? Dont you know if the T400 are considerable on the bottom compared to the T61?

agarza wrote:CPU 47°C (0x78)
APS 46°C (0x79)
PCM 37°C (0x7a)
BAT 37°C (0x7c)
BAT 36°C (0x7e)
BUS 44°C (0xc0)
PCI 45°C (0xc1)
PWR 42°C (0xc2)

If your fan is under BIOS control, it should bring these temperatures lower when your system is idle but, in other circumstances, I wouldn't worry about those temps.
APS is a bit hot though. Maybe the sensor is not too far from your RAM.

If the memory aera that gets too hot for your taste, you know the solution, right? Put your old RAM back in and think about power consumption next time you upgrade your RAM.

I know it's already been stated, but i will have to second that these temps are no problem. Realizing of course that there is a degree (pun intended) of error with most of these diags, what you have isn't a problem. I must say that i am totally amazed at how cool my T61 runs at idle. Even @ "flame on" (heavy workload) there isn't that much heat evident. Guess i'm lucky also. I've worked on some lappys that were so hot the term "laptop" was a misnomer. You couldn't possibly work with it on your lap. They should call it a "lapHOT" instead.

BTW & FYI i found a really cool (sorry, there's that pun thing again) NON ELECTRIC device that really does work. At first i believe it was some kind of Snake Oil. I was turned onto this thing from a bunch of gamers i had helped with their systems. It's made by Targus and it's simply a metal stand in the shape of an "X". It props up the back of the laptop a bit over 2" and allows heat to dissipate. It can adjust to fit most laptops and works perfect for my TPad. If you are uncomfortable with the heat it's generating i guarantee this will work wonders. And no fans or electricity to worry about. Of course it isn't for using on your lap, but when you can set it on flat surface. Don't know about posting links so I will just say I got it at Newegg but i didn't see it there anymore. Targus model #AWE09US so you can find it elsewhere.

Hope this helps

I cleaned the innards of my T61 last week using an air duster. Though the heat generated near the processor slits plunged noticeably (before, I had to put a fan behind the processor slits just to cool the laptop; now even if I leave the laptop running the whole day without the fan, that area runs very cool), I've noticed that the area underneath the palmrest has gotten hotter. Well, not that hot in a sense that it warms the palmrest; in fact the palmrest is as cool as ever. However, when I touch the area underneath the palmrest, it's somewhat hotter than it used to be. I've been Googling for such software but I can't find something that details the temperatures registered by certain areas of the laptop.

Do you think there's something wrong going on underneath the palmrest? Right now I'm running my hands under the area where the hard drive is supposed to be connected, and there's no heat registered there. Same as with other areas underneath the laptop. I'm just concerned that something's wrong with that are, which may be the reason why it's that hot.

They usually say that a fever, in itself, isn't the illness; more often than not, it's an indicator of something much worse.

What do you think fellow Thinkpadders?

There are several diagnostic/monitoring programs that can report detailed temperature data. The most comprehensive one I know of is "Everest Ultimate" which accesses and can report on almost every sensor on your system. I believe you can trial it for free. A completely free program that reports some temperature readings is "Speedfan." Going from memory, it reports hard drive temps, GPU temp, CPU temps, and possibly a few other temps.

The temps reported above seem very cool to me. My T61p has it's CPU voltage controlled (lowered) by Rightmark CPU Clock and it is running quite a bit hotter than the numbers reported above. For example, right now at idle my CPU cores are at 53, 51, GPU is at 69 and hard drive is at 42 (all temps are Cent.).

On a side note, my fan never seems to really crank up. It mostly just constantly spins at about 3000 rpm + or- 100 rpm, which is barely audible in a quiet room. I would like to see the fan spin up more when the system gets really hot under load. But power manager (W7 beta version) doesn't work so great with W7 x64 rtm yet so I am reluctant to start configuring things with power manager as I fear it will conflict with W7's power management.

Anyway, as others have said, those temps reported above are really cool and healthy.

bautista.ekonomista wrote:I cleaned the innards of my T61 last week using an air duster. Though the heat generated near the processor slits plunged noticeably (before, I had to put a fan behind the processor slits just to cool the laptop; now even if I leave the laptop running the whole day without the fan, that area runs very cool), I've noticed that the area underneath the palmrest has gotten hotter. Well, not that hot in a sense that it warms the palmrest; in fact the palmrest is as cool as ever. However, when I touch the area underneath the palmrest, it's somewhat hotter than it used to be. I've been Googling for such software but I can't find something that details the temperatures registered by certain areas of the laptop.

Do you think there's something wrong going on underneath the palmrest? Right now I'm running my hands under the area where the hard drive is supposed to be connected, and there's no heat registered there. Same as with other areas underneath the laptop. I'm just concerned that something's wrong with that are, which may be the reason why it's that hot.

They usually say that a fever, in itself, isn't the illness; more often than not, it's an indicator of something much worse.

What do you think fellow Thinkpadders?

By the way, I just downloaded TPFanControl. These are the following figures the program reported back to me:

1 cpu 57°C
2 aps 38°C
3 crd 35°C
4 gpu n/a
5 no5 50°C
6 x7d n/a
7 bat 30°C
8 x7f n/a
9 bus 38°C
10 pci 44°C
11 pwr 44°C
12 xc3 n/a

You think these figures fit the average temps? Or are they too hot?

Those temps seem fine. The CPU is a little high for idle but not much. The CPU temps respond very quickly to demand. They shoot up as soon as there is any CPU activity and drop back down pretty quickly. So your CPU was probably doing something (perhaps some background process) more than just idling when that measurement was taken.

pae77 wrote:Those temps seem fine. The CPU is a little high for idle but not much. The CPU temps respond very quickly to demand. They shoot up as soon as there is any CPU activity and drop back down pretty quickly. So your CPU was probably doing something (perhaps some background process) more than just idling when that measurement was taken.

But do you think the warm feeling underneath the palmrest area (the palmrest is cool; it's what's beneath the laptop that's right underneath the palmrest that's quite hot) is quite normal?

I really am concerned with the heat generated underneath the laptop just below the area where the RAM sticks are located. The palmrest area has also warmed up a bit. I don't know any software that can accurately measure that area of a T61, but when touching the underbelly of the laptop, the RAM area is noticeably hotter than other areas, even than the area where the processor is located.

Do you think there's really something wrong with my T61? I just cleaned the processor with an air duster, hoping that the intermittent warming of that area will be solved. However, it seemed that another problem has spawned..

Fellow thinkpadders.

Just a few minutes ago, I opened the palmrest of my T61 yet again. I followed sktn77a's advice regarding blowing some air under that area to free such of cooling restrictions. However, as of this writing, the area under the laptop beneath where the RAM modules are supposed to be sitting has warmed once more. Not only that; the palmrest area has also gotten warmer than my liking.

It really bugs me to hell since before I opened my T61, which also involved removing the keyboard, to clean my processor, I never had this problem. I don't know why such has been happening since that incident. Moreover, the screen has been flickering (this may be OT, but I'm just airing my frustration over my trusty T61..).

I really am heading to the service depot tomorrow. As much as I don't want to leave it there for a day's worth of repair since I have too many pending schoolwork, I guess that's the only route I can traverse right now.

P.S. I hope someone answers my query regarding the heating palmrest...I'm having these thoughts that I might have touched something that shouldn't be but as far as I am concerned, I just blew air in that area...

HFat wrote: If your fan is under BIOS control, it should bring these temperatures lower when your system is idle but, in other circumstances, I wouldn't worry about those temps.
APS is a bit hot though. Maybe the sensor is not too far from your RAM.

If the memory aera that gets too hot for your taste, you know the solution, right? Put your old RAM back in and think about power consumption next time you upgrade your RAM.

Yes, interesting suggestion APS seems a little hotter, compared to bautista's readings:
1 cpu 57°C
2 aps 38°C
3 crd 35°C
4 gpu n/a
5 no5 50°C
6 x7d n/a
7 bat 30°C
8 x7f n/a
9 bus 38°C
10 pci 44°C
11 pwr 44°C
12 xc3 n/a

I have the fan triggered when reached 50C and turned off at 46C, maybe that explains the high temp of the APS sensor, do anyone knows where this sensor is located on the T61?

Bautista: could you tell us which brand is your RAM, did you upgrade it or is it stock?
HFat: Do you have a T61, does your T61 feels hot too?

Maybe this has to do with the manufacturer of the memory, one interesting I'll do in the next days is remove one DIMM and see if it helps reducing the temperature beneath the touchpad.

I can't swap back the original 2x512MB memory because I already sold those modules
But this topic is interesting. I don't think thermal paste has something to do with it, because I replaced the stock thermal paste with Arctic Cooling MX-2 and I already saw a temp decrease of 3-4C at maximum load.

Just another FYI, I use the memory without using the pagefile, and very often I hear the electronics squealing of the RAM. Is it because Windows is using the RAM extensively that it becomes hot?

A few points:

My APS is about 10C under my CPU.

My T61's bottom is warm. I also upgraded the RAM with some junk I got on eBay for 10 bucks or something but for all I know it might be the Northbridge or something.
Try locking your system in low-frequency mode for a while and see what happens to the temperature.

Are you sure you can hear your RAM? I'd be worried if I could hear mine. Try to disable the analog inputs to your sound card.

You shouldn't disable the swap file in Windows (or at least not with the older versions).