Thinkpads Forum

Hello,

I recently purchased a X201 and am new to this series. It has been acting a bit flaky so I wanted to do a burn in test. I am using Passmark BurninTest. When running multiple tests the unit shuts down hard I am guessing on high temperature. I then just ran the CPU test and it failed after getting many overtemp readings. The cpu would go to 102C during the test. Is this high temperature to be expected in this small package and it is not able to be stressed like this or is there some other problem?

Idle temperatures are 48-50C.

thanks,

Bruce

Your temps are high compared to my X201 which idles in the mid to high 30s deg C. Running Prime95 will bring a max of 90ish deg C.

Even though it's a lot of work on these X series Thinkpad, I'd take everything apart to blow out the dust bunnies and reapply thermal paste. X201 are old enough that the factory thermal paste have dried out.

Cigarguy wrote:Your temps are high compared to my X201 which idles in the mid to high 30s deg C. Running Prime95 will bring a max of 90ish deg C.

Even though it's a lot of work on these X series Thinkpad, I'd take everything apart to blow out the dust bunnies and reapply thermal paste. X201 are old enough that the factory thermal paste have dried out.

Yes, I was running Prime95 and it was in the high 90's. It is a bit of a pain to get to the fan. I might need to replace the motherboard since the Ethernet EEPROM is corrupted so I was waiting before I took it all apart.

Thanks,

Bruce

The X201 is a great little package and it is reasonably powerful even by today's standard. But if you want to work it hard it will run hot and even running it at 50% levels it will be warm.

I only run mine around 50% and I regularly blow out the vents. I try to blow them out every 2 weeks at least. But I am currently using mine in Thailand where ambient temps are between 25 and 32 degrees c and that is because it is winter here.

Yes thermal paste will eventually dry out and this will eventuate quicker at higher temps.

Finally opened up the machine and took it apart, cleaned the fan and replaced the thermal compound. Max temperatures with the Prime95, Intel Burn-in and Passmark Burn-in are about 88 C and it keeps running. The machine was beginning to randomly shutdown I am assuming on high temperature.

Bruce

OK, I am still getting random shutdowns on this X201.

I verified it is not the OS as it has happened once with Ubuntu and about 4 times with W7. I think it has happened on both battery and AC power but need to track this more accurately.

The W7 event view says "system rebooted (I manually restarted) without cleanly shutting down first".

I have run Passmark Burn and Heavy Load burn in for over 24 hours without any shutdowns. Temperatures never exceeded 92C.

Seems power related, like a loose connection. However, I am pretty sure the machine did this when I got it before I opened up and replaced thermal paste.

Any ideas on how to troubleshoot? The only thing I know to do at this point is to replace the system board.

Thanks,

Bruce

PS Should I start a new thread?