X61 overheating

[mfbernstein]

This has now happened several times. My X61 is docked, and I'm doing an import in Lightroom of a sizable number of images. The fan ramps up quickly, and then, somewhere in the middle of the import, the machine suddenly drops into standby.

Is there any way of making the fans spin faster, and/or getting the CPU to throttle down during the import? It seems strange that a farely mundane task would cause the machine to effectively shut itself down due to excessive heat.

Thanks for any suggestions or ideas.

[jketzetera]

You can use Thinkpad Fan Control set to manual and have the fan run at maximum speed all the time.

If you undock your system, the temperature will also drop somewhat.

However, both suggestions are more like temporary fixes. A more permanent solution would involve making sure that the notebook fans are working and cleaning them from dust.

[mfbernstein]

Well, things haven't gotten any better. Using Thinkpad Fan Control, I can watch the temperature/fan speed, and the basic problem is that with the fan on maximum speed, doing CPU intensive stuff (e.g. a Lightroom import and simultaneous editing an image) quickly ramps the CPU temperature to 100C, whereupon the system suspends itself. Undocking the system makes no difference (well, the time needed to overheat probably goes up a tiny bit).

So the question is how to go about cleaning the fan (I have the non-WWAN model, so I think there's only one)? Is there any way that doesn't involve completely disassembling the computer (I'd be fine disassembling it too, but one of the screws seems to be stripped and I haven't the foggiest how to extract it)?

Thanks.

[Harryc]

You only need to remove the keyboard (4 screws) on an X61 to clean the fan. Make sure you hold the blades still with a pencil or something if you are using compressed air.