X230 Overheating

[myxomop]

Why is my X230 overheating? I have it sitting on a hard surface so as to presumably allow air intake from beneath. It is hottest at the rear right corner. Hovering at 100C according to Speccy, even when under low to no RAM or CPU load. I'm away from home and don't have my toolkit with me...

[ajkula66]

Time to re-paste the little guy....that would be my guess anyway.

Good luck.

[axur-delmeria]

Not much you can do about it without opening it up, I'm afraid. Can you check if the fan is spinning?

[myxomop]

just blew into the two ducts, hard, and the temps are back to the low 60s, consistently. dislodged bust bunny?

[axur-delmeria]

just blew into the two ducts, hard, and the temps are back to the low 60s, consistently. dislodged bust bunny?

That would "fix" it, for now. But you really need to clean the darn thing, since all that dust is still inside and will block the vents again sooner rather than later.

Low 60s on an idle laptop is bad in any case. I'm in a tropical country and my X220 idles in the low 50s.

[davidgurvich]

I had a laptop come in that was shutting down after 1 or 2 minutes. I opened it up and had to dig the dust out of the radiator and fan with a toothpick as it had become a kind of cement. Essentially acted as a heat gun straight back to the cpu/gpu. Problem immediately disappeared.

[tthinkpad_xyz]

Hi, I'm also experiencing overheating problems on my x230.

I want to replace the thermal paste and the thermal pad (Actually I don't have thermal pad on the GPU, only thermal paste).

Any recommendations on thermal paste brands, and the thermal pad dimensions?

Thanks!

[axur-delmeria]

Thermal pad dimensions: 25mm x 25mm is more than enough, 20mm x 20mm works too. You can get a 20mm x 60mm strip, just cut it to size.
Thickness: 1mm is OK, but no thicker--had a bad experience with a 1.5mm thermal pad on my X220.

Thermal paste... I'd go with fellow forum member RealBlackStuff's recommendation: Phobya Nanogrease Extreme Noctua NT-H2.

[tthinkpad_xyz]

Thermal pad dimensions: 25mm x 25mm is more than enough, 20mm x 20mm works too. You can get a 20mm x 60mm strip, just cut it to size.
Thickness: 1mm is OK, but no thicker--had a bad experience with a 1.5mm thermal pad on my X220.

Thermal paste... I'd go with fellow forum member RealBlackStuff's recommendation: Noctua NT-H2.

Thank you! I will try that!

[StuB]

Rear right by power switch? CPU is over on the left by numbers 1,2 and guessing tab Q and W. The HDD is over on the right from P to Return. Maybe the issue is disk!
Unless, upside down..