Thinkpads Forum

Glad I found this forum. Lot's of good information. I received the "fan error" message when my T60 fan started to head south.

I just received a "used but working" replacement. Since this is my first time replacing the assembly I had a couple questions.

1. The replacement came with two thermal pads. They still have slight indentation where the GPU etc. were. Can I just flip these over and have a smooth surface for my GPU etc.? They appear easy to peel off the copper (similiar to silly puddy).

2. The Thinkpad Hardware Maintenance Manual states that the Thermal Grease needs to be put directly on the heatsink. Everywhere I read states it goes on the CPU? Is it one or the other or both? Confusing..

3. The manual also sates to put no more or less than .02 grams. THis is really an issue for me as I purchased the SpectraCool Thermal Grease that comes in a 4 gram syringe. How can I possibly know how much .02 grams is?

1.) Don't touch the thermal pads. As long as they are not torn and they touch the GPU once installed you are good to go.
2.) Doesn't matter as long as you apply a paper thin even coat. I usually apply it to the CPU core.
3.) Use the paste in the amount equal to the size of a grain of rice. Use a credit card to smooth it out and cover the entire core. Remember - paper thin.

Technically, I don't think you need thermal grease if you have thermal pads (they are soft and can match pretty well to the chip surface/angle). However, if you use a wafer-thin covering on the chip, you should be fine.

@sktn77a, I just realized that the OP might have a pad on the CPU heatsink. If that is the case remove it entirely and clean it all off completely before applying thermal paste. Leave the pad on the GPU heatsink.

Yeah, thermal pads make it difficult to work on the heatsinks and fans. Frequently, they disintegrate and are difficult to re-use. It's also difficult to get the heatsink to contact the chip if it was designed for a pad and there may be a gap there which can't just be filled with thermal paste. I've not seen a thermal pad on the CPU HS but I think the GPU uses them.

Thanks for the quick response. Harryc: that is identical to my setup. Thanks for the pic!

I am pretty confused. I will soon need to either replace or grease the fan. My model is Core Duo with FireGL:

I am pretty concerned with these elastic thermal pads. If I don't fit perfectly the pressured hole to the chip (which is highly probable) - I can risk dangerous graphic chip overheating. I have found "thermal tape" by The Bergquist Company 100 mm x 20 mm x 2,54 mm:

I could alternatively use FUJI POLYMER INDUSTRIES 100 mm x 20 mm x 1 mm:


Any suggestions? Should I rather stick to the existing thermal pads on GPU and its RAM? How should I even-out the pressure marks on it? Press it to glass surface?

For CPU I intend to use Arctic Silver V or Cooling Diamond 7 Carat.

Offtopic: Fan lubrication guide is here, but I am convinced I need a bit less liquid lubricant than mineral oil (bit more "dense" than engine oil 15W40). This might reduce the fan pulsation/resonance (aka "high pitch sound" or "fan whining" [yes, I have read all the "electronics explanations", not my case - switching off fan eliminates the high pitch pulsating noise Imho the sleeve bearing was originally improperly lubricated or was too lose - mabye the axis of spin did not go through the centre of mass?]).

The fan picture is the way the fans come new from IBM/Lenovo. The little dots are the thermal paste. There is a piece that fits over the part of the heatsink that contacts the GPU. It is held down by 1 of the fan screws and a 3mm screw near the modem. That fan is for the discrete graphics (ATi) model. I assume that is what you have.

Thank you for answer, I know for 2007-FHG I need FRU 41V9932 (discrete, CD) or 41W9932 (discrete, C2D). Still I do not know if I should replace thermal pads under GPU and its memory heatsink? Can I even-out the pressure marks on these pads with some glass surface, or these are not elastic enough by now (in one of posts above sktn77a said thermal pads stiffen with time)? If I must replace - which pad of these I mentioned I should purchase?

I reuse the pads. I use some sort of flat edge to slightly compress the pads amout 1 mm in each of the 4 directions.

Harryc wrote:1.) Don't touch the thermal pads. As long as they are not torn and they touch the GPU once installed you are good to go.

What do you do if they are torn?

They need to be replaced.

Harryc wrote:They need to be replaced.

Is there a way to replace them other than buying a whole new heatsink?

Sure, buy a similar thickness thermal pad.

Harryc wrote:Sure, buy a similar thickness thermal pad.

That appears to be easier said than done. I can't seem to find any. Got any ideas on where to find such a thick thermal pad?

Well, all independent measurements I've seen of that pad put it at 3 to 5mm. So here you go -
http://cgi.ebay.com/Thermal-Conductive- ... 2a06a0d512
http://cgi.ebay.com/Thermal-Pad-3X3cm-3 ... 4a9f9bbe36

Wow, I checked like 5 different tech store website, but never thought to go to ebay. Thank you kind sir.

Is there some reason my gpu temps should be much higher than normal after replacing the thermal pads? Also, which temp in tpfan control is the mobo chip that the heatsink touches and what is a normal temperature for it in a T60 with the v5200?

It touches the GPU. Normal would be 65*C at idle.

Harryc wrote:It touches the GPU. Normal would be 65*C at idle.

Oh, I know it touches the GPU, but then what's the one futher back in the computer? It touches the CPU, the GPU which says ATI on it, and then another chip near the CMOS battery.

But yeah, my gpu temps are way off normal. Is there any sort of bed in needed for the pads, or should I be looking to see what's wrong?

I bought pads in varying widths. I used ones that are 0.5mm thicker than the old beat up ones as I measured them (the old ones were 1mm on the GPU and 2mm on the other chip that I don't know the identity of). It didn't seem to really necessitate any excess pressure, but could the 0.5mm be the reason for a gpu temp about 20C higher than norm? I went 0.5mm thicker because I figure the old ones had thinned out some, but I do have thermal pads here, I just rather not waste the ones I've already got on it if they aren't the issue.

The heatsink covers the GPU and the northbridge.

Ah, ok, Northbridge. So are northbridge temps reported in TPFanControl and if so what's a normal temp there?

EDIT: well, changing the pad on the northbridge from 2.5mm to 2mm dropped the GPU temps noticeably, but they're still not quite as low as they should be. At the end of the day, I think these pads are not as good as the factory ones - they're much firmer and they have farily significant layer of adhesive on the back. Given that this laptop only sees desktop use, I'll probably just run the fan on a high speed and buy a replacement fan when it prematurely dies from that.

I remembered I had an old fan unit lying around. It's the 41W6407 as opposed to the 41V9932 that one in there (not sure which is better, the W has a longer CPU heatpipe, but the V has the cpu heat pipe touching heatsink material at the bend rather than only past the bend).

Because I wasn't using it, I figured I'd give it a shot at just bending the GPU/northbridge heatsinks down and using artic silver. GPU temp is way better than it has ever been - ~56C at idle, but my CPU temp is high, not sure why. Maybe I bet the GPU stuff too far down and am not getting a good contact on the cpu. Either way, this is interesting.

somewhat related question, I thought my temps were bad too, around 55 idle, and as much as 91 when playing games I shouldn't be playing on my T60p

but I just went and got a notebook cooler, I wanted to raise up and tilt my laptop anyways, I can move the 2 fans around on the bottom, where should I put them? whereabouts are the CPU and GPU? for now I have one about under the space bar, and one about under the Q, seeing about a 3-4 degree drop so far on idle

91 when playing games is about right for these. 100C is where trouble seems to start.

Put one fan in the region of the G/F keys and the other I'd say around Q (going by memory).

I have a T60p that was running very hot, idling at 84°C, and reusing the thermal pad was not an option for me. I solved the problem by replacing the thermal pad with a bronze spacer. The bronze conducts heat about 100X better than the thermal pad did. The thermal pad was acting more like a thermal insulator, than a thermal conductor. My idle GPU temps are now down to the low 60s C, still higher than it should be, but much better than it was.

The spacer was easy to make. I simply bought a 1cm thick sheet of bronze (brass or copper are OK, too, whichever is available) at a hardware store, cut off a small piece with a hacksaw, filed the burs off to preclude scratching the GPU, applied Arctic Silver to both sides, and put it in place. It works great now, and I didn't have to bend the cooling fan or use the "penny mod". My total cost was under $4, and it took less than half an hour to make it.

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Corrected "1mm" to read "1cm". Thanks, HarryC! mea culpa

Interesting that they sell 1mm thick sheets of bronze at a hardware store ... must be a good hardware store .

Most hardware stores carry an assortment of small metal sheets, tubes, etc. for home projects or repairs.

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Edit: Ah! Now I get it! How about 1 centimeter thick??

Saturday mornings in my "early years" were spent with my Grandfather and the "Hardware Store" was always on the list of places to go! It generally didn't matter what you needed the first stop for anything other than "food stuffs" was the local hardware!

A visit to a "real" hardware store can be quite an adventure.