T61 - Wifi Intel 5300 - antennas and temperature

[groovee]

Hi,

I've decided to upgrade my wireless to Intel 5300 (533_AN HMW (little one)) - on whitelisted bios and ubuntu 11.10 x64 OS.
It is working fine, much better than the old one (WM3945ABG).

I'm not sure what is correct antenna sequention. I've found three antennas mounted inside, two connected. White cable was unused.
On my new card there are three signs - white, gray, black (from left, 1 3 2 numbers on card) but I've found here on board photo of the same card connected in gray white black order. What is the correct one?

What is the difference between antennas?

another thing I've notoced is temperature - my new card operates in about 50 celsiuss degrees (~120F). I've switched back to old wifi card but temperature is similar. is it normal? My CPU is about 25 (77F).

Regards, Kacper

[Peak2Peak]

Correct cable installation for the Intel 5300 is:

Grey cable (MAIN) connects to TR1 aka 1
White cable (3RD) connects to TR3 aka 3
Black cable (AUX) connects to TR2 aka 2

[ThinkRob]

What on earth are you using for a CPU that idles at 25C ?!?

[JeffCullen]

Peak2Peak is right, it's grey/white/black. I can't say my system runs any hotter or cooler with the 5300 vs the original 3945, or other cards I've tried...

I wonder if I could get my T9300 to hit 25C if I go outside (it's 2C out) and use tpfancontrol to set the fan to level 64... :P

edit: yup! wonder how much life that took off the machine :P

[TuuS]

Sounds like you have a bad thermal sensor or something, no cpu will run that cool, they are designed to idle at 60-65c, which is when the fan kicks on.

Normal range would be 60 to 85-90 depending on load, much above 90 and your system will shut down. If I run the fan on manual mode I can force it to idle in the 40s, but there is no need to run that cool.

[JeffCullen]

Am I making a mistake having tpfancontrol keep things around 45C during light load and no higher than 65C heavy load?

[ThinkRob]

Am I making a mistake having tpfancontrol keep things around 45C during light load and no higher than 65C heavy load?

I tend to run without fans up until 50C, then scaling up to full speed at 65C, but that seems reasonable.

Peak2Peak is right, it's grey/white/black. I can't say my system runs any hotter or cooler with the 5300 vs the original 3945, or other cards I've tried...

The 5x00s that I've used tend to run cooler than the 3945s, but only because the latter has a hardware quirk that forces me to disable the driver's power management features.

[groovee]

Hi all,

Thank You Peak2Peak for cable colours, I'll connect that way.


I should write more about my temperature measuring :

It was like that:

- turning on pc
- about 5 minutes of doing nothing
- temperature measurment with my daughter's infrared thermometer (on "environment option") of wifi card
- as a reference - temperature measurment of heatsink (not CPU itselfs) in the most warm place - fan was not even working then (generally it works). Of course temperature measured on thermal sensor would be bigger.

Sorry for the mess

If someone of You could remove keyboard, touch wireless card and tell me is it hot?

Regards, Kacper

[ThinkRob]

Uh...

Why not use the built-in thermal sensors for both the card and the CPU?

[groovee]

I've installed thinkfan, my temperatures (after few hours of work):

Code: Select all

G@T61:~$ cat /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal 
temperatures:	41 42 32 -128 30 29 28 29 42 44 38 -128 -128 -128 -128 -128

According to thinkwiki, 11th sensor is for mini-pci area ("partial confirmed" status). I'm not sure the result is believable. My thermo shows 55 celsius on the card.

Regards,
Kacper

[ThinkRob]

I've installed thinkfan, my temperatures (after few hours of work):

Code: Select all

G@T61:~$ cat /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal 
temperatures:	41 42 32 -128 30 29 28 29 42 44 38 -128 -128 -128 -128 -128

According to thinkwiki, 11th sensor is for mini-pci area ("partial confirmed" status). I'm not sure the result is believable. My thermo shows 55 celsius on the card.

Regards,
Kacper

So if your thermometer says the CPU is 25C but the on-die sensor reads 41C... Well I'd be more suspect of the thermometer!

[groovee]

Hello,

Thermometer if fine, I've just measured temperature of other thermometers I have at home, error is between 0,3-0,5 celsius.
Difference from my 25 and sensor's 41 is caused by my measuring method - as I mentione, I've measured heat pipe, not the CPU itselves. Sensor is simply closer to the CPU so the measurment is more accurate.

On the other hand, sensor in "PCI bay" is not a sensor in the card but somewhere close to it. If JeffCullen's screen above is from T61, the PCI sensor is #10- that means on mine it is about 44 celsius degrees.

Could You show some temperatures from sensors in Your T61s operationg in normal enviroment (not outside with max cooling;)?

Regards, Kacper

[JeffCullen]

Here are my temps sitting my office, ~20.5C ambient.

[ThinkRob]

Sorry, I forgot the bit about measuring the heatsink!

I'm using my T420 at the moment, so I can't really help with the T61 temp bit. Ask me again in a week.

[groovee]

Thank You JeffCullen, Your results are similar to mine so probably there is no reasons to worry about.
Anyway, ThinkRob, if You can, please paste Yours too. I will appreciate it.

Regards, Kacper