X6x without hot as hell palmrest - is it possible?

[tyrmand.dwa]

Hi!
I already have x60s, but now I need another laptop. I love X-series, especially portability and great keyboard, but I want to avoid problems with heat form wifi card.

In my x60s I have atheros based wifi and under Arch Linux things get really hot, almost unbearable (I've never disassembled it, though). I've tought that I read that tablets don't have this kind of problems because wifi is placed in different place, but yesterday I saw a picture of mobo and, well, I was wrong (I should check HMM more carefully).

So here's my question - is there any chance that I encounter x6x machine without this dreadful problem?

Anything older will be too slow for my purposes, anything newer is 50% more expensive than x6x tablet and I'm not entirelly convinced to pay the price. And I'm pretty sure that I want to stick with x series.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Tasurinchi]

Welcome to the forum!

What I did to my X60 (see sig), is to buy an X61 bezel with better heat shielding, the FP reader more on the right side and extra vents on a side for better airflow. It blocks the IR port, but I don't care that much. Using Linux Mint 11 and Powertop I can surf for a couple of hours without problems. It get's hotter than any of my other Thinkpads, but it's not going to burn any of my fingers.

But speaking of heat is a "sensitive" issue and each person will feel it different. I personally wouldn't describe mine gets "hot as hell", but some may disagree...

My 2 cents...

[lead_org]

maybe use an external wireless card instead. This is what lot of my friends are doing in order to avoid the hot palmrest problem or just live with it.

Alternatively, you could consider flashing a modified bios to remove the whitelist and put in a say Intel 5100 wireless card, which is slightly cooler than the intel wireless card on the X61.

[tyrmand.dwa]

I don't have time to tinker with it. I read about those extra vents in X61, but also people mentioned that they're generally run hot.

But speaking of heat is a "sensitive" issue and each person will feel it different. I personally wouldn't describe mine gets "hot as hell", but some may disagree...

Well, mine was hot enough to stop calling it laptop Palmrest sometimes forced me to use left hand and I'm not a lefty

maybe use an external wireless card instead.

As a last resort I can do that.


Ok, what about the tablets? Are they as hot as other x6x?

[lead_org]

yes the X61 does have side vents for the WWAN card fan, but i think the external wireless card is easiest way to overcome this issue.

[Tasurinchi]

Just got an used Samsung SSD for the X60 and was reinstalling Linux Mint 11 and copying files, applying patches and so on... After around 2.5 hours (break inbetween to watch TV with the Thinkpad on) gnome applet is reporting the wlan at 52°C (122° F if we trust google conversions ).

That was the temperature the sensor is reporting, the palmrest shouldn't be at that temp. As said before is warmer than my other TPs, but I can still work without any "mark" in my hand!

Cheers!

[inogen]

My x61 doesn't have WWAN but was always a bit hot. So hot I had the motherboard replaced.

It was still hot. Slightly better with the last bios revision. The fan also runs less, so something has been done.

[RealBlackStuff]

I'm using an Intel Advanced 6200 half-sized mini-PCIe 802.11b/g/n card with a bracket in my X60s. No toaster effect so far.

[paul*robertson]

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=55706

I had great success with some of these tweaks. Notably install thinkvantage, go into the advanced settings and turn down the wireless adaptor setting to power saving mode.
Also, over time, you get used to it (although if i feel it now, its only mildly warm, certainly not hot)

[sportfreak]

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=96864

[WillT.]

I'm using an Intel Advanced 6200 half-sized mini-PCIe 802.11b/g/n card with a bracket in my X60s. No toaster effect so far.

I just upgraded my Intel 3945ABG card to the 6200 last week. The palmrest temperatures are noticeably better (slightly warm instead being moderately warm to even hot at times). The transmit power can also be turned down in device manager to help reduce excessive heat and power consumption.

An added bonus is that the 6200 card is wireless N capable and overall more stable than the 3945ABG ever was.

[kamaleon]

As a side question, which ones of the previously mentioned cards give best wireless performance? trying to find a good compromise between perf x coolness...

[lead_org]

Intel 6300 would give the best performance.

[kamaleon]

thanks!

[RealBlackStuff]

The 6200N requires only 2 antenna wires, the 6300N requires 3 of those.

[kenzking]

I have an x61 with the second fan, the extra vents, better heat shielding keyboard bezel. The palmrest still gets really hot, its almost unbearable at times. Its running the artheros wifi card.

Will installing a different wifi card, still allow the wifi switch on the front and the FN button to function properly? Someone said something about a bios flash. Is this needed if changing it?

[paul*robertson]

Do you have thinkvantage, and have you turned down the wifi to power saving. This to me, made all the difference.

[Tasurinchi]

Following RBS advice I did also buy an Intel 6200N, I've installed it in my X61s about an hour ago and it's feel much cooler than the old card. I can report more details later. I took some pictures of the process and I though I share them with you

Side by side with the stock WLAN card and mounted on the bracket


Installed

[Tasurinchi]

After 4 hours of continuous browsing the internet, Gnome applet reports 46°C for the MiniPCI device, my X60 with no tweaks apart from Powertop reports normally 52°C.

The palmrest feels similar to my X41T, so I think it was a good trade

[makaveli559m]

Hi I have a question about the Intel 6200N, did you guys just install the card in withouth missing with anything on the bios? I saw the card on eBay and it has t400 x200 t500. I recently bought an X60 Tablet I like it but the heat that I started seeing coming from it not so good.

[bwaldow]

[quote="RealBlackStuff"]I'm using an Intel Advanced 6200 half-sized mini-PCIe 802.11b/g/n card with a bracket in my X60s. No toaster effect so far.[/quote]

Hi,

I can see these cards on ebay, but without brackets. Can you suggest sources for them that I can install in my x61 tablet (7764-CTO)? It has the Intel 4965 now, and it gets hot.

Also, can you say if I will have to do anything in the BIOS?

Thanks,
Bret

[RealBlackStuff]

Brackets on eBay, search with: minipcie bracket.
BIOS here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo- ... ost6501443

[RDKirk]

Hi I have a question about the Intel 6200N, did you guys just install the card in withouth missing with anything on the bios? I saw the card on eBay and it has t400 x200 t500. I recently bought an X60 Tablet I like it but the heat that I started seeing coming from it not so good.

Any current answers for this? I'm looking at a card on eBay that says this:

For LENOVO/IBM :

X201 X201S X201T T410 T410S T510 Y460 Y560 Y550 G460 V460

The following model need update your bios :

T60 T60P T61 T61P

X60 X60S X60T X61 X61S X61T

X200 X200S X200T X300 X301

T400 T400S W500 SL400 .....

I'm running the most recent BIOS on my X60.

[pgoelz]

Do you have thinkvantage, and have you turned down the wifi to power saving. This to me, made all the difference.

I concur. My X61s has the Intel 4965AGN which has always run cool.... the palmrest was never more than just over ambient. Until I switched to 5.4GHz "N". Then the palmrest got noticeably hotter. Setting the WiFi to maximum power saving brought the palmrest back down to just above ambient. I also set the overall power scheme to "balanced", which seems to produce a reasonable overall temperature while allowing the CPU to throttle up and down as needed.

Interestingly, I have noticed that the overall machine runs a bit hotter than it used to. This seems to be related to whether or not I have certain web pages open. If I watch the CPU utilization, some web pages consume significant CPU just sitting idle where others do not. For example, sitting idle on the Google home page I see an average of about 5% CPU. Sitting idle on this edit page I see an average of about 30% CPU. That extra CPU translates into extra heat.

Paul

[RealBlackStuff]

It's that horrible crap Adobe Flash that is killing all those older laptops, and puts an unwarranted strain on even modern ones!

[pgoelz]

I suspect it is more than just Flash. When I used to look at the Adobe Premiere Elements forum at work on a P4 2.6GHz box, simply moving the mouse anywhere on the page would peg the CPU to 100% and page refreshes took about 30 seconds. Or did they code that site using Flash? I actually stopped reading that site because of the painful page refreshes.

And what is it about this web site's edit page that requires 30% of my dual core 1.6GHz X61s? All those bouncy emoticons on the left side?

Bring back simple web sites! Our laptops will run cooler and get better battery life.

Paul

[RealBlackStuff]

Try to change browser, see if that helps.
And they are working on better web sites. HTML5 is supposed to replace that Flash rubbish and make it obsolete.
While they are at it, they should also make Adobe obsolete, all they turn out is one buggy bloated program after another!