W500 cooling questions

[Tasurinchi]

One of my W500 has a weird temperature issue.

First I notice the underside was extremely hot, after just having the TP in idle, it shutdown automatically when doing the first windows updates after a clean install. I opened it up and notice that the heatsink's inner heatpipe (the one closer to the fan going to the GPU), was loose from the heatsink itself, it had like 3mm to 5mm play (Is this a problem or can it still be used or should I throw it to th garbage?)

I replaced the cooler with another (working) one I had, changed the thermal compound from Artic Cooling MX2 to the good old AS5. Then I updated the BIOS to the latest version, installed the Power Management drivers, the switchable graphs drivers and TPFancontrol.

It got better, but now when I check the temperatures in tpfancontrol I get crazy temperatures jumps. Within a second temps will jump up ad down like from 53°C to 67°C, then back to 58°C, up to 73°C, back to 60 and so on...

Is this normal? It looks to crazy for me, maybe something in the motherboard is broken? This TP was also rescued from a bad accident that broke the screen and magnesium frame.

Thanks a lot for the help!

T

[precip9]

It is not normal. I have three W500's, and have swapped T9900 into all of them. The machines run very cool. Typical CPU temperature is < 38C. The temperatures vary slowly depending on load.

I think it is broken.

[Medessec]

Temperatures jumping around are normal for laptops, and the bottom getting very hot is normal for the W500 in particular. But as for the strange overheating and random shutoffs, I think if the laptop has been dropped or messed around with, the motherboard or some other component might not be correctly seated in the frame, or the heatsink isn't properly seated to cool the machine.

The W500 is very fragile on cooling-get it wrong even slightly and the machine goes on a suicidal temperature profile. A high-option Penryn Core 2 Duo and a V5700 chip together make for a lot of instant heat.

Just be careful with running it-and see if you can set aside some time to disassemble the machine and make sure everything is lining up perfectly fine. If there's any bends or chipped out parts of the frame, then there really isn't high hopes for your W500.

Good luck. I resurrected a W500 for my little sister to use for school, and she loves it. And I loved it for the time I was using it for QA purposes. The W500 is a fantastic Thinkpad.

[Tasurinchi]

Thanks guys for the help!

Just be careful with running it-and see if you can set aside some time to disassemble the machine and make sure everything is lining up perfectly fine. If there's any bends or chipped out parts of the frame, then there really isn't high hopes for your W500.

I did take it apart but not completely, only the keyboard, palmrest and keyboard bezel to change the heatsink and renew the thermal paste with AS5. As far as I can see there's nothing "visibly" wrong, but I guess I'll need to pay a closer look to the planar. Any hint where specially to look? Like chips in charge of the thermal control? (Just speculating, I have no clue if there is something like that at all )

[Medessec]

Nah, in your case you'll just have to peel everything back and glance carefully at how the heatsink is lining up with the motherboard, see if you can make out if it's entirely level with the planar. Just make sure everything's properly seated, and if you can, try a different processor and see if the heating profile is any different. This is kind of a nit-picky issue, it'll be a lot of trial and error, but I suppose it's good the W500 works. It's hard for a laptop to come out of a hard jolt without any problems.

[Tasurinchi]

Short status. I haven't disassembled the motherboard yet, since I have not much spare time (takes me longer than an expert ). I just removed the display assembly, the keyboard, kb bezel, palmrest and wwan/wlan cards.

Cooler seems to sit fine for me, also the part of the heatsink over the GPU and NB look tight and "even" so to say. Nothing seems to be loose. The chips that are visible through the holes in the magnesium frame look ok. So far I haven't seen any burns, stains or anything bent.

I had it shortly on for a a minute or so and after that I noticed the cooler was quite hot. Maybe the heatpipes are defective? (they look fine from the outside). I'll remove the planar completely after my holidays. Will report back then...

[Medessec]

If you feel like everything's aligning properly... and the fan's quiet, spinning up nicely and blowing out crisp, hot air, I really don't know what to tell you. But you can never guarantee a 100% fix on a laptop that's experienced a huge amount of shock, unless it's problem-free already. If everything you try fails, taking the whole laptop apart and inspecting the case for bends, cracks, other problems would be the last ditch resort, but I'd leave it up to you if it's worth it.

[Tasurinchi]

I fully agree with you that taking it completely apart for inspection is the way in this case, I just need to find enough spare time, family needs attention as well

[Adda]

It is not normal. I have three W500's, and have swapped T9900 into all of them. The machines run very cool. Typical CPU temperature is < 38C. The temperatures vary slowly depending on load.

I think it is broken.

Idle temp doesn't matter, what matters is how hot it gets when you are pushing the system to the limit, without having tested that, you can't say if the cooler can handle such a CPU.

I bet you it'll get hotter then 85C max, if the ATi GPU and CPU is pushed at the same time.

It's typical for T42p's to run in the mid 40's C idle but under load they easily go over 90C, indle temps are irrelevant.

If you don't plan on using the ATi GPU there probably won't be a problem with such a CPU in T/W500, but if you are, then stick to P9600 or slower 25w CPU's.

[precip9]

It is not normal. I have three W500's, and have swapped T9900 into all of them. The machines run very cool. Typical CPU temperature is < 38C. The temperatures vary slowly depending on load.

I think it is broken.

Idle temp doesn't matter, what matters is how hot it gets when you are pushing the system to the limit, without having tested that, you can't say if the cooler can handle such a CPU.

I bet you it'll get hotter then 85C max, if the ATi GPU and CPU is pushed at the same time.

It's typical for T42p's to run in the mid 40's C idle but under load they easily go over 90C, indle temps are irrelevant.

If you don't plan on using the ATi GPU there probably won't be a problem with such a CPU in T/W500, but if you are, then stick to P9600 or slower 25w CPU's.

The reader should be aware that the T9900 configuration of the W500 was a standard offering of Lenovo. It is a bit strange for someone to suggest that one stick with low power CPUs that were not normally supplied with the W500. All three of my W500's were obtained off eBay, two of them well used, and all of them supplied with the T9400 2.53gHz CPU which draws 35 watts. Swapping in a T9900 actually reduces average power consumption, because it runs faster within the same power envelope, getting the work done faster.

The idle temperature is not a test. Lenovo, as a company well known for engineering proficiency, has already designed the W500 to accept 35 watt CPUs, of which the T9900 is simply the best choice. But as many people like myself work close to idle load, the idle temperature is relevant to longevity. It is more pleasant to use a cool laptop, which is why I mentioned it.

Having done 5 T9900 swaps, I assure the reader: It works, period, no doubts, no worries. But
***Do not buy the E8435 that is being offered as a T9900 equivalent.***
The E8435 is a 55 watt chip, and most certainly will destroy your W500.

[Adda]

The reader should be aware that the T9900 configuration of the W500 was a standard offering of Lenovo. It is a bit strange for someone to suggest that one stick with low power CPUs that were not normally supplied with the W500. All three of my W500's were obtained off eBay, two of them well used, and all of them supplied with the T9400 2.53gHz CPU which draws 35 watts. Swapping in a T9900 actually reduces average power consumption, because it runs faster within the same power envelope, getting the work done faster.

The idle temperature is not a test. Lenovo, as a company well known for engineering proficiency, has already designed the W500 to accept 35 watt CPUs, of which the T9900 is simply the best choice. But as many people like myself work close to idle load, the idle temperature is relevant to longevity. It is more pleasant to use a cool laptop, which is why I mentioned it.

Having done 5 T9900 swaps, I assure the reader: It works, period, no doubts, no worries. But
***Do not buy the E8435 that is being offered as a T9900 equivalent.***
The E8435 is a 55 watt chip, and most certainly will destroy your W500.

The PM770 and 780 where also standard offerings by IBM, still 90C was common for R5xT4x machines with FireGL GPU's.
Quad core CPU's where standard offerings by Lenovo too, in W510/520, but overheating is common for these machines, very common indeed.

Lower average power consumption does not lower peak temperatures.

If you want to be able to use a T/W500 with one of the CPU's they had by default, under any conditions you can think of, within reason, then it's the P9500 CPU.

A T500 with a P9600 CPU and R3650, same GPU as is in the W500, ONLY difference is that the W500 sports 512MB of memory, while the T500 has 256MB.
When pushing both CPU and GPU to the max in this configuration (P9600 + HD3650) temps reach 86C, about the limit of what is safe in the long run.

Of cause, if you don't use the GPU it probably doesn't matter, but if you do, it does matter.

How hot does your W500's with T9900 CPU get if you run a thread of Prime95 and Furmark at the same time?

If the result is less then 85-87C I'll surrender, but it won't be.

If you think this is a unrealistic load, then you need to do more testing.

[Adda]

One of my W500 has a weird temperature issue.

First I notice the underside was extremely hot, after just having the TP in idle, it shutdown automatically when doing the first windows updates after a clean install. I opened it up and notice that the heatsink's inner heatpipe (the one closer to the fan going to the GPU), was loose from the heatsink itself, it had like 3mm to 5mm play (Is this a problem or can it still be used or should I throw it to th garbage?)

I replaced the cooler with another (working) one I had, changed the thermal compound from Artic Cooling MX2 to the good old AS5. Then I updated the BIOS to the latest version, installed the Power Management drivers, the switchable graphs drivers and TPFancontrol.

It got better, but now when I check the temperatures in tpfancontrol I get crazy temperatures jumps. Within a second temps will jump up ad down like from 53°C to 67°C, then back to 58°C, up to 73°C, back to 60 and so on...

Is this normal? It looks to crazy for me, maybe something in the motherboard is broken? This TP was also rescued from a bad accident that broke the screen and magnesium frame.

Thanks a lot for the help!

T

When you remove the cooler from the system, does the pressure marks in the cooler paste look uniform?
You should be able to see a circle in the paste, centered around the middle of the chip.
If it looks like the pressure is centered around the edge of a the CPU fx, then the cooler does not have proper contact with the chip and you might get erratic temp readings, and crazy high max temps.

What could cause this and how to fix it?

Maybe the heatpipes have been bent, maybe the CPU needs to be properly seated in the socket.
If the heatpipes have been bent, the only fix is a new cooler or to bend the heatpipes so that the cooler pads have proper contact with all the chips.
It's tedious work, it's all about bending the heatpipes, mounting and unmounting the cooler to see the pressure pattern in the paste.
Once you have a nice circle pattern centered around the middle, mount the cooler with fresh paste, assemble the system and run some tests to see if it worked.

[precip9]

If the result is less then 85-87C I'll surrender, but it won't be.

If you think this is a unrealistic load, then you need to do more testing.

Let us suppose, as you assert that Lenovo does not design some of their laptop offerings with adequate thermal safety margin. Considering the spectrum of all usage patterns, you might be right for the most demanding. I've seen some bad thermal design in Dell and HP laptops. Lenovo could argue that the user must exercise "discretion." Perhaps one could argue that Lenovo is tempted to offer more than they can fit in the thermal budget. If so, this is true for many of their laptops. The most common CPU in the W500 is the T9400 2.53gHz 35 watt version. So, if I understand you correctly, most W500's are ticking time bombs of thermal destruction.

Aside from the Toughbook, none of the laptops we use are MIL spec. Thinkpads pass more MIL tests than any other consumer laptops, but still, a fraction of the number of tests. But I disagree that advice based on the most demanding user profile is appropriate to all. The tests you propose represent a more demanding load on the machine than any real-world load, because they are designed to stress. I'm not a gamer; perhaps gamer addicts place an almost equivalent load on the machine. On the other hand, CAD use is largely intermittent.

What follows is an example of where I find the T9900 useful. I read old books, downloaded from Archive.org. The format consists of scanned pages, without OCR, assembled into PDF files. Because each page is an image, Adobe Reader performs poorly with the integrated graphics. Page rendering is too slow. With the ATI graphics, the pdfs renders quickly. The T9900 is integral to this process as well, resulting in snappy seeks and page flips. Yet the average power is low, and the laptop remains cool.

Adobe CS3 Photoshop is another example. This particular version of Photoshop actually uses the FireGL to speed rendering. Yet the burst of activity is less than a minute, interspersed with many more minutes of low usage as the user decides on the next step. Many Autocad activities may fall in the same category. Responsiveness, even with low average load, improves with a fast CPU.

Here is a little trick for all, to keep a laptop cooler. Place two inverted plastic milk bottle caps under the rear legs. This provides a half inch air gap towards the back. The air gap is highly beneficial. If, some time in the future, I see a temperature problem, I would consider a fan base, or give the job to a desktop.

So I think I half-agree with you that there is a general problem. But I disagree with you on the solution, at least for most people. I know gaming is addictive. If a gamer must use his W500 for where a thermally demanding situation results, perhaps your advice is appropriate. But first, try the bottle caps.

[Adda]

Let us suppose, as you assert that Lenovo does not design some of their laptop offerings with adequate thermal safety margin. Considering the spectrum of all usage patterns, you might be right for the most demanding. I've seen some bad thermal design in Dell and HP laptops. Lenovo could argue that the user must exercise "discretion." Perhaps one could argue that Lenovo is tempted to offer more than they can fit in the thermal budget. If so, this is true for many of their laptops. The most common CPU in the W500 is the T9400 2.53gHz 35 watt version. So, if I understand you correctly, most W500's are ticking time bombs of thermal destruction.

Aside from the Toughbook, none of the laptops we use are MIL spec. Thinkpads pass more MIL tests than any other consumer laptops, but still, a fraction of the number of tests. But I disagree that advice based on the most demanding user profile is appropriate to all. The tests you propose represent a more demanding load on the machine than any real-world load, because they are designed to stress. I'm not a gamer; perhaps gamer addicts place an almost equivalent load on the machine. On the other hand, CAD use is largely intermittent.

What follows is an example of where I find the T9900 useful. I read old books, downloaded from Archive.org. The format consists of scanned pages, without OCR, assembled into PDF files. Because each page is an image, Adobe Reader performs poorly with the integrated graphics. Page rendering is too slow. With the ATI graphics, the pdfs renders quickly. The T9900 is integral to this process as well, resulting in snappy seeks and page flips. Yet the average power is low, and the laptop remains cool.

Adobe CS3 Photoshop is another example. This particular version of Photoshop actually uses the FireGL to speed rendering. Yet the burst of activity is less than a minute, interspersed with many more minutes of low usage as the user decides on the next step. Many Autocad activities may fall in the same category. Responsiveness, even with low average load, improves with a fast CPU.

Here is a little trick for all, to keep a laptop cooler. Place two inverted plastic milk bottle caps under the rear legs. This provides a half inch air gap towards the back. The air gap is highly beneficial. If, some time in the future, I see a temperature problem, I would consider a fan base, or give the job to a desktop.

So I think I half-agree with you that there is a general problem. But I disagree with you on the solution, at least for most people. I know gaming is addictive. If a gamer must use his W500 for where a thermally demanding situation results, perhaps your advice is appropriate. But first, try the bottle caps.

I'm glad you are not letting my bad day get to you.

I half agree with what you write here too, more then half actually.

I know that at least in the past, Lenovo's stability tests where insufficient, plenty of W510's where sent in for servicing due to throttling and crashing issues, and came back with the problem still present.
So they simply didn't test it properly and getting a W510 to run completely stable, is a daunting task, even with a 45w CPU.
The W520 has a similar cooler, the same amount of space for a cooler, but comes with 45-55W GPU's and CPU's.
But a W510 struggles with 35+45w, it seems Lenovo performs magic with the W520, or didn't test it properly, same with W530.

If you read around the web, you'll see that W500's have turned up with bad GPU's, a sign that with some usage patterns, the 35w CPU equipped models could be a ticking time bomb, most of them are out of warranty at this point.
I can't remember if all W500's with bad GPU's actually have 35w CPU's though, and as far as I know, T500's don't seem to loose their GPU's, but I don't keep an eye on the T500 focused forums as much as W series, so who knows.

With your usage pattern, I agree, a T9900 would be usable with the GPU enabled.
I wouldn't use it for gaming or 3D animation though, but it would be very nice for DAW's.

But yes, the key is usage pattern.

My recommendation for anyone with a T/W500 is to go get IBM_ECW and undervolt the CPU, with a bit of luck, maybe a T9900 could run very cool.

[600X]

Here is a little trick for all, to keep a laptop cooler. Place two inverted plastic milk bottle caps under the rear legs. This provides a half inch air gap towards the back. The air gap is highly beneficial. If, some time in the future, I see a temperature problem, I would consider a fan base, or give the job to a desktop.

I used my W500 for gaming, and with the fan at max. the GPU temp was usually 60-ish, CPU was a bit cooler. On a hot summers day it might also climb to 65°. This is extremely cool IMO if you ask me. Especially compared to the 90-100° my X220 used to reach. To be fair, my W500 did have a P8400, but even so, the W500 should have no heat issues at all even with the stronger P-processors. I don't have any experience with the T-processors, so I can't say anything about them. Unless a W500/T500 is defective in some way or another, it should not overheat.

If you read around the web, you'll see that W500's have turned up with bad GPU's, a sign that with some usage patterns, the 35w CPU equipped models could be a ticking time bomb, most of them are out of warranty at this point.
I can't remember if all W500's with bad GPU's actually have 35w CPU's though, and as far as I know, T500's don't seem to loose their GPU's, but I don't keep an eye on the T500 focused forums as much as W series, so who knows.

Yeah like I said, not sure how big of a difference a T9000 CPU makes, but generally the W500 should not overheat. The T500 also suffers from GPU problems, I have seen quite a number of T500's with dead ATI's. However, the reason why seemingly more W500 have dead ATI's is simply because they are work stations and are usually treated as such whereas T500's are often just used as office machines. A W500 is more likely to have served as a 24/7 rendering machine than a T500.

[Tasurinchi]

Thanks everybody for the hints. I'm still on holidays so I will disassemble the cooler/planar and take a closer look next weekend when I'm back home

When you remove the cooler from the system, does the pressure marks in the cooler paste look uniform?

I don't remember now, I just removed the crappy Lenovo paste and did not pay attention to that. From the outside the cooler does not seem bent, broken or sitting incorrectly.

[Adda]

I used my W500 for gaming, and with the fan at max. the GPU temp was usually 60-ish, CPU was a bit cooler. On a hot summers day it might also climb to 65°. This is extremely cool IMO if you ask me. Especially compared to the 90-100° my X220 used to reach. To be fair, my W500 did have a P8400, but even so, the W500 should have no heat issues at all even with the stronger P-processors. I don't have any experience with the T-processors, so I can't say anything about them. Unless a W500/T500 is defective in some way or another, it should not overheat.

How did you test your W500 while gaming, what games?
Games that don't use both cores, will make the system run cooler then those that use both cores.
Fallout 3 made my T500's GPU run at ~80C, CPU at 78C.

I don't remember now, I just removed the crappy Lenovo paste and did not pay attention to that. From the outside the cooler does not seem bent, broken or sitting incorrectly.

You won't be able to tell if the cooler fits poorly just form looking at it, you gotta' check the cooler paste.
Just a slight misalignment between the pad and core is enough to make a tiny gap.