Blow out your heatsink fan once in a while

[vinuneuro]

When I first got my T60 4-5 weeks ago, I blew out the fan with compressed air while replacing the keyboard before using it. Idle temp was 46-47C then. Over a month has passed now with the laptop being on nearly 24/7 and idle temps have risen to 54-57C. CPU temperature in this laptop usually a couple degrees higher than the GPU. Looks like it's time to take out the compressed air again.

[Harryc]

You won't accumulate enough dust in the fan cavity to raise the CPU temp by 10 degrees in a month unless you live in a dust bowl. Something else is going on there. Either the fan has slowed down, the heatsink needs re-installation/reseating with a quality thermal paste, or you have one or more background processes using CPU resources. Start with task manager and see what is taking up CPU resources.

[vinuneuro]

Actually, it looks like what I wrote in the first post is inaccurate. I just checked it again now after being away a while and it's 50-51C for both cpu and gpu. Is a 4* jump too high as well? This is my first month with it so I'm not sure how quickly these accumulate dust.

[Harryc]

Once a year is a reasonable cleanup time period.

[lmittell]

Careful! A blast of high velocity air can overspeed the fan if it isn't restrained, ruining it. Please don't ask how I know that.

Remove the palmrest and the keyboard, then insert the point of a pencil or other thin object between the fan blades to immobilize it while you blast away.

Larry

[Harryc]

Good point Larry, I always immobilize the fan blades before using canned air in the vicinity.

[vinuneuro]

I didn't hold the fan still while doing, hope it's ok. I can't imagine compressed air creating it enough force to spin it faster than 3.8-4k rpm?

[Harryc]

Compressed air will absolutely spin the fan faster than designed specs. You can hear it ...
It's very easy to destroy a fan this way. It's a simple thing to hold the blades still, so just do it.