X201: temperatures & thermal pads

[FranzJoakim]

Evening,

Just finished replacing the thermal paste in the X201. I went with AS5; put some paste, the size of a rice grain, then seated the heat sink. I didn't replace the thermal pad though, though I'm questioning how important this is - anyone got any ideas? Does anyone know how thick the pad should be, if replaced?

Now, when Prime95'ing, it hovers around 75-95 deg celcius, varying with the passes; ~80-85's what it sits at most of the time. When idle, it sits around 38-45 deg celcius. Ambient at 25.
It doesn't ever break 95 degrees though, and the fan doesn't pass level 4-5; keeping it quite quiet. It doesn't get bogged down either, when stressing it, making it useful whilst benching it; somewhat odd behavior, based on experience.

Regarding to CPU frequencies, it keeps the turbo boost up at all times it seems, running at 2,92 GHz stable.

Seeing the fan isn't ramping up fully, I must assume that the replacement of thermal paste went well. Why is it letting the CPU shy 10 deg celcius of TJ.Max, 105 deg celcius?
Whether it's docked or not, the temperatures remain the same.

Comparing it to old results, it mainly keeps the fan in a slower state overall; only a few degrees improvement in temperature and it's no longer jumping down to 2,66 GHz.
I do know that older i5's run hot and all that, but should I be worrying? There ain't much on the matter throughout the www, either.

Has anyone else checked temperatures on their X201's? How is your fan/temp-curve compared to mine?

[axur-delmeria]

You can change the fan behavior by using TPFC or IBM_ECW (on Windows), or thinkfan (linux). You can make the fan spin faster at lower temperatures to prevent it from getting too hot. I don't like the CPU running over 80c if I can help it.

With CPU temps, it's best to keep it as low as possible when under load. This is to minimize thermal expansion and contraction, which can cause solder failure over time.

Regarding the thermal pad, the Hardware Maintenance Manual recommends replacing it every time the heatsink is removed. But what usually happens is that it gets replaced only if it gets damaged during disassembly. I think a thermal pad between 0.5mm and 0.8mm works.

[FranzJoakim]

You can change the fan behavior by using TPFC or IBM_ECW (on Windows), or thinkfan (linux). You can make the fan spin faster at lower temperatures to prevent it from getting too hot. I don't like the CPU running over 80c if I can help it.

With CPU temps, it's best to keep it as low as possible when under load. This is to minimize thermal expansion and contraction, which can cause solder failure over time.

Regarding the thermal pad, the Hardware Maintenance Manual recommends replacing it every time the heatsink is removed. But what usually happens is that it gets replaced only if it gets damaged during disassembly. I think a thermal pad between 0.5mm and 0.8mm works.

While it's true keeping a cooler temperature prolong the CPU's lifespan, they're usually good for 10-15 years of use in so-so conditions, meaning at some point cooling improvements are just diminishing returns. There's actually no real advantage keeping this CPU at 50 deg celcius over keeping it at 80 deg, for instance.

I've read into the matter today - the chip is recognized as hot at ~95 deg celcius; critically hot at 105 deg. Seeing (in my case) the X201 never surpasses the former temperature, it's working as intended. 95 deg is the temperature BIOS will let it reach before throttling/ramping up the fan.
In my case, I'll probably never see any thermal improvements at 100% load, seeing it will get that high before throttling, as intended, unless I set limits. I have however seen improvements in frequencies when performing CPU-intensive tasks; lower temperatures when performing medium intensive tasks, etc.


For future reference, if someone's interested:

Idle: 38-50 deg celcius.

Docked, ~15 tabs chrome, 1080p stream on external monitor, text editor, skype, IRC and some utility programs: 55-65 deg celcius.

Half-Life 2 fully cranked, docked, 2C/4T enabled and turbo boost enabled: just shy of 70 deg celcius.

Prime95, maximum heat test: averages around 80-85: peaks at 94 deg celcius.


I'm buying a new thermal pad tomorrow, so I'll have to reapply the thermal paste again; this'll let me check up on whether another reseat of the heat sink will do anything on temps.

[RealBlackStuff]

Why do you want to keep running Prime95? Once is enough.
It's energy-waste, time-waste, doing nothing for your laptop, perhaps giving you bragging rights? Hah...

[FranzJoakim]

Why do you want to keep running Prime95? Once is enough.
It's energy-waste, time-waste, doing nothing for your laptop, perhaps giving you bragging rights? Hah...

Well, you'd have to run it at least twice to see whatever difference the reapplication of thermal paste made!
However, my obsession with P95 might be due to overclocking habits though, haha.