R50P GPU Cooling

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kajencik · #31 Post by **kajencik** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:59 am

Ok, I thought that the fans itself has different height, so the R50 and T4x fan are the same height, only the rubber does make the difference?

EDIT - As I have some spare money now, I just bought a new T43p fan ($43 shipped), I took and look and it seems that the difference between T42 and T43 long fans is that the heatpipe from GPU on the T43 fan is bigger, so I hope it will bring even more coldness to my R50p GPU. I'll let you know as soon as I receive and try it.

kajencik · #32 Post by **kajencik** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 11:15 am

some more info: As I looked into the HMM, it seems that the R50p GPU has only a quite small passive cooling connected to nowhere, so when iddle my GPU temperature is about 56*C, quite bad :/ and whats worse, the fan is running all the time, although quite quiet.... I think the long fan could solve this too...

sjthinkpader · #33 Post by **sjthinkpader** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:47 pm

Back in the days of the A2x series, the early P3s were using thermally conductive silicon rubber pads under the heatsink assembly, then changed to direct contact in the A21 and A22 as the Coppermine series got close to 30 watts.

http://www.stockwell.com/pages/materials_thermal.php
http://www.silicone.jp/e/solution/heat/rtv.shtml

I've seen these in the electronics town Akihabara in Tokyo. They are harder to find elsewhere.

aaa · #34 Post by **aaa** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 8:16 pm

So I did it. It fits.

I actually got the T43 northbridge+gpu fan. As you can see, I removed the offending plastic that's normally in the way on the NB. I don't think you need to change anything if you get the normal long fan that only covers the GPU and not the northbridge. It blocks the Firewire of course, if you didn't read about that earlier.

So yeah, that's a FireGL T2 under the long fan there (not normally in an R51). I haven't been able to test how hot it gets yet, though.

BTW, the T4x fan is shorter than the R5x. The T4x apparently fits, but it will not work the other way around as the R5x fan is too tall.

#35 Post by **Harryc** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 8:25 pm

aaa, I didn't know that fan existed. What's the part #? Anxious to see how this works...nice job.

aaa · #36 Post by **aaa** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 8:49 pm

26R8197 I think.

I haven't even put paste on the GPU, as I'm planning to change out the CPU soon as well. So I'll get around to testing eventually.

#37 Post by **Harryc** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 9:25 pm

Looking forward to hearing about the noise level too. T43 fans are not known to be very quiet .

aaa · #38 Post by **aaa** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 9:56 pm

Well I think that's more because of the hotter chipset than the fan itself. The fan sounds like a regular T42 long fan. Better than the old T40 short fan.

I've yet to really test it though, and it'll probably be awhile.

kajencik · #39 Post by **kajencik** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 2:20 am

great job out there! I'll post my picture as soon as the T43 long fan arrives, btw, does anybody has a spare 1,8 (or 2,0) 400 Mhz dothan?

I'd like to swap it all in one round with the fan, but I haven't found one for reasonable price.

kajencik · #40 Post by **kajencik** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:59 pm

So I received the T43p long fan lately, and today the arctic silver 5 arrived, so I swapped the fan. Here are the resuls:

The CPU temperature is similar to before, above 70 degrees celsius at maximum load, the GPU temperature dropped significantly, it won't exceed 90 celsius at full load, compared to former sometimes way over 100, for me, the noise is almost the same as original fan.

The CPU idles at 42 degrees and the GPU at 49°C, with the original fan, the CPU temperature when idle was a bit under 40, but the GPU would not go under 55 degrees, I think that this is a result of that the heatsink is now one part, compared to the former two separated heatsinks. But these lower temepratures doesn't matter for me at all, the point is that the GPU is now under 90°C whatever I do.

And to the fan - It was marked as a brand new on ebay, and it appears so, it has the original thermal paste on in and it arrived in box shaped exactly to fit the fan, even the little cable which connects the fan to the mainboard wasn't curved at all yet, so I think it's really a brand new one.

Just to add, I have a little screw problem - one of the four keyboard screws wont fit inside and one can't be tightened as it used to, becuase of different GPU fan aligment, but it's no problem at all, It can be solved by cutting off the screw holes from the original fan, which I actually dont want to destroy, so I leave it as it is.

I'll post back if some problem will appear, but it doesn't seems so, I'm really happy with this upgrade

sjthinkpader · #41 Post by **sjthinkpader** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 4:07 pm

Harryc wrote:I think I looked through every R50P fan and/or cooling thread in the forum but I didn't find this information. My R50P (new to me) is currently running Linux. If I run a 3D application (like glxgears for example) the GPU temp approaches 95*C or higher. I looked up the cooling fan for the R5X Thinkpads, and it is part # 13N5182. It is a short fan (different from T4X fans as far as I can tell) and there is no direct GPU cooling. That is the only fan listed for the R5X series. It's amazing to me that IBM passively cools the GPU (FireGL T2 128MB - Rad 9600) in the R50P, but offers a long fan to cool the same GPU in the T4X/P series. Am I missing something? Is there a 'long fan' for the R50/p? If there isn't one available, that tells me that this machine was never designed for 3D apps.

I also have a new to me R51 with a Radeon 9000. This is a partial heat spreader metal plate over the GPU design without covering the graphics memory. There is a 10 fin aluminum heatsink over this GPU. I bought a copper 14 fin heatsink off eBay from a R50p and here there are side by side:

R5x GPU heatsinks (100K file)

Harry, is your heatsink in the R50p the copper version?

Since the long fan has only a single heatpipe connecting the GPU area to the fin area, would this 14 fin copper heatsink do just as well as a long fan?

By the way, the Lenovo website has this heatsink in a kit and they only have one kit listed for both the R50p, R50, R51.

kajencik · #42 Post by **kajencik** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 4:13 pm

This is interesting discovery, but I have to say, I have the copper version, and it was quite hot with it, the GPU was even over 100°C at full load... with the current T43p long fan, I have rarely over 80 and never above 90°C no matter what I do... Also, the CPU temperature rised a bit because the fan is one part now, and one time, it even exceeded one time 80°C, but i think it will be solved by swapping the 1,7 banias for 1,8 dothan.

sjthinkpader · #43 Post by **sjthinkpader** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 4:23 pm

I am not a gamer so I was not watching the temperature that much. What is the software you used to monitor the GPU, CPU temperature?

#44 Post by **Harryc** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 4:25 pm

sjthinkpader, I believe it had the copper version.

kajencik · #45 Post by **kajencik** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 4:29 pm

sjthinkpader wrote:I am not a gamer so I was not watching the temperature that much. What is the software you used to monitor the GPU, CPU temperature?

I'm using tpfancontrol for temperature measurement - I keep the program running, then play a game for let's say 20 - 30 min, then switch right into the windows and watch the temperature, because it drops really fast...

sjthinkpader · #46 Post by **sjthinkpader** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 4:46 pm

kajencik wrote:So I received the T43p long fan lately...

Are you using the T43p long fan or the Northbridge long fan pictured above? I think the later was originally designed for the intel integrated graphics machines?

26R9074 ATI GPU
26R8197 intel GPU

The T43 fans have much shorter heatsink fins as compared to the R5x fans so it may have to run longer or at higher RPM. The R5x fan is also a closed air circulation design so internal GPU heatsink would not get much airflow.

kajencik · #47 Post by **kajencik** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 4:59 pm

As I've seen many motherboards and fans when I was determining which fan to get, I can say for sure, that my northridge is left alone, I have the T43p long fan, it's covering the GPU, not the northbridge. It is true that the fins are smaller, but I don't see it as a problem in a daily usage, I would say that the fan is running less than with the original long fan - mainly due lower GPU temperature, which caused the the original fan to turn on rather than the CPU, I even think that the former fan was running almost at all times...

I choosed the T43p long fan over the T42p one, because it seemed to me that the heatpipe from GPU is larger on the T43p long fan. So now the little remaining problem is the CPU temperature - it seems that the T43p was not excatly designed for a 1,7 banias, which can run quite hot... but as I wrote, I'm not worried about this that much, because I'm going to swap it for a 1,8 dothan anyway.

sjthinkpader · #48 Post by **sjthinkpader** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:17 pm

kajencik wrote:... I would say that the fan is running less than with the original long fan....

As the R5x were shipped with "short" fan, your original long fan is from the T4x series also?

kajencik · #49 Post by **kajencik** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 3:45 am

sjthinkpader wrote:
kajencik wrote:... I would say that the fan is running less than with the original long fan....
As the R5x were shipped with "short" fan, your original long fan is from the T4x series also?

My bad, that was a typing mistake, the original fan, which I replaced with the T43p long fan, was original R50p short fan.

#50 Post by **Harryc** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 7:55 am

kajencik wrote: Just to add, I have a little screw problem - one of the four keyboard screws wont fit inside and one can't be tightened as it used to, becuase of different GPU fan aligment, but it's no problem at all, It can be solved by cutting off the screw holes from the original fan, which I actually dont want to destroy, so I leave it as it is.

Ok, so I thinking about putting a T43/P fan (26R9074) in an R50/P. kajencikm can you explain in a bit more detail exactly what is blocking the keyboard screws and what you meant by "can be solved by cutting off the screw holes from the original fan". Also, I noticed in your sig the following; "R50p - 1832-22u - currently GPU failure ". Hopefully that wasn't because of this modification? You know, I was thinking that since the original GPU heatsink is bolted in place, it probably provides structural support to the GPU area, possibly helping to avoid flexing. You never really know what a design engineer had in mind....
Thanks

kajencik · #51 Post by **kajencik** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 9:28 am

I think my gpu problem is not related to this modification, as I treated the r50p not so nicely, but everything is possible... I had the t43p fan attached only with the screws around the CPU so it may be the cause. But now it is solved, I have modified (changed the shape) the metal plate holding original GPU heatsink to hold the t43p long fan, so all the screws are in their original positions now.

#52 Post by **Harryc** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:54 am

Would you consider taking a picture of it and posting it here?

kajencik · #53 Post by **kajencik** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 11:53 am

No problem, I'm just waiting for the new motherboard, and I should be swapping it next week or the week after it, so I'll make some final modifications to the metal plate and post it all here then.

#54 Post by **Harryc** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:22 am

kajencik, did you ever get around to doing this? I just ordered an T43/P fan (26R9074) for my R50/P. The GPU in this machine idles at 65*C in a cool room. Last time I tried to run a simple 3D game on Linux, the machine shut down. I didn't note the temps, but didn't really have to.

kajencik · #55 Post by **kajencik** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 11:42 am

I think it was the same for my R50p with the original heatsink, below is the link to the picture of a T43p fan attached to the R50p motherboard (actualy T42p motherboard in R50p casing here). It's holding there with 3 original fan screws and also there can be seen a metal plate, which was originaly holding the original heatsink, but there it is (quite ugly

modified to hold the GPU part of the T43p fan and it holds fine.

Here it is (beware, it's about 500K size): http://www.vedet.net/kajencik/R50p_repair/r50p_mb.jpg

I can't say anything about the temperatures, as I'm not using it anymore, but before modifying the metal plate I was playing games and such and the R50p definitely never shut down due to overheating, and I think the maximum GPU temperature I've noticed was about 85°C and believe me the laptop wasn't idling

Sorry for the delay, but this picture was actually taken last weekend when I was reparing the R50p.

EDIT:

To the recent GPU failure - I think it could be involved by that the GPU part was a bit loose, as I added the metal plate just last wekkend, but the main reason was that I was treaing the R50p quite badly and carrying it around in a cheap backpack, and it took some hits there...

#56 Post by **Harryc** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 11:47 am

Thanks for the Pic. Were you able to attach all of the keyboard screws after this modification?

kajencik · #57 Post by **kajencik** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 11:58 am

Yes, I was able to attach all the screws, and you are true about the third CPU screw, but the point here was, that the metal plate is not only holding the GPU heatsing.

You can see the little metal cylinder on the left on it and a hole on the right of the GPU. One of the screws from the bottom fits into the cylinder and similar cylinder attached to the keyboard fits into the hole on the right side, and again there is a screw from the bottom into this, so I think that this modification also makes the R50p sturdier in the GPU arrea.

#58 Post by **Harryc** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 12:01 pm

Excellent thanks! I thought about the keyboard stud after I posted that thought and then erased it. Great mod. I'll be trying the same in a few days.

Torkell · #59 Post by **Torkell** » Fri Sep 11, 2015 3:29 pm

I'm considering doing this upgrade on my R50p (see here for the full set of upgrades I'm planning).

aaa / kajencik, have you got a copy of the photos you posted? Unfortunately none of the photo links in this thread work anymore.

R50P GPU Cooling

Did it [5k thumbnailed pic]

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