Thinkpads Forum

Hey Thinkpad users

I have recently bought a X61 and i must say that it's so nice, exept for one thing.. THE HOT PALM REST!! As i have read in here, i'm not the only one with this experience.

So i was wondering if you all just live with it, or that somebody has actually tried doing something about it? In case you have done something i'm really interested in knowing what? I'm getting pretty frustrated when working several hours on the pc with sweety hands!:(

One thing i have thought about is to buy a pcmcia wifi card and use this instead of the internal provided by intel (It seems this is the one causing most of the heat), what do you think of this solution?

Speek loudly and let others here your "solution" to the problem

Yep, gets hot for me, too. Bummer, huh? Serious design flaw. I'm finding the X61 gets really hot in general.. but mostly from the 7200 rpm drive in mine, What RPM drive you got?

I only got the 5400rpm, it seems the heat has no or very little relation to harddrive type.. I really think that Lenovo needs to give this issue a higher priority than they do!

damascus wrote:Yep, gets hot for me, too. ... but mostly from the 7200 rpm drive in mine...

Curious: Is your drive is a Seagate or a Hitachi? I would be surprised if the Seagate drives run noticeably hotter than the Hitachis. In any case, however, the palmrest heat is not explained by hard drive heat.

Mine is Hitachi

Use the "power manager" program and select "maximum power saving" for the wifi card.

I have an X61s, vista, intel 3945 card, and have done the above with power manager, and I can't complain about the palmrest at all - for me, it is barely warm.

The exact same setup with my X60s (which I just installed vista on) the palmrest still gets uncomfortably hot.

So in my experience the X61s is an improvement in design over the X60s.

I also use the power manager, but i don't seem to have the option "Maximum power saving" for the wifi? Where is it located

On this regard are you talking about with the AC adapter in or on battery?

On AC it gets pretty warm but not to hot.
On battery the thing barely gets warm.

Its mostly a problem on AC, i'm aware that this is a problem.. so im interested in hearing what people have done about it

i don't think it will help much.

On AC the wifi card runs at "Maximum Performance" but on battery power they drop to their lower powered mode.

If you were building a desktop computer you'd get a nice case for good air flow. These machines aren't designed for that since they are meant to be mobile which would mean CPUs and HDDs and .11 cards power down to their lower powered states. Use the system on battery power even if you are home for a while to test and see.

DJHingapus wrote:I also use the power manager, but i don't seem to have the option "Maximum power saving" for the wifi? Where is it located

It's in the "Advanced" settings in Power Manager, but you can only edit the WiFi power setting in Power Management profiles you create for yourself.

Keep in mind that a Maximum Power Saving setting may impact your useful WiFi range!

Cheers,

Bill B. (who runs the Intel WiFi card in an X61 at full power without any issues of a hot palm rest)

Ty for the WIFI tip. Any other power savings tips to cool this sucker off?

When i click the "advanged" under global power settings i only have the option to control "CPU" and "PCI Bus"?????

DJHingapus wrote:When i click the "advanged" under global power settings i only have the option to control "CPU" and "PCI Bus"?????

As stated above by Bill B. :

bill bolton wrote:It's in the "Advanced" settings in Power Manager, but you can only edit the WiFi power setting in Power Management profiles you create for yourself.

You would need to create a custom profile.

I have created a custom profile, but i still don't have the option??

DJHingapus wrote:I have created a custom profile, but i still don't have the option??

An Advanced pane comes during the creation of custom profile. These Advanced settings are different than the one you're looking under the Global settings. Go back, look over and then edit it.

If it's still not there then update you Power Manager.

this is really odd, i have the latest version of power manager and created several custom profiles but have newer seen that option..

it is not so hot for my X61

Today i went out and bought a pcmcia wifi card, it has seriously reduced heat under the right palm. It dosent look nice but i rather feel comfortable when typing on my machine than looking good:) The heat is not completely gone, there is still some coming from the harddrive

Jackboot wrote:I have an X61s, vista, intel 3945 card

The OP has an Atheros based WiFi card, and this is almost certainly the cause of the hot palm rest.

Cheers,

Bill B.

DJHingapus wrote:this is really odd, i have the latest version of power manager and created several custom profiles but have newer seen that option..

It looks like this.

Thanks for all the advice. My X61 has a hot palmrest. Powersaver is part of vista. As said, you need to create your own power saver plan. You can do one for battery and one for when the ac adaptor is plugged in. In the advanced section put the wireless card on max power saving. My palmrest has gone from very hot to mildy warm, quite an improvement. You could always create a third plan for office work when you dont need the internet, turn off the wireless card.

Hi
Just an update. Recently i installed the thinkvantage software and for some reason it has reduced the heat from the palmrest, to the point its hardly noticeable. I always have it on maximum powersaver.

the 3.12 version?

I find the palm rest on both my X60s Thinkpads gets noticeably warm on the right side. On the X60s I bought for myself the infrared cover missing and I didn't notice that much heat. Once I replaced it I did notice the heat.
The newer X61(s) has a different upper bezel with vent slats where the X60(s) has the infrared.
I'm told an X61 bezel won't fit correctly on an X60, especially one with a fingerprint reader, can anyone confirm this?
If it does fit then either replacing the bezel or removing the infrared plate from the original bezel should help to dissipate the heat.

Tim S

tim S wrote:I'm told an X61 bezel won't fit correctly on an X60, especially one with a fingerprint reader, can anyone confirm this?

It is as follows: The X61 palm rest will fit correctly on an X60, except for one with a fingerprint reader. (Note: an X60 palm rest will fit correctly on an X61, even with a fingerprint reader.)

I have an X60 with the fingerprint reader. Since my wife uses this exclusively for home, she doesn't care about the fingerprint reader. She is complaining about how hot the right palm rest is and from what I've been reading it's due to the wireless card. So my thoughts were to change out the palm rest for an X61 palm rest and retrofit the X61 fan in there as well. I was planning on also changing out to the Intel WiFi 5300 wireless card and add the third antenna.

So do I need the X61 palm rest or not? Does it have the airflow slats for the fan in it or is that part of the case?

Reading between the lines and looking at photos of palm rests for sale on eBay, here's what I found.
By the way this doesn't apply to tablet models; at least I don't think it does.
The X61 has vent slots built into the palm rest so that's good.
The fingerprint reader is in the center on the X60 and to the right on the X61. Since both the X60
and X61 have the wifi card there as well the chances are good that the X61 fingerprint reader will
be just fine over an X60 motherboard. If you get an X61 without a reader then it's a 100% fit.
The X61 doesn't have infrared so there is no plate on the right side.
The second fan is another matter altogether. I think it attaches under the palm rest somewhere but
I'm almost 100% certain there is no plug-in for it on an X60 motherboard.

Tim S

tim S wrote:The second fan ... almost 100% certain there is no plug-in for it on an X60 motherboard.

Correct. Further, although it sounds like a good idea, the second fan was an "afterthought" in the design, and its implementation achieves virtually nothing other than adding noise and more power consumption. There will be no delight, no "Aha!" moment, after going though the trouble to add the fan.

So the second fan does not effectively cool the palm rest? Retrofitting the fan wasn't going to be a big deal. I would just tap into some power somewhere on the laptop. Actually I thought I might splice it into the primary fan.