Take a look at our
ThinkPads.com HOME PAGE
For those who might want to contribute to the blog, start here: Editors Alley Topic
Then contact Bill with a Private Message

ThinkPad R61 thermal tweak?

R30/R40, A30/A31, G40/G50 and Z60/Z61 Series. NOT for AMD-Ryzen.
Post Reply
Message
Author
ViBE
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Jan 25, 2021 5:50 pm
Location: Budapest, Hungary

ThinkPad R61 thermal tweak?

#1 Post by ViBE » Mon May 24, 2021 9:09 am

Sorry If it's a possible duplicate. Pretty hard to find out the latest and still useful infos.

So I started a project to get a massive oddware for work and some light usage. The targeted hardware was T61/R61. And boom, I just instantly found a seller with an R61 (8933WEZ) in my area. Now I own this machine. It's a 15.4 inch widescreen variant with 1280x800 panel and it came with Intel GPU and with a T7250 CPU.

The machine is brand new. Not kidding. Looks new, smells new. It has only a few little scratches on the bottom. The fan was not even dusty and the machine was not disassembled before. It has this lego-like fan:

https://i.imgur.com/TomAxsU.jpg

It works well. Clean and silent. Then I slowly started to upgrade it. The T7250 was not a beast and after I applied Middleton's BIOS I replaced it with a T9300 which also runs cool. I know it's a big change comparing with the old CPU but it looks like both produce the very same temperature. Even T9300 feels cooler while idle. But I noticed that for some reason the fan now spins up sooner. May I'm stupid but looks like that the BIOS handling this CPU different and the fan starts to spin sometimes (not always) even if the CPU core temperature is under ~40°C. After a heavier load the fan easily spins up sadly. I have no time to make comprehensive tests about this and don't know the exact thresholds but I monitored tons of times with AIDA and not really satisfied with the results. Not noisy and not annoying but It can be better I guess.

After the CPU swap I cleaned the fan. The copper's surface on the chip side is flat and no thermal pad just thermal paste. I replaced it with Arctic MX-4 paste. Then I found TPFanControl (6.3). I dunno are there any better or newer options to control the fan but since it's Windows only it does not help me out when I'm on Linux. And there is no way to control the RPM as I see with this. Or maybe I did not figured out yet.

So my question is: are there any useful hardware and/or software side thermal tweaks exist to make this awesome machine even better in 2021? Btw I'm using Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu/Zorin atm.


FORUM warning:
picture(s) WAY too big, tags removed. Please read the Forum Rules, especially Section 5: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=14339

Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “ThinkPad R, A, G and Z Series”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 30 guests