ThinkPad W500 Over-Heating C.P.U. (CPU), Intel T9900/X9100

[Commando303]

Hello, I am encountering trouble with over-heating of the Intel T9900/X9100 C.P.U. (CPU) of my W500 ThinkPad, and wonder whether anyone might have advice on how to address this. At times, the device runs so hot that it spontaneously shuts off. I already have disassembled the computer to clean the fan and apply fresh thermal paste to the central-processing unit. I've used the Core Temp software program to track C.P.U. temperature to confirm whether this in fact is the problem, and have found that indeed the unit readily enters the 90-degree (Celsius) range when running videos, at which point I try to quickly close applications to prevent catastrophic automatic shut-down. I am using Windows 10 Professional Edition.

Thank you very much.

[TPFanatic]

you could try replacing the heatsink assembly , it's possible it's not working properly.

part number: 45N5492

your machine is also a W500, so it has an ATI GPU / Switchable Graphics. You can consider the option of disabling the ATI GPU by going to the BIOS and setting the video mode to Integrated, and disable "OS Detection" since it's not properly supported in Windows 10. This will make the whole laptop run cooler.

[Commando303]

you could try replacing the heatsink assembly , it's possible it's not working properly.

part number: 45N5492

your machine is also a W500, so it has an ATI GPU / Switchable Graphics. You can consider the option of disabling the ATI GPU by going to the BIOS and setting the video mode to Integrated, and disable "OS Detection" since it's not properly supported in Windows 10. This will make the whole laptop run cooler.

Should I expect any caveat to performance if I make this change (i.e., switch video-mode to "integrated," and "disable O.S. detection") in the B.I.O.S.?

Thank you.

[TPFanatic]

If your machine has an uneven amount of RAM installed (eg. 1GB, 3GB, 5GB, 6GB, 7GB), the device may experience screen tearing. This is a known flaw of the Intel 45 series integrated video, which your W500 would fallback to if the ATI Video is turned off. If 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB is installed, there will be no problem.

The W500's ATI Video has 512MB of VRAM. I truly don't know if, outside of very specific 3D or CAD programs or ancient video games, that 512MB makes any meaningful difference in general Internet browsing. For that sort of work a W500 really isn't the proper hardware anymore, anything from 2011 will kick its ancient ATI-butt.

There should be no harm in at least trying to Disable the ATI Video and see if the decreased heat is satisfactory.

Anecdotally I recently took delivery of a T500 with a failed ATI Video. T500 has Radeon 3650, just a 256MB version of the W500's FireGL V5700 Disabling the ATI Video has made the T500 actually usable.

There is one other sacrifice of disabling the ATI Video: digital video out through the onboard Displayport, and/or possibly the DVI on the Dock, becomes inoperable. VGA should still work fine.

Also alternative to make the laptop run cooler is swap the hot T9900/X9100 for a nice cool-running P8400, P8600, P8700, P9500, P9600, or P9700. I just put a P8700 in my R500, the CPU was $6 on eBay, the thermal pasta was $12 from Best Buy.

So YMMV. Best of luck.

[YoniG]

Undervolt the CPU to reduce the heat it generates. Throttlestop is a utility that will do this.

[Scorpion8]

Not every thermal paste is equal. SOme don't actually do much if you got an offshore no-name brand. Make sure the paste you used is genuine, or try the thermal pads like PTM7950 (which there are many counterfeits of too).

[jacqylfrost]

Hello, I am encountering trouble with over-heating of the Intel T9900/X9100 C.P.U. (CPU) of my W500 ThinkPad, and wonder whether anyone might have advice on how to address this. At times, the device runs so hot that it spontaneously shuts off. I already have disassembled the computer to clean the fan and apply fresh thermal paste to the central-processing unit. I've used the Core Temp software program to track C.P.U. temperature to confirm whether this in fact is the problem, and have found that indeed the unit readily enters the 90-degree (Celsius) range when running videos, at which point I try to quickly close applications to prevent catastrophic automatic shut-down. I am using Windows 10 Professional Edition.

Thank you very much.

As a prior poster said, it's possible that the heatsink has gone bad. Just the other day I ran into a heatsink in my job where the heat pipes simply weren't transferring heat from the socket to the radiator fins, I had tried new thermal paste, all fans were good, swapped the heatsink from a known good, and instantly saw a 40 deg celsius temperature drop. Heat pipes can crack, leak, get crimped, it's possible they're just not moving heat like they're supposed to!