T61 Chronic overheating issue

[joem4h]

I have had my T61 for almost 5 years now, and have recently experienced servere overheating issues. I can startup and use the laptop for normal use, but, the CPU has identified the fact that it is getting too hot (my logging programs have identified as hot as 93C), and throttles it's self down, or puts the laptop to sleep.

I was given this laptop as part of my finacial aid from my college, and my "free" maintence on it included a complete replacement of the "system board", which I'm assuming means pretty much all of the major components (CPU, GPU, Mobo, etc.).

Have there been any known overheating problems with T61's?

While in college I didn't put much effort in fixing the problems with this machine my self, since all i had to do to claim the warranty was walk down the street, so I am not too familar with any problems or self maintenance on it.

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

you may need to clean the fan and heat exhaust vent, as they maybe clogged with dusts.

[TuuS]

The most common problem besides dirt/dust build up, is on systems that are carried/moved a lot the thermal paste can become dislodged and lead to overheading. This paste is applied to the gpu and cpu chips and helps transfer heat from the chips to the heatsink fan assembly. After years of use, it gets hard and crusty, which in itself isn't a problem, but when your laptop gets bumped and jarred, the heatsink can move causing the dried up paste to crumble and lose heat conduction. Removing the heatsink, cleaning out the dust and replacing the paste with arctic Silver #5 thermal paste will usually fix this. If you aren't inclined to want to learn how to do this, then go to one of your computer science teachers and ask to be referred to a student who is capable to perform the repairs. I'd say $50 is a fair price to offer a student to perform the service. You'd be saving a good bit of money and helping the student out too, after all, geeks need to eat, right?  

Good Luck

ps. If you want to perform the work yourself, you can watch it being done in lenovo training videos.

pps. This is in addition to the advice from my good friend lead_org. I just added some more detail, but the basic idea is the same.

[Mornsgrans]

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lead_org schrieb:
you may need to clean the fan and heat exhaust vent, as they maybe clogged with dusts.

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How to proceed?

• Remove keyboard (and keyboard bezel if necessary)
  
• block fan propeller with a match or tooth pick
• blow compressed air from outside through the ribs into the computer
• carefully clean the still blocked fan with a vacuum cleaner

Please do not block the fan by pressing the finger on it - you will damage it

[rodhorton]

Try this, it worked for me. 

Install TPFanControl, this is a free temerature control program, it is very efficent, increases the speed of the cooling fan as needed when the temperature sensors indicate a rise in temprerature of CPU and GPU etc.

This program indicated to me that the processors were running too hot, especially as the computer was freezing when the temperature of the GPU increased to 94 degrees.

Solution:

I did not want to dismantle the laptop, a Lenovo T61, so I thought that a shortcut would be to blow the build up of dust awy through the vents in the casing of the laptop. 

I blew through the vents, yes mouth up to them, (after all it it compressed air) and blew, and blew and a cloud of dust came out of the laptop when I blew into the one on the left hand side of the laptop, near the screen. 

Result:

Monitored the temperature on TPFanControl and observed that the temperature on average was running 20 degrees lower on average than before. May be crude but it worked and that is good enough for me.

Rod Horton.