Back on my T60p; overheating issues; please help...

[Crunch]

Alright, so I sold my W700 just in time for the W701. Between now and when I can get a W701, I'm back on my T60p. Here's a quick rundown of what I did with my T60p when I got it three years ago. Besides getting the T60p itself, I also got a T7600 CPU, and an Atheros N WiFi card, both of which I upgraded my T60p to so as to get 64-bit capability (it originally had a T2600; 32-bit Core Duo 2.16GHz CPU). Besides that, wireless N has always been important to me, so all of that worked out great.

However, I remember the last month and a half using the T60p, before I received my W700, it had already started overheating to the point where it would just shut off when it got to hot. Or did it??? I say that because the T60 (T2500 2GHz) that I gave my GF about a year and a half ago, does not ever shut down, even though it gets just as fast when playing back a Bluray or DVD movie. Yes, I'll go in and apply more silver paste, and try to clean out the dust from the fan, but I'm starting to think that it's not even necessarily a heat issue. Although when getting extra hot, I can wait for it to simply turn off. Then again, running a 1080p Bluray earlier today made my girl's T60 run super hot for a good while and to the point where you couldn't really touch it for more than a second. It never shut down, though.

One difference is that hers has a 32-bit CPU, and runs Windows 7 32-bit, while mine was upgraded to a 64-bit CPU, and I have read tons of stories linking 64-bit CPU's to running significantly hotter than their 32-bit counterparts. I tried installing Windows 7 32-bit, and while I can work just fine, a movie will bring it down. I do not seem to have to worry about the hear much at all running Windows 7 32-bit, but with my 64-bit installation, it's more of an issue.

Do you think the SSD could have anything to do with it?? It doesn't contribute to heat, that's for sure due to the nature of SSD's, but maybe for some other reason...? I really want to get to the bottom of this, and would welcome your ideas, suggestions, comments, and any other help.

Thanks very much.

[Harryc]

Well, for starters I'd run tpfancontrol and see what the CPU and GPU temps are right before it shuts down, and then make a decision from there. Post results here.

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

[wild_bill]

just clean the heatsinks and fan cowl out with a clean unused paintbrush, then use arctic silver on the CPU and discard thermal pad

also carefully strategically bend the copper heatpipe to get more force on to the CPU & GPU (I even inserted a US dime (10 cents) underneath the heat pipe in the GPU area) - I have a T7600 in mine and it runs about 115 degrees F. all the time unless I am playing Fritz chess, then it can get up to 165 or so. (that game is like running super pi)

cheers!

[ThinkPadophile]

Crunch:
Since I'm the one who sold you that T60p, consider this part of your "aftermarket support".
I've had a similar problem, and it turned out to be fairly easy to fix. I picked up a used T60p on fleabay and had overheating problems because its GPU ran hot (180 degrees plus, just idling).
Check out the thread "Improving Heat Sink Performance" and particularly the advice given by bmwman91 on page 2. Disregarding my own advice and following his I simply removed the thermal pads, applied Arctic Silver 5, bent the heat pipe slightly, performed the "penny mod", and buttoned it up. That simple procedure lowered the GPU temps by nearly 40 degrees F. The key seems to be to get rid of the thermal pads altogether.
If you're not comfortable bending the heat pipe (I'm not entirely) try replacing the thermal pads with small squares of 1mm thick copper sheet. The copper sheet can be purchased at a hardware store. It's inexpensive and it's fairly easy to cut with a hacksaw. You might have to stack two squares on top of each other to span the gap between the heat pipe and the Northbridge chip. Be sure to use Arctic Silver between the squares, as well as where they interface with the heat pipe and the chips. I intend to make this change the next time I have mine apart.
Hope this helps, and let me know how it turns out.

[crazyfrog]

Overheating issues have been repeatedly dicussed. For example, here is a good guide if you want to follow.

[wild_bill]

performed the "penny mod"

actually my "dime mod" is much better than the penny mod, as copper is a great conductor of heat and the current US penny (since 1982) is only 2.5% copper but the current dime is 91.7% copper!!

I actually "lapped" my dime for even better heat transfer

[Crunch]

Well, it's done. What a difference a little spring cleaning makes. Besides putting AS5 silver paste on the T7600, I also put some on the ATI GPU. The amount of dust, ...dust balls really lol...was pretty bad. No wonder the laptop pushed back crying for a well overdue cleaning.

I haven't been able to crash it, and I did try. I ran a 720p Bluray for 20 mins., while at the same time running iTunes, charging my PDA, had 20 tabs open in Firefox, and I changed the power profile from Balanced to High Performance. It barely made it above 60C. I use PC Wizard to check temps, by the way. Core temp is another one, which also has 64-bit support.

Anyway, as I'm typing this, temps are in the mid to upper 40's C, and the fan runs very quietly.

I'll be going back to Windows 7 64-bit, although due to limitations of this particular system board, I won't be able to use more than 3GB's. I just want to see if it runs any hotter, which wouldn't matter much, even if it shot up by 10C. I shall report my findings as to that.

Hopefully, someone will find this thread useful if they're in a similar predicament.

Thanks for the help, guys.

[Crunch]

Crunch:
Since I'm the one who sold you that T60p, consider this part of your "aftermarket support".
I've had a similar problem, and it turned out to be fairly easy to fix. I picked up a used T60p on fleabay and had overheating problems because its GPU ran hot (180 degrees plus, just idling).
Check out the thread "Improving Heat Sink Performance" and particularly the advice given by bmwman91 on page 2. Disregarding my own advice and following his I simply removed the thermal pads, applied Arctic Silver 5, bent the heat pipe slightly, performed the "penny mod", and buttoned it up. That simple procedure lowered the GPU temps by nearly 40 degrees F. The key seems to be to get rid of the thermal pads altogether.
If you're not comfortable bending the heat pipe (I'm not entirely) try replacing the thermal pads with small squares of 1mm thick copper sheet. The copper sheet can be purchased at a hardware store. It's inexpensive and it's fairly easy to cut with a hacksaw. You might have to stack two squares on top of each other to span the gap between the heat pipe and the Northbridge chip. Be sure to use Arctic Silver between the squares, as well as where they interface with the heat pipe and the chips. I intend to make this change the next time I have mine apart.
Hope this helps, and let me know how it turns out.

Oh Hi! You finally joined the forum, huh? Well, I had not been using "your" Thinkpad T60p for about a year because I had bought myself one of those W700 monstrosities. However, since the W701 will be coming out any day now, I wanted to get rid of the W700 in time to raise some cash, and although I really liked the W700 a lot, it doesn't really matter that much, as I always had my gorgeous T60p as a backup machine to fall back on. So for the time being, it is once again my main system.

Remember I did some major upgrades to the unit after I had gotten it from you, the main ones being the CPU (T2600 --> T7600), and I had to have the Atheros wireless-N WiFi card. The clean-up was a cakewalk and took me all of 20 minutes. It's not like the T60p is a stranger to being under the knife. ...I don't think I'll ever sell this baby.

As for what my next toy will be, I'm still trying to figure out as to whether I should get the new W701 as I said, or a MacBook Pro 17", which only has a chance because it runs Windows 7 flawlessly, and which I will only consider if it will be updated to include an IPS display. I really don't like the idea of going Mac, though. I'm also considering a third option, which would be getting one of a few new gorgeous high-end monitors I'm looking at in the 22"-27" range, all of which have IPS, amazing color accuracy, a great contrast ratio, and awesome black levels. Decisions, decisions. lol...

If you or anyone can recommend anything in particular, I'm all ears. I guess I'd be willing to drop $500, maybe a bit more if it really makes sense. Then I would get a desktop machine for the first time in 11 years with screaming specs, both of which would likely be less expensive than the W701. lol...

P.S.: If you ever want to experience a boost in speed that you won't be able to believe in the first couple of days, get an SSD. An Intel X25-M or X-18M. I'll blow one out to you.