T430 Quad upgrade observations

[astral]

I recently did the final big upgrade I had planned for my T430 - installing an i7-3840QM. This was an upgrade I had been somewhat hesitant about, mainly because I was worried about thermals and noise. The fan in my T430 was already not super quiet, but it didn't spin up to high RPM very often with the i5-3320M so it didn't bother me much.
I can say after upgrading that I've been pleasantly surprised by the outcome.

I got the CPU in along with the dedicated GPU heatsink upgrade, paired with an iGPU board of course. I'd like to upgrade to PTM 7950 at some point but for now I just used Arctic MX-6.
I also applied a bit of thermal paste BETWEEN the two thinly separated heatpipes to encourage more thermal transfer to the unused GPU heat pipe.

I tested thermals under load with Prime95 running before and after and I'm very happy to say that at most it runs 5 degrees hotter under full load. I ran these tests about a month ago so I don't remember the specifics but it was between 80-85C under full load, I think.
Fan noise has gone up a bit, but isn't bad at all.
Battery life likely took a hit but it wasn't any good to begin with. I have a depleted 9 cell installed at about 59% health. I think I get around 2 hours out of it. If I ever feel like spending the money, I'll get it rebuilt. Not going to chance it will a garbage generic.

That pretty much concludes my T430 upgrades. As it stands now:
i7-3840QM, 16GB RAM, LG 1080p IPS LCD, NMB 7-row keyboard, 1TB SSD, dual boot Windows 7 and Kubuntu.
Really the only possible future upgrades are a newer WiFi card and a rebuilt battery. I can't think of much else I'd like to do, and I'm not planning on anything for a while.
Of course, none of these upgrades make any sense when you can just get a T480 for under $200, but eh, I don't really care. Was fun and makes a laptop in the end that's better in many ways than modern stuff.

I'm just happy the quad upgrade turned out well. People really talk up the thermal issues these can have, so I was expecting worse.

[marlboro95]

This post really helped me understand what was wrong with my T430 while I was upgrading to a 3840QM cpu. My stock iGPU delta cooler can handle the throttling CPU although quite high in temps compared to yours. Thanks for the posting.

[babysheegoth]

I recently did the final big upgrade I had planned for my T430 - installing an i7-3840QM. This was an upgrade I had been somewhat hesitant about, mainly because I was worried about thermals and noise. The fan in my T430 was already not super quiet, but it didn't spin up to high RPM very often with the i5-3320M so it didn't bother me much.
I can say after upgrading that I've been pleasantly surprised by the outcome.

I got the CPU in along with the dedicated GPU heatsink upgrade, paired with an iGPU board of course. I'd like to upgrade to PTM 7950 at some point but for now I just used Arctic MX-6.
I also applied a bit of thermal paste BETWEEN the two thinly separated heatpipes to encourage more thermal transfer to the unused GPU heat pipe.

I tested thermals under load with Prime95 running before and after and I'm very happy to say that at most it runs 5 degrees hotter under full load. I ran these tests about a month ago so I don't remember the specifics but it was between 80-85C under full load, I think.
Fan noise has gone up a bit, but isn't bad at all.
Battery life likely took a hit but it wasn't any good to begin with. I have a depleted 9 cell installed at about 59% health. I think I get around 2 hours out of it. If I ever feel like spending the money, I'll get it rebuilt. Not going to chance it will a garbage generic.

That pretty much concludes my T430 upgrades. As it stands now:
i7-3840QM, 16GB RAM, LG 1080p IPS LCD, NMB 7-row keyboard, 1TB SSD, dual boot Windows 7 and Kubuntu.
Really the only possible future upgrades are a newer WiFi card and a rebuilt battery. I can't think of much else I'd like to do, and I'm not planning on anything for a while.
Of course, none of these upgrades make any sense when you can just get a T480 for under $200, but eh, I don't really care. Was fun and makes a laptop in the end that's better in many ways than modern stuff.

I'm just happy the quad upgrade turned out well. People really talk up the thermal issues these can have, so I was expecting worse.

How's the progress? Holding up still?

I accidentally bought 3840QM without doing any precautionary measures and this happened.
https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.p ... 51#p878551

However, am interested about attempting something like this mod in the future.

[astral]

Still holding up great, it's my favorite laptop. Let me get some updated under-load temps.
The key is the dGPU cooler on an iGPU motherboard. You cannot use a dGPU motherboard for this, it will run too hot, and you need the extra performance of the dGPU heatsink. Also try adding a bit of thermal paste in between the CPU heatpipe and the GPU heatpipe to allow more transfer onto it.

[astral]

Hmm well forget what I said.
Core 1: 80-90 range
Core 2 = 88-95 range
Core 3 = 100 range
Core 4 = 90-100 range

not great.... I don't remember it struggling this much when I had first installed the chip.

[RealBlackStuff]

Time for some PMT7950 thermal pads...

[marlboro95]

Hmm well forget what I said.
Core 1: 80-90 range
Core 2 = 88-95 range
Core 3 = 100 range
Core 4 = 90-100 range

not great.... I don't remember it struggling this much when I had first installed the chip.

I think I know what is happening here. I had this problem too, and when I inspected my delta fan heat sink, it showed that the contact was slightly bent. The irregular contact to the CPU caused some cores to be hotter than the others. Take a look at your heat sink where it contacts the CPU and also the screw mounting area and check if all 4 legs are in parallel.

After I straightened my heat sink plate and reinstalled it, all cores were in 5 degree C difference between each other.(and also the overall temperature dropped like 5~10C)

[astral]

I'm sure the heatsink is mounted correctly because temps were fine when I first did the mod - something's happened since. I'm going to take it apart soon to inspect, but I'm procrastinating because it's a pain to take apart because of the 7 row keyboard mod...

[marlboro95]

Mine was ok at first, too.
Then day after day the temps for full cpu load rised. So I inspected and it seems that the heatsink screws were overly tightened or something and caused the flex to the heatsink plate.
Just my 2 cents.
Hope you solve your issue.