T4x "upgrade" fan in R50 results

[t140568]

Made curious by this post: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=77356, I purchased the "upgrade" fan for a T4x (26R7860) and decided to test it in my R50. Physically, the T4x fan is about half the height of the R50 fan, has 2 heat pipes, and generally more copper. I tried to be as accurate as possible, so sorry if it seems lengthy.

What I'm working with:
R50 (1830-x5x): 2.0ghz Dothan, ATI 7500 chip, 1.5GB Ram, Atheros 5008 Wireless N, 120GB 5400 RPM WD HD, and the stock 13R2810 fan. I'm running Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackelope.
Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound (Which, BTW, is WONDERFUL!... just sayin')

I took readings from all the all applicable sensors from the Gnome Applet Computer Temperature Monitor 0.9.6.1. Each time the R50 was booted on my Mini-Dock. Terminal was then run to note fan speed. Then, the R50 was run for a few minutes to achieve idle temps. After Firefox ran a Youtube video twice I noted the "post-load temps".

Idle temps (all temps in deg C)
CPU
R50 Fan: 44
T4x Fan: 45

Mini-PCI
R50 Fan: 49
T4x Fan: 50

HDD
R50 Fan: 32
T4x Fan: 33

GPU
R50 Fan: 54
T4x Fan: 54
-------------------------------
Post-load temps:
CPU
R50 Fan: 68
T4x Fan: 65

Mini-PCI
R50 Fan: 50
T4x Fan: 52

HDD
R50 Fan: 34
T4x Fan: 35

GPU
R50 Fan: 58
T4x Fan: 60
-------------------------------
Fan speeds for the R50 fan ranged between 3302 and 3354.
Fan speeds for the T4x fan ranged between 3313 and 3322.
-------------------------------

Personally, I think I'll stick with the R50 fan. With the only gain being 3 deg C on the processor and other areas of the Thinkpad heating up nearly as much, it makes sense to stick with what was designed for the machine.

And... it's getting late, so I hope that all makes sense.

[underclocker]

Very nice testing. A couple of lookups shows that you have an R50 with an ATI 7500 GPU and a 14" LCD. You bought the T4x short fan.

The results are as expected. The R5x fan is slightly bigger and designed for a thicker case, so the cooling is slightly better.

It would also be interesting to see how the long T4x and R5x fans do.

(Of course, those temps are pretty good already.)