X60s Heat - New Palmrest Version to Combat Hot Palms w/PICs

[underclocker]

There are many posts about warm or hot palmrests on X6x machines. While the degree of complaints seem to vary, the primary culprit is clear, the wireless adapter card. A WWAN adapter is a secondary culprit which certainly makes matters worse. A 7200 rpm hard drive or hot running 5400 rpm drive also makes matters worse. Some posts have reported that throttling the wifi adapter power helps.

I have recently had the pleasure of owning two X60s machines at one time. They were manufactured about 18 months apart, so one in 2006 and the other in 2007. What I found was that the 2007 model ran slightly cooler. I will also say that while the palmrests do get warm to very warm, it hasn't bothered me much, I still like the machines quite a bit.

I removed both palmrests and I can confirm what has been reported elsewhere, there are two versions for the X60s. The early version has only perforated tin shielding located above the wifi and WWAN adapter slots, while the later version has a considerable amount of solid copper shielding plus black tape to help dissapate heat. I took pictures of the tops and bottoms of both and the link is below. Additionally, I weighed both because I was able to feel a weight difference just by picking them up. Version 1 weighs 2.0 ounces and version 2 weighs 3.0 ounces (50% more!)

Lenovo certainly tried to retrofit a solution for complaints about the hot palmrest.

Link for X60s bezel pictures

When you factor in all the possible combinations of Intel or Atheros wifi, WWAN or no WWAN, various hard drive manufacturers and speeds (and even SSD's), plus how sensitive to heat a particular individual happens to be, it's clear why some people have warm machines and others have hot ones! For best results with hardware selection, I suppose an Intel wifi adapter, no WWAN, a version 2 bezel, and an SSD would be quite comfortable.

[dr_st]

Very interesting and useful info. Thanks!

Question - do you happen to know the situation with X61 machines? I'd imagine they will all have the improved palmrest (why would Lenovo return to an inferior design), and yet every once in a while you do get complaints about hot palmrests on X61/X61s.

[underclocker]

I've yet to own an X61 or X61s, but perhaps another member wouldn't mind posting smoe picture links.

I'd guess that the variation could be the mix of human sensitivity and hard drive/wifi adapter/WWAN variables plus usage - heavy wifi or WWAN use equates to more heat. I would also imagine that as room temperature goes up, so does palmrest heat. There just no where for that heat to go.

[Tasurinchi]

Great "detective" work! Thanks.

I don't own an X6 series yet, but I hope this will change soon, good to know about the difference in bezels!

Cheers

[tim S]

I didn't realize there were 2 versions of the X60(s) upper bezel but then there are over 12 lower bezels
for the 14.1" T42 so I'm not too surprised.
It could be that one is for the 'full powered', and generally hotter X60, while the other is for the X60S.
In any event I didn't get any heat respite until I put an X61(S) bezel on my X60S and lowered the WiFi power.
The X60/S bezel has open slats along the right end of the palmrest (over the firewire socket) which allows better cooling.

Tim S

[underclocker]

It could be that one is for the 'full powered', and generally hotter X60, while the other is for the X60S.

I pulled them both from X60s machines, manufactured over a year apart, both were 1.66GHz Core Duo with Wifi and WWAN adapters.

[force]

If you don't use WWAN, you could remove the card completely. For whatever reason, it helps with the heat, possibly due to the extra space for airflow.

I have the latter palm rest version with the copper shielding. Also, the battery power circuit sits around that area, too. You can feel it getting warm when recharging the battery.