Thinkpads Forum

I have two 600E's. One is a 2645-8AU, the other is a 2546-5AU. Both have been upgraded to a P3 500mhz cpu. In fact, the 8AU has a 650mhz, but runs at 500mhz due to being non-speedstep.

Everything else is the same aside from the hard drive. The 8AU has a Western Digital 40gb 5400rpm. The 5AU has a 32gb 5400 drive. I think it's Hitachi. I did a search on the part number and it's the drive that came stock in the A30.

The problem is, the 5AU gets very hot on the bottom after around an hour of usage. The 8AU gets warm to the touch, but nothing to be concerned about. I questioned the battery that came with it because I'm pretty sure it's bad. It will last about ten minutes then drop from 90% to 4%. I took the battery out, but it still gets very hot.

My wife uses the 5AU and I use the 8AU. Yesterday, we both played games on Pogo.com for about an hour, so both laptops were doing the same thing, but hers got very hot so she decided to stop using it.

I have a 760CD that I would use for hours on end and it would get so hot that it would literally burn my legs, so I wasn't too concerned about the 600E.

However, both laptops are practically the same, one gets very hot and the other doesn't so that kind of makes me wonder why. Should I be concerned?

EDIT: The fan is working on the 5AU because I can feel the air blowing out. Also, the cpu in the 5AU was previously in the 8AU, and I didn't notice the 8AU getting hot when it had that cpu in it.

Given the fact that the fastest processor the 600E originally came with was a PII 400MHz, the fans aren't built to handle anything faster. Having said that, I haven't had a problem with the 750MHz processor that I have have that runs at 600MHz. It could be that your fan is wearing out. I would try swapping the fans between the two systems to see if it is in fact the fan that is wearing out.

Make sure your fan is good and that you have a cool running hard drive. I had a Toshiba hard drive in my 600E that generated significant heat and combined with the CPU heat, this computer really got warm to the touch. I later replaced the drive with a cooler running one made by Hitachi and heat is alot less of an issue.

PIII 650 running at 500MHz generates about 30% less heat than
PIII 500 running at 500MHz does, due to its lower power supply
voltage. So your observation makes sense to me.

I think the first thing you should do is to check the CPU and HDD
temperatures of these 600Es using mobilemeter. If appreciable
difference was observed in the CPU temp, there are a few things
you can do such as,
1: Put a speedstep enabled PIII into 5AU.
2: Change the fan assy to the one for 600X.
3: Buy a laptop cooler.

If the HDD temp is different, you can,
4: change the HDD to another one, for example, slow spinning HDD.

Anyway, I suggest you first try to identify the heat source which
makes such a difference between two almost identical systems.

Hmm...I never thought of the P3 650 running at lower power. That makes sense. Although, I never noticed a heat problem when I had the 500mhz cpu in the 8AU.

Maybe I'll try a new fan. Will the 600X fan fit in a 600E?

Thanks all for the suggestions.

have you tried CPUIdle? takes the temp down about 10 degrees.

non speedstep 500 cpus run about 1.65 volt
speedstep cpus at 500 and lower speeds respectively run only 1.3volt or 1.65 volt at max speeds.
one can remove the resistor to lower the vcore to 1.5,1.55.1.6 v
depending which resistor,if cooling is the aim,but don't over do it
cause too low may render high speed operation a no go.
regardless 1.3 volt stays the same for lower speed operation.

theres a program called mobile meter that measures all
parameters of 600e/x laptops(wnt4,95,98,2k,me,xp,2k3)
if your running below 75deg full throttling than your within
tolerance.natrualy the less time you hear the fan running the more time you can run max speeds on the same battery charge
carefull compromise.
the tp600e fan with arctic silver,slightly filed down (0.010in max)
cpu screw lugs on original matt are good for 650-700 mghz max.
to fit the tp600x fan in the 600e body you must get a sharp knife cutter and care fully plane out the outer 2 ledges inside the vent hole area to promote a precise fit,done correctly you cannot tell from the outside
make sure the clearances don't promote overtension of the lugs on the cpu,to the point it shears of the alloy plate from the chipset.
nice cand easy does it