Thinkpads Forum

My E420 is overheating. I believe it may be a problem with my fan. i'm not a huge gamer, but when I play minecraft for longer than 45 minutes, my laptop just shuts off and attempts to restart. that's when the screen starts flickering. I believe that my laptop may be overheating. I think there is something up with my fan. I've heard other people saying that their fans were blowing real loudly, but I have never heard this. any one experience something similar? any advice on what my next step should be? thanks!

download and install "speedfan" and tell me your tempretures

HD0: 39C
Temp1: 429496448C (surely this is a mistake)
Temp2: 40C
Core 0: 47C
Core 1: 48C

Ok try core temp and see if that can read the temps

how do I grab the "core temp"? btw I was just playing some MC for about 20 minutes and this is what I read:

HD0: 39C
Temp1: 429496448C (again must be an error)
Temp2: 47C
Core 0: 67C
Core 1: 66C

as soon as I stopped playing (literally 5 seconds later) I read this:

HD0: 39C
Temp1: 429496448C (surely this is a mistake)
Temp2: 42C
Core 0: 47C
Core 1: 49C

That 'Temp 1' report is strange. Have you tried HWMonitor to see if you can get a more reliable report for 'Temp 1?' In regards to your other temps what is the ambient temperature of the room where you play MC at? Is the laptop elevated enough to let airflow into the ventilation of the laptop? Do you place your laptop on something hard (e.g. a desk) or soft (e.g. bed with blankets or other materials which might cover and reduce ventilation capacity of the E420). What sort of settings do you have your graphics on when playing the game? How old is your laptop? If it is relatively old then you might need a retouch of thermal compound. The laptop shutting down is one indicator of overheating which could indicate that your thermal compound might be a contributor to the shutdowns.

I meant http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ :p

Hey guys, sorry I got really busy with work and put this project aside. The situation has gotten much worse. I haven’t had time to game but now sometimes if I watch a YouTube video, my screen will freeze/start flickering all different colors and shut off. My apartment AC is set on 72 and the laptop is sitting on a pressed mahogany desk. I’m getting the feeling that maybe my comp had a QC problem and not enough thermal grease. What do you guys think? Should I bust this baby open and throw on some more grease or is it time to chalk this purchase up as a loss and sell it for parts? Thanks!

RESOLVED

I took this baby apart (took me a few hours) and discovered that the thermal paste/pad over the processor was completely dried out/in pieces. There was another small looking processor (anyone know what that is?) that had a thermal pad that was fine. Well I removed both and put some Artic Silver 5 on them and now it's working great! Before my computer would shut off when the stress test was at 2% but now it's working fine.

@OP. Congrats and might be time to edit that sig then?

PowerTrader wrote:RESOLVED

I took this baby apart (took me a few hours) and discovered that the thermal paste/pad over the processor was completely dried out/in pieces. There was another small looking processor (anyone know what that is?) that had a thermal pad that was fine. Well I removed both and put some Artic Silver 5 on them and now it's working great! Before my computer would shut off when the stress test was at 2% but now it's working fine.

This problem seems common for all kinds of laptops which is why when I do any repair on any laptop I reapply the thermal paste with some Arctic MX-2.