Is my thinkpad burned out?

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kulivontot · #1 Post by **kulivontot** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 9:53 pm

I've been having these problems lately where my thinkpad overheats and refuses to boot into windows after restarting, but when I give it time to "cool off" it will boot fine. I am merely assuming that this problem was due to heat, and I have no idea which component it can be attributed to. However, today, I tried booting into OS X while it was overheated and left it to run for approximately an hour or so and came back to a smell of burning plastic. The bottom of the laptop felt extremely hot so I immediately turned it off and let it cool off. After rebooting into Vista I ran the thinkpad fan control utility to check the temperature readings. With the fan on full blast, I noticed the following temperatures.

CPU 61°C (0x78)
APS 41°C (0x79)
PCM 43°C (0x7a)
GPU 73°C (0x7b)
BUS 47°C (0xc0)
PCI 55°C (0xc1)
PWR 57°C (0xc2)

These seem extremely high for almost all the components, especially when just idling in windows. I don't think it used to get this hot in the past. However, windows seems to be running fine, it's just an issue whenever I am booting up. Should I just send this back to lenovo while I'm still under warranty? Are these indeed really high temperatures? Anyone else had problems like this?

stephenaron · #2 Post by **stephenaron** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 11:41 am

When you say it refuses to boot, did it freeze up beforehand? And when you try to reboot, do you notice if it gets stuck at a VERY DIM Windows splash screen? So dim almost hard to see.

kulivontot · #3 Post by **kulivontot** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 7:11 pm

Yes, this is exactly the behavior I get. Both in XP and in Vista, the Windows splash screen is very dimly visible. The problem doesn't show up as long as windows is currently running, so if I always use standby and keep the machine on all the time it runs fine.

stephenaron · #4 Post by **stephenaron** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 8:40 pm

When i take my laptop out of the house and run on battery power, i often run gotomypc. I leave the laptop running sometimes and walk away for 30 min. When i come back, its frozen with gotomypc on the screen. I then hold down the power button to power down...then power it back up, and when it does, its stuck on a dim windows screen. We need to find the answer. Model # ? 2007-84U T60p. IBM help at all? I am running 2 gb of ram (purchased from Lenovo)

christopher_wolf · #5 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 8:43 pm

stephenaron wrote:When i take my laptop out of the house and run on battery power, i often run gotomypc. I leave the laptop running sometimes and walk away for 30 min. When i come back, its frozen with gotomypc on the screen. I then hold down the power button to power down...then power it back up, and when it does, its stuck on a dim windows screen. We need to find the answer. Model # ? 2007-84U T60p. IBM help at all? I am running 2 gb of ram (purchased from Lenovo)

Have you contacted IBM/Lenovo support about the the problem with GoToMyPC?

stephenaron · #6 Post by **stephenaron** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 8:49 pm

I have contaced them, but they didnt think that was the problem. Software hasnt frozen any other machine. More importantly though, is that after i hard power off the machine....when i turn it back on....gotomypc oboivusly isnt runniung yet, so it shouldnt cause windows to freeze at a dim splash. Thgouhts? One other note...is that i am usually using the built in verizon wireless when this occurs.

christopher_wolf · #7 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 9:14 pm

I am inclined to think it is some sort of a hardware problem, in that case. Unless GTMPC somehow sets some sort of flag for it later that activates upon boot, although I don't think that is what is happening (akin to a crash reporting mechanism).

kulivontot · #8 Post by **kulivontot** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 10:37 pm

stephen,
I don't have verizon, don't use gotomypc, or have an ultrabay battery. I have read up on this issue on a number of different sites, and some people seem to think it is due to the bios not updating the NVRAM properly when certain hardware is changed. Some people reported this problem when inserting a new USB device and trying to boot up while it's still plugged in. Others have different symptoms for this problem. I am convinced it is a hardware based issue though, as I've experienced it when running vista, XP, and OS X. The only solution I've found has been to turn off the machine and leave it be for half an hour or so, which leads me to believe that it is heat related.

At the moment my machine is working fine, but the battery life is greatly decreased and I believe the 3d performance has suffered as well, so something is definitely wrong here. I will probably send in my machine over thanksgiving or christmas because I need it for school right now. I'm also going to keep the fan on full blast using TPFanControl to prevent further damage. If anyone else has any suggestions let me know.

christopher_wolf · #9 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 10:43 pm

Kulivontot, would you mind running TP FCU for awhile, only to look at the temperatures, and then posting the the logs or the higher temperatures? Especially if the GPU has a higher temperature than the CPU and the PWR temperatre is aroudn 51°-52° or if there are any peaks in the usage/temperatures?

kulivontot · #10 Post by **kulivontot** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 12:40 am

Running with the fan on full speed I now get the following numbers when idling... I think these are still pretty high temperatures for full fan speed and idle use.

CPU 51°C (0x78)
APS 41°C (0x79)
PCM 37°C (0x7a)
GPU 67°C (0x7b)
BAT 50°C (0x7c)
BAT 33°C (0x7e)
BUS 42°C (0xc0)
PCI 50°C (0xc1)
PWR 49°C (0xc2)