Thinkpads Forum

I recently moved my laptop home to run it as HTPC and it was just streaming some music videos and watching some trailers on youtube.
I've never had my X220 run this hot. The surface temperature on top of the lid and around the hinge on upper left corner reading was 145F.


Couple of days ago I removed the battery to give it more space to breath since it's inside the entertainment unit (but front is open) however it made me worry when It was that hot yesterday.

It's on Series 3 Dock and the area around the eject button was extremely hot too.

Any suggestions?

Obviously, whatever your entertainment unit is, there is not enough ventilation inside it for a full-blown laptop. Especially one with a full-voltage CPU like the X220.

It is better with the 6 cell battery that sticks out down so there is a small space between the desk and the notebook in top-left corner. I have stopped using the dock during a hot summer days with room temperature over 30'C because of it.

My X220's and the X230 I am using all get exceedingly hot while in the dock, it is not conducive to effective cooling. Being in an enclosed space is compounding problem for you.

I think dock might be obstructing the airflow, but I checked it again last night after about 2 hrs of video/streaming, it was just fine, it wasn't nowhere near as hot, is it possible fan did not work properly resulted in such hot surface?

I had my X220 on dock for 4 years in the office, while it wasn't in confined space, it never got that hot. With the dock, without the battery, there is a lot of room to breath underneath but does X220 board have any safety measure to cut the power or shut down when it gets too hot? I should have just run the hwinfo to check the processor temp, because I am planning to run X220 with BlueIris and I need to be comfortable with it running 24/7 (and without a dock, there aren't enough ports) without getting too hot. If necessary, I will move it outside the cabinet.

Hi everyone, I have bad news, I went back home yesterday with plans to run tests and check it out, and I was greeted with "Fan Error" and instant shut-down every time I tried to restart.

Before I buy a new fan and replace it (seems like a very intensive job to remove the fan, by the way) any suggestions? Maybe test to make sure it's the fan? Open it up check connectors?

Is this correct replacement: http://www.amazon.com/Eathtek-Lenovo-Th ... B00YRLLXMC

I recently took a trip to west coast and the laptop was in backpack, moved around a lot, considering it's 4 yrs old, it's possible that something happened, unseated maybe?

^ It looks right. But maybe you can buy just the fan? It appears to be fastened with screws, which means it can be easily removed.

But before that, maybe the fan just needs cleaning and lubrication?

axur-delmeria wrote:^ It looks right. But maybe you can buy just the fan? It appears to be fastened with screws, which means it can be easily removed.

But before that, maybe the fan just needs cleaning and lubrication?

Maybe, I'll open the case tomorrow, but checking the instructions to disassemble the unit.. It seems like fan replacement is one of the last steps that requires almost complete disassembly.

hyde wrote:Maybe, I'll open the case tomorrow, but checking the instructions to disassemble the unit.. It seems like fan replacement is one of the last steps that requires almost complete disassembly.

I've already opened up my X220 to replace the thermal paste, and I can confirm that.

axur-delmeria wrote:

hyde wrote:Maybe, I'll open the case tomorrow, but checking the instructions to disassemble the unit.. It seems like fan replacement is one of the last steps that requires almost complete disassembly.

I've already opened up my X220 to replace the thermal paste, and I can confirm that.

Thanks, that's a big job.
Is it possible to bypass the fan check temporarily to retrieve data while closely monitoring the temperature because I think I am just going to tackle this later in the future when I have time.

Thanks.

On older Thinkpads just pressing Esc works to bypass the Fan Error. Maybe on X220 it works too, never tried.

dr_st wrote:On older Thinkpads just pressing Esc works to bypass the Fan Error. Maybe on X220 it works too, never tried.

Nope, tried that, it won't let me go pass Fan Error and shuts down immediately.

If retrieving data is your primary concern, buy a USB-SATA adapter or enclosure.

IIRC, the Esc key trick only works if the 2nd fan (auxillary) is malfunctioning. Some Thinkpad models have them, like higher-end or WWAN-equipped models of the X61.

On the T42 and T60 at least it worked on the primary fan as well.

I picked up the fan today, I'll start the process, but checking this link: http://www.myfixguide.com/manual/lenovo ... sassembly/
do I have to remove the screen, speakers, bluetooth and all that stuff to replace the fan?

Edit:
To answer my own question, yes, you need to strip this laptop to bare including removal of the screen (complete lid assembly) to swap a simple fan that's held down by 4 screws. I can't believe how much is involved, but finally I was able to do it.
Thanks so much for everyone's help here, I had to break my wifi card to remove it (screw was stripped from previous repair/installation/etc..) and luckily I had my old Lenovo card to put it back in there.

I am not proud but I had no choice:

https://i.gyazo.com/0d291f04ae541ab31c6 ... 482bd9.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/a8659793d21890c1b10 ... 261e2a.png

Thank god Intel for making it perforated. It made it easy to just snip it. The Thinkpad card does not have the same perforation so it would have been much more difficult to cut it.

Does anyone know where I can buy a set of Black and Silver screws to keep a set handy? Looks like T450S uses same set of screws.