Thinkpads Forum

anyone use these on their lap?
it would suck if this laptop will be confined to just desk usage, making it more of a "desktop" rather and a laptop.

my CPUID Hardware Monitor temps under normal usage:
THM0 63
THM1 61
CORE0 55
CORE1 58
ATI GPU 63
HDD 37

You could use one of those trays which has a pillow attached at the bottom of it (handy for eating hot food as well).

I usually don't trust putting a laptop directly on my lap for fear of low fertility rate.

i'm not a fan of adding thickness to my laptop. for now i'm using a cardboard envelope and it works ok.

lol, well, i'm not too worried about getting my hand pregnant.

OMG! THIS STUPID TPFANCONTROL HAD ME RUN MY LAPTOP 20°-40° HIGHER THAN IT WAS SUPPOSED TO FOR 2 WEEKS! (IT WAS SET ON SMART)
MY LAPTOP WAS RUNNING AT 60°C-80°C WHEN IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN RUNNING AT 40°C

img]http://i32.tinypic.com/2wq49ab.jpg[/img]
AND I HOPE THIS WAS A FREAKING GLITCH. I'VE SEEN THIS HAPPEN TWICE NOW!

GOD, I HOPE THERE WASN'T ANY DAMAGE.......

I've owned more Thinkpads than I care to 'think' about (no pun intended) and I've never used TPFANCONTROL to control temps. It simply is not needed. I have used it to display temps though. If the fan is too noisy, it is either defective or you bought the wrong laptop.

I'd be interested in finding out what version of TPFC you were running, and on which ThinkPad. As with most things in life, there's no "one size fits all" when it comes to TPFC...

Trying out different settings, and comparing them until you find out what suits your needs the best is the only way to go IMHO....

Personally I think tpfancontrol is great because it allows for a quieter ThinkPad with less fan activity at the expense of higher temperature. This works especially well with ThinkPads that have low power processors and/or integrated graphics since they generate less heat and hence require less active cooling.

The default smart mode in tpfancontrol (at least in v0.62, the lastest version) is set so that the fan does not come on until the hottest component reaches 60 degrees Celsius, and even then, the fan is only running at the slowest rpm. It is not until 75 degrees that higher fan speed kicks in. This is why you have been seeing temperature between 60 and 80 degrees.

I suppose there are a few things you can do: 1) uninstall tpfancontrol or set it to BIOS mode to have the BIOS manage the fan. Your W500 will go back to the more normal temperature range, but the fan will be on almost all the time, or, 2) go into the tpfancontrol.ini file and lower the trigger temperatures in smart mode, or, 3) set it to manual mode and have the fan run at a constant speed (this is what I do sometimes with my T60).

EDIT: Having read your original post again, I realized the reason you installed tpfancontrol in the first place was to lower the normal running temperature of your W500. In this case, you can try to choose manual mode and set fan speed to 7 (highest). But the bottom line is, what you have is a very high powered machine and inevitably it does generate a good amount of heat.

georgelam wrote:

But the bottom line is, what you have is a very high powered machine and inevitably it does generate a good amount of heat.

I'd beg to differ with this statement when it comes to W500, at least the example that I've sampled . In normal office use, this was by far one of the quietest and coolest running high-end ThinkPads I've ever tested. With no TPFC installed, it was nearly dead-quiet until pushed very hard, usually on the graphics side. And even when pushed hard, it got nowhere near as hot/noisy as the WUXGA T61p we once owned.

Oh, that was a comment based solely on my assumption that the W-series, being desktop replacement level machines, are probably hotter then others. I do apologize for making such a baseless comment. According to your experience, George, it sounds like the W500 is a great machine to have.

georgelam wrote:

According to your experience, George, it sounds like the W500 is a great machine to have.

It would be a phenomenal machine if the LCD came anywhere close to being half-decent. It does not.

So you have a powerhouse ThinkPad base crippled by one of the worst screens I've ever seen on a laptop...an absolute sin IMHO.

Off topic - I have the T500 with the 15.4" WSXGA+ TFT (CCFL Backlight) LCD. I like it...no worse than any other wide screen Thinkpad I have owned...better than most. The viewing angles are acceptable and it is bright and clear. I believe the W500 can be ordered with the same LCD.

Harryc wrote:

Off topic - I have the T500 with the 15.4" WSXGA+ TFT (CCFL Backlight) LCD. I like it...no worse than any other wide screen Thinkpad I have owned...better than most. The viewing angles are acceptable and it is bright and clear. I believe the W500 can be ordered with the same LCD.

That is correct, and from what I've read most people were a lot more pleased with WSXGA+ than with WUXGA on these machines. I haven't tested one myself, but most of my past ThinkPads with WSXGA+ screens had acceptable or better LCDs.

ajkula66 wrote:So you have a powerhouse ThinkPad base crippled by one of the worst screens I've ever seen on a laptop...an absolute sin IMHO.

I noticed on Lenovo website that W500 can be now had with the WSXGA+ screen.