T42p overheats & shuts down

[sbjoe]

Apologies if this isn't the proper venue for this issue. My old laptop has recently started to exhibit the subject behavior under at least a couple of circumstances. First was when running Disk Cleanup from Scheduled Tasks; I've found a workaround for that. More recently though after a number of updates to XP were installed after about 5 minutes of idle time mscorsvw.exe rears its ugly head, eats up 100% of cpu resources invariably leading to an abrupt shutdown in very short order. I've recently had the fan out and put a fresh patch of Arctic Silver on both the cpu and gpu before reinstalling, this after thoroughly cleaning the old residue and prepping the mating surfaces. Fan is operating seemingly normally & responding to temperature fluctuations as revealed by TPFC, but cpu temps are very quickly running up to the 95C range under load. As a stopgap, I've set the machine to go on Standby whenever I close the lid, but it sounds as though it'd be a good thing if mscorsvw.exe could complete its task and go away on its own terms. I suppose my question boils down to whether this might remotely be anything more than a straightforward cooling issue? But for this it's a solid, reliable old machine and I'd like to make it right. The fan is riveted together and doesn't appear to be amenable to disassembling for cleaning and lubing, so I'm contemplating a new fan and a more careful application of A/S. Any further suggestions though will certainly be appreciated.

[Johan]

Joe:

A quick question (from another avid T42p'er!): As I understand that you have ThinkPad Fan Control installed; have you noticed whether it is the CPU temp. or the GPU temp. that goes abruptly so abnormal high? [your post seem to indicate that it is the CPU temp., but I'm asking just to be sure!]

When reinstalling the fan, did you notice whether the thermal pad between the fan/heatsink and the GPU had perhaps to some extent become "old and dry"? (and in such case would potentially result in a higher thermal resistance).

PS; a hint: If you wish your T42p to run cooler/more quiet/longer (on battery), then I suggest you see this post which will enable you to install and fine-tune the fantastic, free program Notebook Hardware Control

I cannot emphasize enough what a highly valuable tool NHC (in my opinion) is for e.g. T4x/p laptops - get in NOW and live happily forever after!

PS2: Upgrading your T42 with a superfast SATA SSD will breathe new life into it!

Johan

[sbjoe]

Joe:

A quick question (from another avid T42p'er!): As I understand that you have ThinkPad Fan Control installed; have you noticed whether it is the CPU temp. or the GPU temp. that goes abruptly so abnormal high? [your post seem to indicate that it is the CPU temp., but I'm asking just to be sure!]

That's correct Johan, and it is a spike in cpu temp that's been preceding the shutdown. gpu temp spikes some too on occasion, but so far as I've noticed hasn't been the cause of any malfunction.

When reinstalling the fan, did you notice whether the thermal pad between the fan/heatsink and the GPU had perhaps to some extent become "old and dry"? (and in such case would potentially result in a higher thermal resistance).

When I first tried to remove the fan, I gave up because the thermal pad was practically welded to the gpu; I was concerned that I might do some real damage. But on a subsequent occasion I used a wood chisel which I'd dulled just slightly and a good rap with the heel of my hand broke it loose. Dry and hard is my recollection of how it appeared.

PS; a hint: If you wish your T42p to run cooler/more quiet/longer (on battery), then I suggest you see this post which will enable you to install and fine-tune the fantastic, free program Notebook Hardware Control

BRAVO! Downloaded NHC, installed with default settings and waited ~5min. Temp apparently spiked some - although I'd disabled TPFC in case of conflicts so didn't have a direct reading - this lasted not very long before everything returned to normal and mscorsvw.exe has disappeared from the list of running processes in Task Mgr.

I cannot emphasize enough what a highly valuable tool NHC (in my opinion) is for e.g. T4x/p laptops - get in NOW and live happily forever after!

PS2: Upgrading your T42 with a superfast SATA SSD will breathe new life into it!

I'll look further into that option as well.

Johan

Many thx Johan!! You are indeed a prince among men! Are there conflicts likely to ensue from running NHC and TPFC side by side? Should I disable TPFC more permanently or do they play nice together?
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It's a day later now and while NHC has apparently resolved my shutdown issue the result appears to have come at some cost as cpu clock seems to be pretty well stuck at around 600MHz. This doesn't bother me much for most ordinary purposes but the overheating issue remains although its well restrained. So I'm back to my original question as to whether a new fan and more careful installation and use of Arctic Silver might be my best next step..?

[sbjoe]

Apologies again. I now know not to insert my responses directly below snippets of quoted text. Hope that wasn't altogether confusing!
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I've since edited my previous post so hopefully it reads with better clarity.