X61 sometimes won't boot up unless it cools down

[dmdsoftware]

I noticed this for a while, but I figured I'd start a thread. It's not really critical, just annoying.

I run Linux on my thinkpads, so this particular X61 normally has thinkfan running and temperatures are usually always low.

However, I notice that if I power down the laptop with a high temperature (such as I'm doing a lot of file transfers or if I'm running stuff from a livecd such as clonezilla copying drives so no proper fan or temperature control during the process), that sometimes the system won't boot up. It makes it past the POST, heck it even loads grub off the hard drive. But if I select my kernel to load, instead of loading it, it sits there at a blank screen with no HD activity. If I reboot, it'll be the same. I need to actually power off the system and wait until the system is cool to the touch on the bottom before I can successfully get by grub.

I find it interesting that I can see and load grub. I figured if it was overheating and not reading the hard drive, that it wouldn't even get to the point where it can load the master boot record to load grub.

My system never really goes above 85C. It typically is 50C and only gets to 85C if I'm really pressing it (doing a lot of i/o + cpu processing). I have thinkfan with the default temperature ranges which work very well -- like I said, it keeps the system at around 50C, and even if I press it to 80C+, the fan does a good job getting it quickly back down). However, I have come to the realization that if I definitely reboot the system when the temperature is in the 70C-90C range, that it won't boot until I let it cool.

The fan is clean, works well. I actually have a 6100 wifi card so it generates very little heat for the system. I know a lot of folks are going to immediately tell me to dismount the heatsink and apply a new layer of glue to it. Perhaps I will do this.

Another note is the system is relatively new. The motherboard with fan is only about 12 months old. It was sitting on a self somewhere before I started using it.

I always assumed it might have been the HD overheating. However, I've switched to a SSD recently and it has the same behaviour.

The system never shutdown or reboots on it's own (typical overheating behaviour), etc. It doesn't get overly hot to the touch either. I've seen overheating a X60 machine before that needed a good resetting of the thermal paste etc, that would examine overheating features such as shutting down or reboot when hitting a high temperature etc, and it would not boot up (stay up) until it cooled down sufficiently enough.

Like I said it's not really a critical issue for me since it's not affecting my everyday use of the machine. It's just an annoyance that comes up every now and then. I was wondering if anyone else saw a X6* machine that demonstrated similar behaviour and whether it was for sure the cpu overheating or some other component overheating.