Thinkpads Forum

Hi everyone. You know how your ThinkPad gets really nice and warm when you stream Flash video (especially HD Flash video). Well, mine had gotten to the point where it shut off after a minute of playback. I checked the bottom of the ThinkPad and both the areas underneath the ATI GPU as well as the CPU had gotten too hot for the touch. The GPU more so than the CPU.

After applying a fresh coat of thermal paste on both the CPU and GPU, it went back to "normal". It was still hot, but at least it didn't crap out on me. This is also not the first time that this happened.

However, there's another thing I can't do without it shutting down within seconds, and this was not fixed by the new thermal layer. Whenever I try to conduct the tests necessary to establish the WEI (Windows Experience Index), it shuts down. I believe that it is because the graphics card is one of the first tests. The same thing will happen when I try to run a Passmark 7 test, as well as, and this is even stranger, starting up Windows Media Center.

So any stress test on the GPU will shut down the entire computer. And so will starting up Media Center without getting so far as the settings menu, which I find very strange. The driver is up-to-date I believe and currently I have Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit installed as my main OS. The driver version is 8.561.0.0, dated 12/1/08. The driver provider is listed as ATI Technologies, Inc., and next to the digital signer, it simply says "Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility". I also tried different BIOS settings, and right before I started writing up this post, I was streaming a 1080p HD Flash video for 5 minutes, while at the same time firing up Firefox and Google Chrome with 25 tabs open between the two browsers. I also opened a 720p HD video in Windows Player 12 (x64), and for codecs, I have the Standard version of the K-Lite codec pack v5.9 installed, as well as the 64-bit version of the same, v3.4. I couldn't crash the computer with all of that running simultaneously. The fan went on and stayed on high until I shut down the videos.

Can someone please shed any light on this issue? Is the driver the right/best/most suitable one for Windows 7 64-bit? What am I missing here?

Thanks very much for any insight.

AFAIK, there's a thermal pad on the GPU. You didn't apply any thermal paste on between the GPU and the thermal pad, did you?

Install TPFanControl (scroll down to get to the download area,) and report your idle temperatures and fan speeds when it's set to BIOS control of fan speed.

Also, when something graphics intensive is going on (PC Doctor has a graphics test,) report the highest temperature you see before it powers down.

In BIOS mode, the temps are as follows:

Idle mode/720p HD content playing

1 CPU 51C 52
2 APS 45C 45
3 CRD 39C 41
4 GPU 93C 114 <--- Yikes...
9 BUS 47C 51
10 PCI 58C 63
11 PWR 50C 54

State: Fan 128 Fan 64
Switch: 93C 114C
Speed: 3465 RPM 4510RPM


Phewww...That's pretty crazy. I can get the ThinkPad to shut down by simply attempting a WEI test, but never running it at temps this high continuously for *hours*! The other temps seem pretty good, don't they? Also, I can run the fan at high speed, but the GPU temp will not budge.

Any idea as to what I should(can?) do?

Thanks a bunch!!

Remove the keyboard, remove the plate retaining the heatsink over the GPU and northbridge, and take a picture. Don't put it directly in the thread, just a link to it.

If it looks like this, you have the wrong heatsink: http://bhtooefr.ath.cx/images/IMG_1233.jpg

Those temps are similar to what I saw with that "setup."