Thinkpads Forum

That is, I'm idling around 50C. I'm going to be opening it to replace the keyboard and other stuff soon anyway; should I replace the thermal compound? And can somebody cite something reliable that says that thermal compound loses its punch over time (not to insult anybody, I just haven't been able to find something definitive as of yet).

Thermal paste has improved quite a bit today compared to before and laptop manufacturers rarely use the best kind on the market. I would recommend tuniq-tx4 or arctic silver (I have the former and it works excellent in my T6* laptops). As far as the thermal paste losing effectiveness overtime, I am not quite sure. I have not experienced overheating issues with any of my thinkpads with the original paste. The most I needed to do was to clean out the fan to get reasonable temps, but better thermal paste makes the unit quite a bit cooler.

In a stationary machine, thermal compound is pretty stable.

The problem with a Thinkpad, and every other laptop, is that the entire structure is somewhat flexible. Everything moves, and this includes the cooler. The conventional wisdom is that this movement gradually causes the film to extrude from the edges, until there are voids.

However, I have some very old laptops -- X61, X61T, and I have not found the temperatures to be elevated at all.

If the conventional wisdom is false, there is another reason to do it. Heat sink compounds exist that are better than what Lenovo used. It doesn't have to be silver.I personally consider silver too dangerous to use, because if a tiny dab gets where it shouldn't, it can electro-migrate, shorting out the board.

I am wondering if the many complaints of elevated temperatures actually have another cause. The heatpipes are filled with a volatile "working fluid." A small defect in the brazing could result in a slow leak.

Compound obviously gets worse with time. It can even completely melt, dependant on compound itself. Anyway you might probably also need a new thermal pad because it's all attached to single heatsink.

precip9 wrote:The heatpipes are filled with a volatile "working fluid." A small defect in the brazing could result in a slow leak.

Has anyone experienced this? I just changed thermal paste, but my x201i (i3 cpu) still running hot, 60+ C idle.
Is there any way to diagnose heat pipe failure?

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/New-GENUINE-IBM- ... 2c9022dca7

Like this heatsink in yours? The heatsink fins is large.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection