Thinkpads Forum

Hi everyone, I got a used t420s today to hold me over while I fix my t420.


I bought the i7-2620M model. At boot I do not hear the fan spin up until I am in the OS, and by that point TPFanControl has the fans on max and it stays at a constant 90-93c. This seems far too hot as my T420 with a i5-2520M never would even break 80c unless I was doing serious work.

Does this mean this machine is a bad one, or do all mobile i7's run this hot? The machine doesn't even feel the slightest bit hot to the touch except for the exhaust which is quite hot but only if you have your hand right up to it.

I got it to go down to about 85c for a moment and 75c for just a second but it's sitting at 92c right now running nothing but Firefox. A few days ago this exact setup would not have broken 70c probably on my t420 yet this i7 t420s is running so hot that I'm fairly concerned about it.

I bought it from a store so hopefully i could go back and return it if i wanted to, aside from the inability to fit my 9mm 2TB drive in it I'm happy with it...

Thanks in advance

Those temps are way too high. Normal idle temps are around 45C.

Remove the keyboard and check the area in and around the fan. Clean out any dust. If that doesn't do much, re-seat the heatsink. Also, a new layer of thermal paste (AS5, or Tuniq Tx4 is my favorite) wouldn't hurt either. Just make sure to clean the old layer off with isopropyl alchohol and a clean, lint free cloth.

brchan wrote:Remove the keyboard and check the area in and around the fan. Clean out any dust. If that doesn't do much, re-seat the heatsink.

Darn, this is really awful news. I got a decent price on it considering the specs on it but I didn't think it was overheating when I was testing it out, as it's not hot to the touch even when running that hot.

I opened it up and it actually didn't look dusty at all. I don't have the energy to redo the heatsink without possibly messing something up though so it will have to wait for another day. Need to find my thermal paste anyway before getting that far into it.

Unsure on whether i should see if the seller will accept a return (bought locally but from a business) or try to fix the temp issue myself. I'm more concerned with how long it's been running at these insane temps.

I just had a T420 die on me from overheating (presumably) and the last thing I want is to have two out of order laptops

When I got my T500, it would shut itself off due to overheating unless I ran the fan at maximum speed, and even then the temperatures were too hot. Lenovo's paste had dried up - once that was replaced the computer doesn't go above 81C at load @ maximum fan speed.

I'd bet that Lenovo's paste has dried up in your machine, in which case removing the heatsink and replacing the thermal paste with fresh paste is the only thing to do. A "rice grain" amount of goop is considered proper amount, spread over the CPU and GPU die like in this (http://www.arcticsilver.com/pdf/appmeth ... d_v1.1.pdf). I don't know the T420s, but if it comes with a thermal pad over the GPU you should try to keep that, you don't need to put paste between the pad and the die.

Hope your machine gets fixed, or you get a working one! Best of luck

TPFanatic wrote:I don't know the T420s, but if it comes with a thermal pad over the GPU you should try to keep that, you don't need to put paste between the pad and the die.

Hope your machine gets fixed, or you get a working one!

I will maybe try and fix it because it was a good deal for the nvidia/i7 model and I would love to get it working.

Just to be clear. If it has a thermal pad, I shouldn't toss it?

When checking TPFanControl the GPU was running at a nice low 50c while the cpu was up at 90-95c. I hope you're right that the old paste is dried up and bad now. Really would be sad if this machine was a bad one!

Although one thing I didn't notice before - the USB/displayport connectors are all full of dust. so even if I don't see the dust when taking the keyboard off it might still be in there.

Methinks that you got ripped off royally, unless it came at least with HD+, 16GB RAM and a 500GB or larger SSD!
Bring it back for a refund.

RealBlackStuff wrote:Methinks that you got ripped off royally, unless it came at least with HD+, 16GB RAM and a 500GB or larger SSD!
Bring it back for a refund.

Half as much ram, half as big SSD. might bring it for refund tomorrow.

The seller accepted a return. Too bad because it was a good deal.

I didn't realize until after I got my money back the seller had no idea it had a SSD not a hard drive. Felt bad though cause the guy clearly had no idea what to do with it even though he runs a pawn shop full of laptops.

It was also not running genuine windows so i'm just happy i got my money back.

Kinda sad about it but i'm sure I can find a cleaner 420s and my X201 will serve me well until then or my 420 is fixed.