Thinkpads Forum

Not clogged, just checked (plus, it's only been two weeks, plus I don't smoke, nor do I work in a mine... ). CPU and GPU core is not the issue here, so the paste doesn't apply.

This issue is really bugging me.

Chatbox, regarding the disadvantages of thermal pads, and factors that reduce their effectiveness:

http://powerelectronics.com/mag/power_d ... al_grease/
Elastomeric Thermal Pads
Disadvantages: At low pressure, it cannot fill voids between the surfaces, causing high thermal interface resistance.

http://focus.ti.com/lit/an/spraae4a/spraae4a.pdf
9.3 Thermal Pads
Many adhesives used on thermal pad materials are pressure sensitive, non-permanent adhesives. As
such, they may be sensitive to change with moisture in the environment and tend to creep under loading.

If the system is positioned such that there is substantial gravitational loading of the heat sink on the
package, i.e., the PCBs are positioned vertically such that the heat sinks are pulling on the package,
pressure sensitive adhesives alone should not be relied upon to hold the heat sink to the package.

Some of the above issues may have been illustrated by the guy who tightened a screw on the bottom of his W510, and the temperature immediately went up while running benchmarks. Tightening of the screw may have caused the circuit board on which the chips were mounted to pull downward, reducing the pressure from the heatsink.

Note that creep of the pad material over time should also reduce the pressure between the pad and the chip surface. The creep explanation would be consistent with reports from other users of the W510, saying the machine was fine at first, and then began overheating after a period of time of weeks. Presumably, creep is hastened by heat-intensive operation, such as repeated benchmark testing. Plus the Texas Instruments document mentions moisture as a contributing factor for creep, and my understanding is that Sydney's been having a lot of rain lately.

You may be experiencing normal changes that would be less of a factor for laptops whose heat production had not been designed to be so close to the cooling system's capacity to remove heat.

Thanks QFoam, that was very informative! I've contacted Lenovo today, and they've arranged to have a product specialist to speak to me about the issue tomorrow. I'm not even sure how Lenovo is going to fix this...better thermal pads?

Different pad materials, for example, have different creep rates. And I've seen patent applications for different types of thermal pads that reduce creep. So Lenovo might be able to switch to higher-quality pads.

Otherwise, the main solution (which is far less exepensive than any retrofit) may be to set their processor throttling profiles more realistically, based on typical production machines that have been burned in for a couple of months. That would take into account production variations in heat sink mounting. Given what I've seen so far, I suspect that both their fan profiles and processor throttling profiles are based on "perfect" laboratory machines. Meaning a W510 for which an experienced technician has freshly and perfectly mounted a heatsink.

Plus I would enlist some users such as yourself to beta-test new fan/throttling profiles. Testing seems to have been one of the major problems here, as with a lot of other W510-related issues.

Just did more tests tonight...and OMG...that screw made a difference, for the better (I loosen it). This was like a "WTH moment" for me.

Tomorrow, when I get a chance to speak to the product specialist, I'm going to ask for the tightening spec for the screws (assembly torque spec), as well as environmental condition specs. And see if there's any better thermal pads that they might be able to send me. Hope Lenovo will be able to provide me with the information required to have a perfectly assembled system.

I, for one, would love to be a beta tester for the profiles. Not exactly sure how I can contact Lenovo about this (I'm an IBMer, based in Sydney). I just wish Lenovo would do more thorough tests on the ThinkPads (especially on the W series as they are targeted at customers who have high demands). There are a lot of faithful ThinkPad users out there, myself included (for over 8 years now, used/using 5 ThinkPads and counting), but we're not blind fanboys/girls. Just hope that Lenovo will not abuse this ThinkPad fanbase and have forgotten about product quality.

It's very rare that a user will put him or herself through what you've gone through to troubleshoot and test the limits of a laptop. So Lenovo would be wise to take advantage of such a resource. Maybe you can convince the product specialist you talk to tomorrow to try to get that ball rolling. Or at least tell you who to contact to do so. Good luck!

This happens on my W510, but with only the 720QM. Running prime95 "In place large FFTs" and furmark gets the CPU up to about 98, where it then throttles. However, popping the keyboard off while it is running makes it cool by about 10-15 degrees, suggesting that the problem is just that the fan does not get enough intake air. This is really a poor design oversight, since now the CPU cooler is just swirling air around rather than breathing cool air and expelling hot air. Even better would be a separate HSF for the CPU and GPU, but it's hard to cram that in a 15" laptop.

Has anyone else tried running with the keyboard off? Obviously it's not a very permanent solution but it would help shed some light on the problem.

I'm currently looking into drilling some small holes behind the left speak grill...but wondering if it's going to change the paths of air intake at other locations of the laptop. For one, it might affect the amount of air flowing through the bottom set of memory modules (there are holes there for air).

Presumably you'll void your warranty, Chatbox, by drilling holes into the laptop. What would be your motivation for doing so?

And were you able to come to any resolution with Lenovo?

They've replaced the system board and the CPU. I didn't write back because I want to run the laptop for a few weeks before I update you guys. Anyway, here's the current situation:
1. rthdribl can now run at FHD for at least 90 minutes. Haven't tested anything longer than that.
2. Prime95 is able to run for a long time (6+ hours), with CPU temp at 80-82c.
3. Furmark has no issue either...but the gpu core is no longer able to run at 72c. It's now back to around 83c.

At the moment, system seems solid. But I would like to get the GPU core temperature down back to 72c, like it was before the system board and CPU got replaced.

I know, I'm probably asking for too much. Now that the system seems to be stable, I want it to run at lower temperature.

The reason why your GPU gets hotter now could very well be that the GPU never throttles and therefore allows itself to get hotter.
Your temps seem to be the same as mine, more or less.

A word of advice, if it's stable and doesn't throttle, then there's nothing to fix, so leave it be, you might run in to more trouble by messing with it.

Edit: it could also be that the video memory is finally cooled properly now, and so adds more heat to the cooler, resulting in higher GPU temps.

Agree with you totally. At this point, there's no reason for me to do any "fixing" on the laptop, as there's nothing to be fixed. Going to keep on using it for another week or so and see if it's still go (hope the issue isn't going to come back).

Arghhh... I've been having heat issues with teh W510 since I first received it about a year ago. Actually, when I first got the machine it seemed fine - after a few weeks the heat issue became apparent. I tried everything to keep the heat down and finally called tech support. A support engineer came out and replaced my fan unit - issue was not resolved. Another tech came out a few days later and replaced the motherboard, things got worse. Another tech arrived a few weeks later to replace the motherboard again with a new fan and heat-sync. Machine started overheating and shutting down, eventually it started blue screening. Another tech came out and replaced the motherboard, CPU and fan unit - system would not boot, incredible amounts of heat. Lenovo agreed to send me a BRAND NEW unit - the first 2 weeks the system ran as cold as a freezer, I couldn't belive it - at last my problems were over. Not so, just a few short weeks after I recevied it it started getting incredibly hot again. Now the machine stays hot enough so that it's actually uncomfortable to use - my hands get sweaty and hot trying to program on this thing. I'm tired, frustrated and not sure what else to do... Need some help, does anyone have a final solution here?

I don't think there's a final solution.

I'm still having overheating issues. Just got a tech to replace the thermal unit on my W510 this week...didn't resolve the issue either. I wrote an e-mail to Lenovo Customer Care, now officially complaining about my dissatisfaction with the product. The system have been getting multiple repairs, parts replaced...all for the same issue. None of the repairs done was able to address the overheating problem to satisfactory and near-permanent standard. Lenovo has been given multiple opportunities to address issue, and yet failed to do so, time after time.

I'm still waiting for a response from the company.

On a side note. Repair engineers have told me that the release date for W520 is being delayed as they're trying to fix heat issues on the new system...

My W510 remains rock stable, I even applied new paste since this thread went quiet, that improved temps even more, I guess I'm just lucky.

It saddens me that the heating problem is still unresolved, I mean how hard can it be to remove the 55w CPU's from the W510 lineup and make a cooler that fits the system

Lenovo is trying to put 55w CPU's and 55w GPU's in the W520 at the same time, that will be impossible, they cannot do that.

Edit: When I say a cooler that fits, what I mean is that AVC are making these coolers with the heatpipes bent wrong.
My cooler may work (after a lot of bending), but the fan/heatsink part does not align with the side of the chassis, it's bent out of shape.
Lenovo should dump AVC and get a manufacturer that can make these coolers right, the AVC coolers are junk!
The problem is not the motherboard or CPU, it's the cooler!

Chatbox wrote:
...
On a side note. Repair engineers have told me that the release date for W520 is being delayed as they're trying to fix heat issues on the new system...

Hmmm, maybe this'll make Lenovo rethink killing off the W70x series. They'd look pretty puny if they can't come up with a laptop that'll run the higher horsepower chips...