Thinkpads Forum

Hi,
I am running stock Ubuntu 9.04 64 bit on my thinkpad t400. I have noticed that right side of the palm rest on the top and bottom get a little hot when running ubuntu. I have noticed this when the laptop is under load as well as when it has been idle for many hours.

I have not disabled any power management features and other ones such as screen dimming and fans works. Though I do get significantly less battery life out of my 6 cell under Ubuntu than windows. Also the laptop has good air management with nothing obstructing the vent.

I am also dual booting XP 32 bit on the laptop and have never really noticed the heating up of the palm rest in Windows.

I believe the hard drive is located on the right side near the palm rest. I could be mistaken about that though.

Has anybody else experienced this problem? Anybody have a solution?

Thanks.

I'm using Kubuntu on 9.04 T500 should be rather similar.
1. Yes, the hard drive is located underneath the plam rest on the right side of the computer.
2. I don't have any problems at all with the hard drive heating, even after hours of use and I use some heavy stuff.

My suggestion would be to check hard drive usage first. Install gkrellm (sudo aptitude install gkrellm) and run it and it will monitor a few things about your system including hard drive usage and (at least on T500) can monitor the temperature of the hard drive.

Hope this helps.

Apparently there's also a package that monitors HD temp specifically:

sudo aptitude install hddtemp

then run sudo hddtemp /dev/sda to see the hard drive temperature (if your drive is not sda you will have to change it to whatever it is)

[quote="untitled_no4"]Apparently there's also a package that monitors HD temp specifically:

sudo aptitude install hddtemp

then run sudo hddtemp /dev/sda to see the hard drive temperature (if your drive is not sda you will have to change it to whatever it is)[/quote]

Thanks so much for your response. I figured nobody was reading my post and I was surprised to see someone answer it.

I have installed hddtemp and can monitor the hard drive temperature. Subjectively it still seems unusually warm to almost hot. However, objectively, I do not know what is too hot?

What would be a max temp for the hard drive?
I just don't want to risk data loss because I am running the hd too hot.

Thanks for your response, it really helped me

I think every hard drive has a different range of operational temperatures and the best thing is to search for the data for yours. The temperature of my hdd (WD Scorpio Blue) after working with my computer for a while is around 40c, while the manufacturer's operational temperature is 0 - 60c.

The other thing you can do is check the temperature just after you've started up your computer and compare it to the temperature when it gets hot. I don't think there's an official measurement to what the difference should be, in my case it's around 10c warmer, but if you see there really is a huge difference perhaps you should worry about it even if it's within the range.

untitled_no4 wrote:I think every hard drive has a different range of operational temperatures and the best thing is to search for the data for yours. The temperature of my hdd (WD Scorpio Blue) after working with my computer for a while is around 40c, while the manufacturer's operational temperature is 0 - 60c.

The other thing you can do is check the temperature just after you've started up your computer and compare it to the temperature when it gets hot. I don't think there's an official measurement to what the difference should be, in my case it's around 10c warmer, but if you see there really is a huge difference perhaps you should worry about it even if it's within the range.

Okay so when I start up the computer the hdd temp is 35-37 C at boot.
The temp then steadily rises until it reaches 47-55C. This makes the bottom of the laptop very warm almost hot to the touch.
I am not sure what I can do about this. In XP i have rarely felt the laptop this hot. It is not unbearable but, it is uncomfortable when using it on my lap.

Any suggestions?

thanks in advance

Hi !

I had the same problem on my T400 when i bought it about 1 month ago. The hard disk was pretty hot. I asked Lenovo if it was normal and they told me it wasn't. They sent me a new hard disk. Now, i don't have any problems. Everything works perfectly...

No, I don't think it's normal my T500, which is similar enough to T400 doesn't get that hot or hot at all. My guess is that some process or processes keep accessing your hard drive... two questions though, first, am I right and second, which process.

In terminal type and then and this is like the system monitor only for hard drive I/O. Run it and see if you can spot something. On my system, for instance, when I don't use anything that accesses the hard drive (like now), I only get the occasional process accessing the hard drive for a split second and then everything goes back to 0.

A second option would be to log the usage of your hard drive i/o over time and then go back and identify if there are any naughty processes
First, create a log file Then run iotop in batch mode telling it only to show processes which actually access the hard drive, and save the output to a log file As you say that your computer also gets warm when idle, I would let it run when it is idle so what you're doing doesn't interfere with the data you're collecting.

amwus wrote:Hi !

I had the same problem on my T400 when i bought it about 1 month ago. The hard disk was pretty hot. I asked Lenovo if it was normal and they told me it wasn't. They sent me a new hard disk. Now, i don't have any problems. Everything works perfectly...

Thanks for the response.

Did they make you return the old hard drive? I have sensitive info on mine which would take time to back-up and wipe. Also, did you replace the hard drive yourself? I hope replacing the hard drive doesn't void the warrant.

I have Next Business Day Onsite service so I hope I am covered by that warranty

postdiction

Yes, they made me return the old hard drive but i didn't had to pay anything. They gave me a phone number to UPS and someone came after the disk.
I replaced the drive myself, it's very easy and does not void the warranty.

But if you're afraid of replacing your harddisk yourself, with your warranty, i think they can come at your place to replace the drive for you...

amwus wrote:Yes, they made me return the old hard drive but i didn't had to pay anything. They gave me a phone number to UPS and someone came after the disk.
I replaced the drive myself, it's very easy and does not void the warranty.

But if you're afraid of replacing your harddisk yourself, with your warranty, i think they can come at your place to replace the drive for you...

Hmm..... I have big sticker on the bottom of my t400 saying "Service Alert Non-Return Hard Drive Machine". I hope that means that I don't have to return the hard drive to Lenovo.

I have experienced the same heat-up, but it was a fresh install (Ubuntu 9.04 32-bit), so I investigated a bit.
I have been using a Windows XP on the same hard drive, and it was producing 32-33 celsius degrees during normal work, that means it is unnoticeable (way to go MS!
When installing Ubuntu 9.04 32-bit with Ext4 filesystem, 42 celsius degrees was the idle temperature. Then reinstalled the whole OS, with Ext3 filesystem, and it rose up to 44 degrees. Although no stress-test, I downloaded the Ubuntu install disk again (780 Mbytes), and the temp. never went above 44 degrees, strange.
One sure thing that lowered the temp. (but I didn't measure it) is setting the hard disk in BIOS to AHCI mode, instead of Compatibility. Windows XP doesn't have proper SATA disk support (the way not to go, MS!) therefore Lenovo ships the T400 with Compatible settings on, and average user won't notice any slowdown.
Ubuntu - on the other hand - handles SATA disks well (almost) out of the box. When setting AHCI mode, temperature was significantly lower, however Hibernating was throwing a few exceptions, and the next boot gave me the chills as the internal speaker was beeping 2-4 seconds.
Now I'm experimenting with hdparm. will set standby mode to 10 seconds (probably the lowest value available), but this is not as effective as I thought it should be, every small process turns the disk on, maybe I should investigate more on write caching. will make the disk quiet.