t43p... one hot laptop

[bencho]

Hi all,

I got a free t43p from school as a scholarship award. Hell thats an awsome deal... saves me a few grand for a pretty good laptop... One problem tho, its very very hot. I dont think this is possible but lately it has been blue screening with "bad pool header"... right after the entire laptop is on fire. Is there any good way to solve this heating problem? Friends say that its a rampart problem with all the t4x's... Would anyone recommend a laptop cooler? if so which one is best?

thanks

benCho--

[Bgradid]

Any way you could tell us what temperature's its running at idle / full using a utility like centrino hardware control?

Personally, my t42p is a very cool laptop most of the time

[bencho]

I just used speedfan 4.28...

idle is 45 degrees for HDD and CPU...
when i play war3 or solidwork or something stressful, it shoots up to like 65 degrees on both..

[mapleH]

I just used speedfan 4.28...

idle is 45 degrees for HDD and CPU...
when i play war3 or solidwork or something stressful, it shoots up to like 65 degrees on both..

At this temperature I feel a little hot,but not too hot

[bencho]

played war 3 for like 1.5 hours.... speed fan registers HDD as 50 and CPU as 94..... celsius.... WTF??

[Jesper Juul]

My cpu temp. can also reach over 90C, especially when I do some heavy picture/RAW converting, that hasn't been a problem yet, though I was a little worried the first couple of times.

[sbddude]

You can use utilities to slow down the CPU when it's not being used. That helps keep the temperature down quite a bit. Check the stickes for more info.

[StarTraveller]

My cpu temp. can also reach over 90C, especially when I do some heavy picture/RAW converting, that hasn't been a problem yet, though I was a little worried the first couple of times.

Yup, I've recorded temperatures in that range as well.

My solution was to install Notebook Hardware Control and undervoltage the CPU. In my case the CPU is able to run stable and error-free at 20-30 % less voltage and that has directly translated into temperatures dropping 20-30 %.

It seems that some people have also experienced drastic improvements simply by replacing whatever thermal interface material (TIM) Lenovo used with a proper application of Arctic Silver 5 or other high performance TIM. I've seen two people report 5-6C drops at idle load and that's almost too good to believe (here's the thread for reference).

[Ryan T.]

for what it's worth, my T42 is not what I'd consider a "hot laptop" at all, although when plugged in it can get a little toastier.

[bencho]

yea i actually did concider opening the thing up and doing that... but im not too confident about tinkering with laptops in general... but perhaps when i have some more free time and such i'll do that

[christopher_wolf]

I have yet to get over 80 degrees on my T43, which is pretty hot; I have reached 70 degrees easily.

But...The HDD is going up to 50? If I recall correctly, there is a temperature at which the system will warn you, with NHC or the like anyway, that the HDD is getting too hot. I have approached 44 degrees, but that was doing a virus scan + defrag + adware scan at the same time (the virus scan was going on in the background without my knowledge, the only way I noticed was that NHC reported the HDD temp higher and higher and the disk activity light was on way more than I would have expected.)

[Phantom Gremlin]

I'd be concerned about HDD temp of 50.

Right now I've been running Prime95 for hours on my T42. CPU temp is 82 but HDD temp is only 35. That's good thermal isolation.

[bencho]

so yea....

my cpu is constantly reaching upwards of 80C
and my HDD is about 48C...

do i have any other options besides opening and applying Arctic Silver...

[gent911]

my cpu is constantly reaching upwards of 80C
and my HDD is about 48C...

do i have any other options besides opening and applying Arctic Silver...

It seems to me, you are driving your TP at "maximum perforamnce" settings, aren't you? Try 'dynamic switching' or whatever it is called, it should help you a lot, and have a look at CHC (Centrino Hardware Control).
PS: My CPU temp never crosses 51C, but you don't have to listen to me, I have made some modifications to my TP.

[Navck]

Strange, my harddrive never goes over 45C, my CPU might spike to 68C on very extended gaming. However, this is on a standard T43 with a X300.

[davidspalding]

It seems to me, you are driving your TP at "maximum perforamnce" settings, aren't you? Try 'dynamic switching' or whatever it is called, it should help you a lot, and have a look at CHC (Centrino Hardware Control).
PS: My CPU temp never crosses 51C, but you don't have to listen to me, I have made some modifications to my TP.

Adaptive? I have my own versions of the Power Manager schemes, and I will sometimes use one called "Quiet" which maximizes lower fan speed, and another called "Adaptive," which runs the CPU in Adaptive mode for battery and AC operation. When I'm not doing heavy multimedia editing, it suffices for my needs (e.g. right now just using Firefox and Outlook), and keeps temps down. "Power Source Optimized" is overkill IMHO for some activities, if you're plugged in. (Yes, I'm excluding games in my suppositions.)

I can tell from the audible fan speed, and I run TPFANCTRL in the system tray.