Thinkpads Forum

Hi all.
My W701 is overheating. I am not doing anything too taxing - about ten tabs in Chrome (GMail, Facebook, some blogs), Photoshop CS 6, Dropbox, maybe a few other background things. Exhaust vents are going so hot I can barely hold my hand there. Usually, if I don't slow down with use the system would crash to BSOD. I cleaned it up a few times, but problem persists. I am at the point where I want to smash it with a brick.

Any suggestions? How about newer systems (W530 - 540), are they similarly bad with thermal control?

The newer quad-core machines are a little better, but they still generate a lot of heat. Have you replaced the thermal paste? New fans with the little-dot pattern put on at the factory give the best coverage. Photoshop is a resource hog and is famous for taxing the CPU, and uses all the available cores. The only other thing I can suggest is to install TPFanControl

Resource hog or not - isn't it a little strange that I cannot properly use the laptop (with color sensor and all) not because it's underpowered, but because it's not properly ventilated?

Haven't touched the paste yet, probably should. Then again, the problem is not overheating itself, it's the inability of the system to get rid of excessive heat. I was literally thinking of putting laptop outside the window during winter months just to see if it will help.

TPFanControl will just spin the fans faster, which is what happens regardless.

Maybe there's aftermarket fan that performs better than the one installed?

I am not suggesting that it should overheat or that you shouldn't run photoshop. I think if the cooling isn't sufficient to let you run whatever you want, it is a problem, and maybe the configuration should not be made available. It is called a desktop replacement. My desktop runs a quad-core i7, and if your laptop is sold as a desktop replacement, it should be able to run whatever you run on a desktop. If you were complaining that you couldn't run one of the tester programs that tries to bury the CPU, like Prime95, I would suggest that you not run that, but photoshop is a mainstream application. I still think you should run tpfancontrol. That would help you determine if it is the CPU or GPU that is causing your problem. I fear that if the air coming out of the vents is as hot as you describe, heat transfer to the fan doesn't sound like your problem. I have never used a quad-core laptop, other than doing setup on them. The 2-core machines with a faster clock speed provide better performance for the work I do.

I have a W701 and haven't experienced the same issues. I have recently re-pasted both the CPU and GPU on mine however, but even before this I didn't have any issues with excessive temperatures.

There are 2 fans on this model as I'm sure you're aware; (facing the laptop) the CPU is on the left and the GPU on the right. That should tell you which component is running hot.

I very much doubt that there is anything wrong with your laptop. I would recommend that you repaste at least the CPU; during the process of removing each fan, I also had the chance to clean and remove years (!!) of accumulated dust and grime in the vents and nearby areas. Also, the stock thermal paste (what was left of it) was already dried up and probably not doing its job.

My W701 has been rock-steady for me, and I bet yours is just crying out for a cleaning job. He is like an old buddy to me, I've opened him up a few times now and know his innards quite well Let me know if I can be of assistance in any way!

Did 'cleaning it up' include a thorough vacuuming of the in/out air slots feeding the fans? If not, you'd be surprised how big of a diff this can make. I recently did this to one of my W700s and had the gpu temps drop a whopping 20 degrees.

Crevice attachment on your vacuum, suck crud from all of the in/out slots; don't blow air into it.

Easier to try than messing with a repaste...

Ditto most of the previous cleaning post.

My experience with my W700ds was it started shutting down.

I downloaded and installed TpFanControl first so that I could see the temperatures and secondly so that I could try to cool the machine. The temperatures I saw were in excess of 80 degrees C.

When the machine was cool the next morning I used a compressed air can and blew backwards through the outlet air ducts and the dust coming out of the inlets was noticeable. After that my high temperature was in the low 60s.

Subsequently, I had to have my machine serviced onsite and I personally blew off the fans and other interior parts. After that, the machine never got above 50 initially. That has been about 9 months now and the machine, at the moment, is running at 51 degrees C.