T41p heat problem under heavy load

Message

bgawert · #1 Post by **bgawert** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 10:38 am

I have a T41p (P-M 1.7, 1GB RAM, 60GB disk 7200rpm, ATI FireGL T2 128MB, 3yrs on-site, Windowsxp Pro) that I bought on March 2004 and that gives me some trouble which might be a because of a design flaw.

The notebook usually works fine. However, under heavy CPU and gfx load (i.e. a customer-specific Simulation Software, but this problem also shows with 3D Games!) the T41p gets hot. And I mean really hot. The exhaust air temp is over 70°C/158°F, and the CPU gets over 85°C/185°F. The underside gets so hot that touching it on certain locations causes real pain.

But the real problem is that the CPU begins to throttle (reducing clock rate to prevent overheating) under heavy load. In games this means that the game suddenly becomes a slide show, and after a few seconds it runs normal on full speed. This behavior repeats after a short time, though. It happens with modern games like FarCry and also with old games like Unreal Tournament (the first version, not UT2003 or UT2004!). And as I said it also happens with "real" applications like the customer-specific Simulation software we use.

I tried do find any software-cause for this. Tried the drivers that came with the system, and also the latest drivers from IBMs website. I tried IBMs Windows preinstallation and an installation from a generic XP CD. I tried to fiddle around with the power management settings. I tried it in battery mode and with PSU connected. Not a change at all, the problem persists.

I heard from other people sharing the same problem with me, and we suspect it is a design flaw. The CPU and the GPU (gfx processor) get cooled by a common heatsink with fan. This heatsink seems to be unable to remove the heat from CPU and GPU under heavy load, thus leading to the CPU reaching its throtteling temperature.

What I want to know is if anyone else experienced this problem? I'm only interested in T41p users and not in the T41 with its slower (and cooler) gfx chip.

Benjamin

tselling · #2 Post by **tselling** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 2:12 pm

I noticed this on my T41p but only when playing 3D games that are very graphics intensive and only on AC power. I always use some sort of lap table when playing games. Its better for the laptop and better for your lap! Probably one with fans built into would be great, but I just use one that has ridges for airflow.

Underclocking the CPU and grapics chip would probably help. I think its just tough to cool things down when there is so little space inside the thin profile of the T4x series.

Lmax · #3 Post by **Lmax** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 2:30 pm

Yeah, I see the same problem on my T41p (2373GEU) when playing games and when I am importing songs to iTunes from an external DVD drive. It gets warm when importing songs and hot when playing games. I don't play games on it anymore because of that, but then again I don't care about that because I have my desktop for that.

Otherwise it isn't really a problem in any of my CAD graphic design and heavy database work. I would never go as far as to call it a design flaw considering even at its hottest the T41p isn't near as hot as other laptops I have had in the past. One way I reduced the heat on gaming is by raising the laptop on 4 audio cassette cases (without the tapes in them) of equal height, this lets air underneath escape easily, with that it didnt get near as hot.

But, like I say, this is definately not a design flaw as all laptops of the T41p's size are going to get hot when taxed, and personally I would rather not have any fans on the bottom of my laptop like those bigger widescreen jokes from HP and Dell.

BTW, many companies like Antech make laptop coolers that slip under the laptop and are powered by the USB port. The Antech on has two fans and and is made of cool aluminum, it's loud but it does the job, I had one but took it back because I couldn't justify the 30 bucks when I barely ever used it.

Max

taphil · #4 Post by **taphil** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 2:37 pm

Heat isn't a design flaw. However, I think it is a problem when heat becomes so excessive that the CPU throttles its speed. That doesn't sound normal/right. Have you called IBM?

G-Man · #5 Post by **G-Man** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 2:48 pm

Benjamin,

Do you use your TP on a desk, or some other surface?

Regards,
G-Man

bgawert · #6 Post by **bgawert** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 2:50 pm

Thanks for Your answers. Well, CAD isn't really gfx- or CPU-intensive and no problem with the T41p. However, we bought this thing because IBM markets it as a "Mobile Workstation", and we needed a mobile workstation for our and our customers' simulation software. So we bought the T41p. If it would be the standard version (T41) we certainly could accept that but not for a high end mobile workstation in this price range. Interestingly, we tried our software on the HP nw8000 mobile workstation which uses the same technology (P-M 1.7, FireGL T2 128MB), and it had no problem with it. But then HP was wise enough to cool the gfx with its own heatsink and fan (which only runs under really heavy load). The T41p on the other side has a cooling system that can't handle the heat of CPU and GPU under load, and that is totally unacceptable for a mobile workstation in this price class. What for do I need a FireGL T2 gfx if I can't use its performance because of the lack of cooling? It's a shame if I have to use one of these notebook grilles/plates with cooling vents that are made for these sub-1000$ noname notebooks with Desktop CPU? It's not that it wouldn't be possible to provide proper cooling inside the T41p case, I'm sure some additional vents near to the gfx chip would help a lot.

When we took the T41p to our customers they were astonished that the notebook slowed down during the simulation process. I'm quite sure that the picture IBM delivered with this mobile workstation for our customers isn't really positive after this demonstration.

I complained at IBM about this but they weren't really helpful. They said that this is a known problem but they can't do anything about it. But I didn't pay a few thousand EUR for a notebook that can't keep up with the cheapest noname unit...

Benjamin

bgawert · #7 Post by **bgawert** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 5:03 pm

To G-Man: I use the notebook on my desk (standard office desk) and on my lap. The problem occurs either on desk and on my lap, but if I hold the T41p in the air it happens less often.

To taphil: Yes, I called IBM. They replaced the FAN/Heatsink once but since that didn't help the IBM service (a sub-contractor) told me I have to live with that. So I opened a complaint directly at IBM Germany. Today one guy called me back and asked me about my problem. He said he'll pass this to the IBM laboratories and see what they say.

As to other notebooks: besides the HP nw8000 and the Dell Precision mobile workstations I also had the chance to test a Dell Inspiron 8600, a Dell Inspiron 8600c (the cheap version of the i8600) and a HP nx7000 under heavy loads. None of these units have a problem with high load, and under normal use they were often more quiet than the T41p which also has the fan running under low load just to exhaust cold air. The nx7000 is barely thicker than the T41p but even under heavy load the fans run only occasionally. Regardless to say that neither the Dell i8600 nor the HP nx7000 were marketed as mobile workstations.

Benjamin

sktn77a · #8 Post by **sktn77a** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 6:19 pm

A quality laptop shouln't overheat on software that it will run to the point that it throttles back the processor. Yes, it should heat up but not beyond it's spec. This sounds like either a manufacturing defect (in which case they should fix it) or a design flaw (in which case they should refund your money). I would call IBM service/tech support and escalate the problem until you get a more satisfactory solution to your problem.

Chatbox · #9 Post by **Chatbox** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:08 am

I have a T41p, 2373-GGU with 1GB RAM (recently upgraded).

Try this:
No battery.
AC plugged in.
Power scheme set to "High System Performance"
Disable/uncheck "Graphics Device Power Management"
Download Real-time HDR from http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/index.html
Run it, you'll notice that CPU will be at 100%, plus it's loading the GPU as well.
Next download this program from Tom's hardware which shows the CPU clockspeed in real-time. http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/2003052 ... _clock.exe

Check and see if your system really throttles speed because of heat or is it something to do with the power scheme.

I don't have any problem when my system is at load (my specs are VERY similar to those you've listed).

#10 Post by **BillMorrow** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 2:20 am

trying the above test..
on my T42p 2373KXU..
runs slow at full screen (1200x1600) but speeds up significantly when running in a window..
sure soaks up cpu clock ticks..
running at 1993.531..

no way to check temp.. yet..

Lateralus · #11 Post by **Lateralus** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 2:28 am

Trying the CPU clock check tool, my CPU (1,7 Banias) only runs at speeds lower than 1,7. Always between 1,1 and 1,4. My power scheme is set to Max CPU Speed. An other tool (WCPUCLK) constantly measures 1,7. Any suggestions about that?

#12 Post by **BillMorrow** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 2:48 am

Lateralus wrote:Trying the CPU clock check tool, my CPU (1,7 Banias) only runs at speeds lower than 1,7. Always between 1,1 and 1,4. My power scheme is set to Max CPU Speed. An other tool (WCPUCLK) constantly measures 1,7. Any suggestions about that?

download the graphics stress test..

that'll max it out or it should..
it did mine..

bgawert · #13 Post by **bgawert** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 6:25 am

Chatbox, thanks for the links. I tried them, however, they aren't really useful.

The THG clock rate measuring tool is crap, sorry. It shows my CPU running with somewhere between 950 and 1350MHz which is simply wrong. On my IBM A31 with P4-M 1.4GHz ist shows the CPU running between 300 and 600MHz which simply is not possible. So this tool is just trash.

For getting more reliable readings I recommend MobileMeter which not only shows the CPU clock correctly (it reads them from the System Management Bus instead of trying to calculate it like the THG tool seems to try) but also reads CPU temp, HD temp (if available) and the charge/discharge rate of the battery. It can be found here:

<http://dssc3031.ece.cmu.edu/~tamaru/mob ... adme-e.htm>

The "DX9 Real-Time High-Dynamic Range Image-Based Lighting" Demo is really nice but somewhat useless for determining this problem. First, it crahses in fullscreen (which is also mentioned in the readme) so it only runs windowed which alone causes less load to the GPU. Then it concentrates on a few certain gfx effects which means that it only accomodates certain parts of the GPU, barely a real heavy load. The CPU load is causes is also very low, the CPU stays around 60-65°C when running this demo. So it's not really usefull for determining the heat problem. To see the real effect just load a game like FarCry, and I'm sure You'll see how fast CPU temp increases and how hot the T41p gets, and certainly also experience the throtteling effect...

As to the problem being a power management issue, I'm quite sure I can exclude that. As I already wrote we tried it with every setting possible, and we even ran the programs without active power management. The problem always persists.

Benjamin

bgawert · #14 Post by **bgawert** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 8:02 am

Update:
Today I removed the CDROM drive, and guess what: that darn thing runs fine! With FarCry the CPU temp stays at ~74°C which is over 10°C below the temperature with inserted CDROM! No throtteling, and the bottom isn't that hot any more. The metal inside the Ultrabay is relative cool from the additional airflow that now comes through it. So it definitely is a design flaw!

Benjamin

Leon · #15 Post by **Leon** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 8:36 am

amazing!

Chatbox · #16 Post by **Chatbox** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:12 am

bgawert wrote:Update:
Today I removed the CDROM drive, and guess what: that darn thing runs fine! With FarCry the CPU temp stays at ~74°C which is over 10°C below the temperature with inserted CDROM! No throtteling, and the bottom isn't that hot any more. The metal inside the Ultrabay is relative cool from the additional airflow that now comes through it. So it definitely is a design flaw!

Benjamin

Maybe your particular thinkpad is faulty? Did you give IBM another call about this? Do they have a solution?

Chatbox · #17 Post by **Chatbox** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:16 am

morrow wrote:
Lateralus wrote:Trying the CPU clock check tool, my CPU (1,7 Banias) only runs at speeds lower than 1,7. Always between 1,1 and 1,4. My power scheme is set to Max CPU Speed. An other tool (WCPUCLK) constantly measures 1,7. Any suggestions about that?
download the graphics stress test..
that'll max it out or it should..
it did mine..

It stresses out on my lappy as well. Not sure why bgawert isn't getting full 100% cpu load. (hell, I even set the process priority to High).

I'm going to try the the tool that bgawert mentioned about measuring clockspeed. See how that turns out.

bgawert · #18 Post by **bgawert** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:38 am

Well, this nice gfx demo is just that - a gfx demo. It mainly uses the gfx processor but not the CPU. Don't get fooled by Windows' CPU load indication as this often shows 100% load when there is less than half of that. The problem occurs ony with both CPU and GPU on full load, and that can't be done with this gfx demo. As I said, try some games (games usually cause heavy CPU load for the interaction calculations), and I'm quite sure other people as well will experience the problem.

Benjamin[/i]

Chatbox · #19 Post by **Chatbox** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:47 am

bgawert wrote:Chatbox, thanks for the links. I tried them, however, they aren't really useful.

The THG clock rate measuring tool is crap, sorry. It shows my CPU running with somewhere between 950 and 1350MHz which is simply wrong. On my IBM A31 with P4-M 1.4GHz ist shows the CPU running between 300 and 600MHz which simply is not possible. So this tool is just trash.

For getting more reliable readings I recommend MobileMeter which not only shows the CPU clock correctly (it reads them from the System Management Bus instead of trying to calculate it like the THG tool seems to try) but also reads CPU temp, HD temp (if available) and the charge/discharge rate of the battery. It can be found here:

<http://dssc3031.ece.cmu.edu/~tamaru/mob ... adme-e.htm>

The "DX9 Real-Time High-Dynamic Range Image-Based Lighting" Demo is really nice but somewhat useless for determining this problem. First, it crahses in fullscreen (which is also mentioned in the readme) so it only runs windowed which alone causes less load to the GPU. Then it concentrates on a few certain gfx effects which means that it only accomodates certain parts of the GPU, barely a real heavy load. The CPU load is causes is also very low, the CPU stays around 60-65°C when running this demo. So it's not really usefull for determining the heat problem. To see the real effect just load a game like FarCry, and I'm sure You'll see how fast CPU temp increases and how hot the T41p gets, and certainly also experience the throtteling effect...

As to the problem being a power management issue, I'm quite sure I can exclude that. As I already wrote we tried it with every setting possible, and we even ran the programs without active power management. The problem always persists.

Benjamin

I'm currently checking out the CPU measuring issue.

Mobilemeter measures my CPU between 600MHz and 1700Mhz.

The THG_clock measures a more dynamic speed rather than checking what the CPU is set to run. On my lappy, it seems to measure pretty well.

Let me install farcry and see how that goes.

bgawert · #20 Post by **bgawert** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:19 pm

MobileMeter reads the clock rate over the SMBus. Very reliable since this is done over standardized hardware functions within ACPI. The variation between 600MHz and 1700MHz is caused by Speedstep clocking down the CPU when there is no or not much load.

The THG tool seems to try to get the clock rate by measuring some loops and calculating the clock rate from that. The reading is totally unreliable, though. The CPU clock rate doesn't vary that much like the THG tool says. It not only failed on my T41p with the Pentium-M 1.7GHz, it also failed on my IBM A31 with P4-M (which only does two clock rates: 1.2GHz and 1.4GHz). On my HP x4000 2GHz XEON it showed ~930MHz-1073MHz, hardly a reliable reading. And on a PII-333 it says 500-655MHz...

I think whoever made this tool should certainly invest some time to work it over. But then, calculating the CPU clock by timing measurements is prone to fail since the days of P200MMX systems...

Benjamin

Chatbox · #21 Post by **Chatbox** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:20 pm

Just been playing farcry for half an hour on it.
and boy, does it get hot...85 degrees C.
However, CPU didn't slow down, it ran at 1700MHz all the way through.
(according to the long chart that mobile meter gave me).

Thank god that I didn't pay full IBM price for my lappy. I'm still happy with it.

Chatbox · #22 Post by **Chatbox** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:25 pm

yeah, looks like there's some issue with the thg tool if you're getting such varied readings.

Has anyone ran StressPrime 2004 (similar to the stress test portion of Prime95).
I've been running it for about 15 minutes now (Test: Blend, Priority: 10). And it only uses the CPU, that alone gets up to 85 degrees. Hot Hot lappy.

wredgum · #23 Post by **wredgum** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 4:54 am

I had a very similar problem on another 'p' model, the A31p which has the Fire GL 7800 chip. Over a year's use the system warmed up a lot of the time and the fan never stopped. I'd opened it up several times out of curiosity but it was when I tried to play games that system would abruptly turn off. In my case it was GC2 that took it through the roof - mobmeter reporting temperatures of 75-85C regularly and normal working tempurature around 65C. I also thought that cooling the CPU only, and not the GPU was a little suspect and thought of fitting water cooling ... for a moment!

After reading a lot about it and searching for PCMCIA laptop fan inserts plus other things, I took the route of trying to make it work as designed and stripped it down to just below the keyboard, where you can get access to the CPU fan assembly. I'd previously blown dust out of the rotary fan but not the heatsink fins, this time I really worked it over being careful not to damage the fan. There was some dust in the heatsink fins as well and I cleaned this out. The major thing I did was to replace the generic white thermal paste with a good proprietory silver based compound after carefully cleaning the CPU die and heatsink, then reassembling the entire area and keyboard.

MobMeter reported almost a 40C delta decrease on the old temperatures! This is almost 2 months ago now and I have stable temps of 44C all the time, peaking at around 65C when playing GC2 with all graphics options on full.

So my conclusion is that the design of a combined fan works, it's just that the fan fins get dirty plus some attention to the type of thermal paste helps. My colleague with an indentical model still has the high temps but the dramatic decrease on my was measurable and verifiable.

sktn77a · #24 Post by **sktn77a** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 8:12 am

I guess the "proof of the pudding" will be to do the same to your colleagues computer. If you see that same drops in temp, then I think we'll all be going out and buying some Arctic Silver

Udayan · #25 Post by **Udayan** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 11:58 am

I have the same problem with my t41p. Playing Age of Empires II Conquerors, it really gets hot. Of course with this game, you can't take out the CD-ROM and still play it, so does anyone have any real solution that doesn't involve replacing thermal paste (Not yet willing to do drastic surgery on my 5-day-old t41p)? Thanks.

OL · #26 Post by OL » Wed Aug 25, 2004 2:38 am

There exists some notebook cooler made by antec and others : look at this review
http://www.pcabusers.com/reviews/antec/ ... ler/p1.htm

It seeems to help a lot, provided it is correctly used (to this review you need to choose carefully the orientation).

On others solution is to use speedswitch to force the cpu to throtle to 1.4 ghz which is enough for most games.

dr.b · #27 Post by **dr.b** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 6:39 pm

Under full load (3d + cpu) my t42p 1.8 goes up to 83/84 °C, cpu throttling would start around 88°C (acpi info). I also tried to remove the cd (in my case actual a 2nd hd) and guess.... no big difference...1 or 2 °C.
@Udayan
Try vdaemon or other cd-image soft.

rpwt · #28 Post by **rpwt** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 9:52 am

2373KXU, 2Ghz, 2GB memory, 60G 7200, 1 month old

I've experienced the down-shifting from 2000 Mhz to 600 (based on Mobmeter - great package!) when running processor intensive applications (CPU stays at 100%) for 10+ minutes. The temperature will rapidly rise to 85 degrees.

Other times, I've kicked off a process (heavy DB and processor) that should run for 3-4 hours and come back to find the system powered-off - I'm assuming some heat-related safety feature. I'm not a gamer, just someone trying to get some work done!

It's gotten so bad that, at times, I'll unplug the AC to force the CPU to throttle down to 600Mhz and watch the temp go from 85 to 55 in a minute or so. Then I'll plug back in, repeat...

This is a ridiculous situation for a top-of-the-line laptop. I don't mind using an external cooler fan (Antec), but it implies a real design flaw. Besides, another contraption to carry with this super-portable system.

sktn77a · #29 Post by **sktn77a** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 12:20 pm

This may sound bizarre but you might want to talk to IBM about swapping this for a model with a 1.7MHz processor, 5400RPM drive and Radeon 9600GPU. The 2GHz processor, 7200RPM drive and Fire T2 video are clearly too much for the coolong design capacity of the laptop. A slower CPU, hard drive and video work just fine. Yes, it's a design flaw (and for this reason, you should get a refund for the difference) but the configuration outlined above will work better for you than the 600MHz system you presently have.

sugo · #30 Post by **sugo** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 1:52 pm

I ran encoding apps for 40 minutes on a 1.7GHz, MR 9600 and 5400rpm hard drive T42, the cpu temperature topped off at 67'C as reported by mobilemeter. CPU stayed at 1.7GHz 100% utilization throughout the test.

Just like sktn77a said, the p might be generating too much heat for the fan to handle ...

T41p heat problem under heavy load

T41p heat problem under heavy load

Similar problem solved by small engineering

Who is online