Palmrest mod for Thinkpad X60

[bullsback]

I was quite frustrated by the heat, and it was hot enough that I wanted to do something about it. I bot this machine for about 100 USD, core 2 duo 2ghz, 120 gb hdd, 1gb ram, 8 cell new battery (china made replacements), note that my motherboard has only 1 pcie slot which is the one for the wireless lan.

i tried a variety of ways, but the plastic covering the motherboard is quite thin for me do anything.

So i bot a 5volt dc fan, probably 1.5 to 2cm by 0.5cm thick, solder it to one of the circuits, cut out an tin can drink & drill some holes ... Here's it how it look like, hopefully, its useful to some people. earlier, i tried, insert, loads of aluminium foil, heat remains the same and it jus takes longer to reach the previous hot state. Then I tried using styrofoam cuts out from macdonald coffee cups, dont work either. By this works, its no longer hot. Behind the palmrest, there is 2 slats of copper plates stat on each other, so i jus bend them backwards over, next i cut a square hold for the 5v dc fan to suck in the air, and i cut some holes on the side of the laptop. Because the fan is blowing downwards, the plastic holder of the fan is squarish, so i cut the 2 sides, thus air blows downwards and one way towards the side of the laptop and the other into the hot wireless lan.

i will post some other motherboard pictures if there is request.

The tin cap is jus attached to the motherboard with superglue, ya its a mess, i dont give care as long as the darn heat is removed! I really love the quality of the X series, after all these years, it looks as good as new. I prefer this mechical keyboard as opposed to chicket kb and also much prefer 4:3 screens rather than 16:9 screens...

Its a messy mod i admit, the current of the fan is rated 0.1a, so its abt 0.5 watts, battery life slightly affected, i can always buy another china made battery...

[Tasurinchi]

Let me be honest with you, it looks quite ugly for my taste...

You could have bought a X61/s palmrest with vents on the right side. Some models even had a better heat shielding. I did this for my X60 and X60s, it's still warm on the right side but, but looks nicer

[emtee3511]

Not pretty at all -- but a pretty 'cool' mod -- get it... 'cool'????????

I know that's a pretty lame pun, but your mod just looked interesting and fun to me --
Welcome to the Forum

[Nprod]

Oh lord, what is this frakensteinian monstrosity! Wasn't there a secondary fan option, or was that only on the X61...

[Tasurinchi]

or was that only on the X61...

Yep, I think X61/s only...

[bullsback]

Let me be honest with you, it looks quite ugly for my taste...

You could have bought a X61/s palmrest with vents on the right side. Some models even had a better heat shielding. I did this for my X60 and X60s, it's still warm on the right side but, but looks nicer

i dont care much about aesthetics, i was thinking i could do some spray and apply some gloss over it to match the overall color, its still WIP...

for now, alot lesser heat!!

[RealBlackStuff]

If you had spent some time in this forum, reading posts about heat problems in X60 and X61, you would have found that the solution is way easier and not half as destructive and ugly as what you have done.
The answer is replacing the wifi card with either an Intel 5100N or 6200N or 6205N or 6300N.
Plus a simple BIOS update to remove any wifi-card whitelists.
After that the palmrest gets lukewarm at the most.

[bullsback]

If you had spent some time in this forum, reading posts about heat problems in X60 and X61, you would have found that the solution is way easier and not half as destructive and ugly as what you have done.
The answer is replacing the wifi card with either an Intel 5100N or 6200N or 6205N or 6300N.
Plus a simple BIOS update to remove any wifi-card whitelists.
After that the palmrest gets lukewarm at the most.

I understand how u feel, its just not how i look at things mate.

i did read, i just din want to throw away the working wireless card. i made further progress today, totally removed the copper plates, with jus the improvised fan running. Ran prime95 for abt an hour, whilst watching full length movies on youtube, no visible heat on the palmrest!!! its like using the desktop keyboard.

maybe i do some spraying on that mess when i am free.

i think on hp laptops, the wireless cards were on the opposite side of the motherboard, thus, there were no heat at all from wireless card, the heat from wireless card is beamed to the base. also, the engineers attaching the copper plates or tin plates on the underside of the palmrest isnt smart as well. Copper is an excellent absorber of heat, but it distributes heat as good as well. The copper plates should have been on the or below the wireless card and redistribute somehow to the cpu/north bridge heat pipes.

Anyway its a 5/6 years old laptop!! Its good to know Core 2 duo 2 ghz works well for windows 7 today. i wouldnt do it to brandnew one of cos, this laptop that i purchase has some screen artifacts, a horizontal white bar on the bottom, anyone knows whats the problem?

[dr_st]

Sorry, but this mod makes me want to puke.

Welcome to the forum, BTW.

[Tasurinchi]

Was just thinking that the hot air will still come up directly to your hand with this mod

[Nprod]

Anyway its a 5/6 years old laptop!!

My X61 is 5/6 years old and i treat it like priceless china... But if it works for you, who cares if it's the ugliest mod ever

[raket]

not to be abusive, but that mod looks like the image of the fantastic site that starts with g and ends with x
haha, you should probably be able to win something like a contest in the most ugly modification ever done to a machine ever in history

Welcome to the forums!

[ThinkRob]

Oh what the hell...

[Saucey]

Yep, I think X61/s only...

Oooo, I'm going to see if it does have this on mine. If not, would I be able to buy the part and "slap" it on?
Bought a 6200 Wifi card, I cannot take the heat anymore...
Got the Middleton bios too.

[t140568]

its still WIP...

I'd like to see how this all turns out when finished. Kudos for thinking outside the box. Keep tinkering, man.

[E350]

Adding the second fan to a motherboard which did not ship with a second fan is not as easy as it seems. I have the parts but since the second fan pins are not on the motherboard models which did not ship with WAN, I would have to solder the fan wires directly to the motherboard, which I am afraid to do.

Anyway, keep tinkering and keep posting!

I use the Cooler Master NotePal U1 Laptop Cooling Pad upgraded to use Two Configurable 80mm Fans and it keeps both the palm rest and the CPU cooler:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002NU ... UTF8&psc=1

[Atreides]

Oh man if only I thought of this when I had my X60s!

[tabpclover]

O MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That is the most BOLD MOD EVER for the love of jesus.

I have at times changed a palmrest of my thinkpad because it had the tiniest of scratches which could not be seen by anyone except me. But you are ......Great! I cant think of any other word

Whenever I scratch my laptop (microscratches) I am going to see your MOD in my mind and immediately forget my pain.

On another note- I did have this hot palmrest problem with my X60s and I did most of what you did (use heat diffusion methods like thin copper sheets over the wifi/wwan cards, use styrofoam and even made a custom made laptop cover with leather flaps which would cover the palmrest region when used - spent so much time doing all that but finally just had to get rid of the abg wifi card which was the only thing that helped as experienced by other forum members)

The good thing with your mod is that if you ever get fed up by the tin can look then you can just buy another palmrest.

On a lighter note you should try to sell this laptop to steven spielgberg or james cameron for their next flick- the laptop does have the eye catching cute appeal which is a putoff to most but fits into that black science fiction genre when people can teleport, timetravel and what not but still the gadgets they use appear high tech but crude at the same time (I hope you get the picture)

Beauty and the Beast!!!

[Saucey]

I know this thread is old but I'll bump this thing...
Anyways, got an X61 that was popping a fan error.
I figured it was the CPU fan, as the seller described it made grinding sounds and he took out the second fan. Remembered about the second fan, I had to get it.
Dusted the CPU fan, it still had the error and grinding sound, so had to pry it apart.
My guess is over time the fan housing closed in itself over time and just needed to be bent back up. Like lifting up a car door to prevent it from that nasty sqeaking sound when opening it.
I didn't screw it securely, the fan has some play in it, it does indeed vibrate quite a bit because of this.
Gonna need to get some washers for it work fine.

Replacing my X61S with this, also it says it has a T7300 in the bios but I presume it is actually an L7300 and soldered on?
I haven't pryed that part out, but when I replace the thermal paste on it I'll see if I can toss a T7500 if I can do so.

[RealBlackStuff]

X60/X61 series have soldered CPUs, including T7300 and a whole bunch more, like T2xx, T5xx, T7xx, L7xx and T8xx.
If yours is a REAL X61s, the BIOS should say L7x00, so somebody may have swapped either the motherboard, or the clearplate.

[Saucey]

I see. Well on the bios it said T7300, unless they managed to hack that, I think I am ok.
Thanks for all the conformation.

[Raceboy]

X60/X61 series have soldered CPUs, including T7300 and a whole bunch more, like T2xx, T5xx, T7xx, L7xx and T8xx.

There are also X61's that have T9300 from the factory.