T60 Possibly Heat Problem

[Cosmos01]

I recently discovered that my laptop heated up much rapidly than before. Also, there are several occasions when the system is forced into a stand-by mode while I am using it. This never happens anytime less than 10 minutes after I switched on the laptop, and every time it happened there the laptop is quite warm, so I suspect it is a heat problem.

Sometime the computer just froze, and when I tried to restart it, it stopped the booting process during the beginning of the Windows XP Logo display. I waited for 10 minutes, I can restart it again with no problem.

The Lenovo battery manager also displayed something like I'm supposed to get 2.5 hours of maximal battery life, but with my battery condition now I only get 2.0 hours.

Do you think all these can be solved by replacing a battery?

Thank you very much for your help. I appreciate every advice.

[Harryc]

Run tpfancontrol in BIOS mode and report the CPU and GPU temperatures after you are using the machine for awhile as you normally would.

http://www.staff.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/donate.html

[bautista.ekonomista]

How old is your Thinkpad?

I think there have been several posts here on solving such, like cleaning the processor slits by using compressed air.

[Cosmos01]

How old is your Thinkpad?

I think there have been several posts here on solving such, like cleaning the processor slits by using compressed air.

It's almost 3 years old. Could you please direct me to those posts? I also heard about people applying thermal paste on their CPU. Appreciate your advice.

[richk]

If it is "almost 3 years old", it may still be under warranty. Don't screw around with it if it is. Call for warranty service.

[Cosmos01]

If it is "almost 3 years old", it may still be under warranty. Don't screw around with it if it is. Call for warranty service.

Na, it's already out. Too bad the warranty is only for 2 years. I don't want to screw around with it if I don't have to too.

[richk]

The 3 options are

1) Clean fan
2) Replace thermal grease
3) New fan

I didn't mention the unattractive possibility thet the fan is good and there is a motherboard problem

[bautista.ekonomista]

Cosmos01,

Here's the link:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=79756

I guess there are other posts discussing heat problems in T61s and various solutions have been put forth by different users. Just search for them in the forums.

As far as I am concerned, the easiest way to at least lower your TP's temp is to clean the processor slits with compressed air. You'll just have to remove the palmrest and the keyboard, then blow compressed air into the processor slits. Just be sure that when you do it, you'll have the machine facing the opposite side. There's a fairly thick amount of dust nestled in that area, so beware.

As for other solutions, I think you might as well follow richk's advise. :p

Good luck!

[GACrabill]

The 3 options are :
1) Clean fan
2) Replace thermal grease
3) New fan

.... and :

1A) There are many recommendations on this forum that address the "heat related shutdown" issue and they basically always say "Set the CPU to 'adaptive' instead of 'performance' in the Power Manager."

There is also a BIOS setting for CPU (I can't remember the exact name) which should be 'adaptive' and not 'maximum performance' (which defeats the Intel SpeedStep technology and keeps the processor at full power at all times generating heat even when it's not doing anything).

Our refurbished T60 had this problem when it was perfectly clean inside and changing the BIOS setting and making sure that the Power Manager settings were not set for 'maximum performance' totally solved the problem. We went from a failure every 2-3 days to no failures in the 9 months since making the changes to 'adaptive'.