T510 Blocked rear vent?

[mh9162013]

Just got the T510 I purchased from eBay and it seems fine, except the rear vent appears to be blocked, as if someone dissembled the laptop and placed a piece of black plastic or tape across the vent so that you can't see the copper fins like you can in the side vent.

Has anyone ever seen or heard this? Is the T510 supposed to be like this? If not, why would anyone cover up this vent?

[TPFanatic]

There are a few different heatsinks for T510 and T520. My T520 has the same thing.

The lowest end heatsink that ships with integrated only models has an aluminum surface and one copper heatpipe that goes up the left side of the laptop, then stops without making a curve at the back of the laptop. It looks like this: http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/en4AAOSwA ... -l1600.jpg

Meanwhile Nvidia models get a second heatpipe but only for the graphics chip - the CPU heatpipe on that then does bend around to utilize the back vent: http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/qiwAAOSw1 ... -l1600.jpg

And lastly is the W510 or W520 heatsink that gets a total of three heatpipes, two for the CPU, and a copper surface: http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/cfQAAOSw8 ... -l1600.jpg

The single heatpipe, single vent version does seem to work well enough to cool my T520's i5. I mean, 95 degrees C is hotter than I'd like, but the laptop doesn't seem to mind it.... I suppose a W520 heatsink could be fitted in pretty easily, and that's the only one that would, out of the box without mods, get you a second CPU heatpipe.


Edit: I am incorrect about swapping heatsinks. Mods are required to fit a dedicated graphics heatsink onto an integrated model, see this thread: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=118901

[mh9162013]

My T510 has no dedicated GPU, so are you saying that this "blocked" vent is normal? If so, I figured this might possibly be the case, so I wanted to ask the experts here before I did surgery on my brand new (to me) T510.

Thanks for the info!

[TPFanatic]

Yep, it's normal.