Since purchase my T61p 6459-CTO has run at about 50 C under normal load, measured by TPFanControl. A few weeks ago I noticed my idle temperature was at 62 C. In hunting around I discovered that my power scheme (Energy Star) had been lost and the selection window in the applet was blank. I selected Energy Star, clicked apply, and within minutes the temperature was back down to 50.
This morning I was back at 62. When I double clicked on the green tray icon, the applet window was blank again, but I was unable to select a scheme because none were there, I pressed the blue ThinkVantage Button and tried to get to Power Management from the productivity center. I got a message saying "You are not authorized to display the panel for selecting a power scheme". Yikes!
Reinstalling Power Management didn't help, so I Googled the error message, and amazingly enough, I was not alone. Another ThinkPad user, with a T60 had the same problem. If you open your registry and go to HotKey_Current_User\Control Panel\PowerPolicies there is a list of power schemes. Evidently, when the list grows too long, the applet fail. Deleting the majority of the schemes solves the problem. See
http://chris.brandlehner.at/Brandlehner/cab_blog.nsf/d6plinks/CBRR-6YWBNV for a more detailed explanation.
But...my problem isn't completely fixed. I have the Max Performance, Max Battery Life, Presentation, Video Playback and Power Source Optimized schemes, but I've lost Energy Star. Frankly, I don't know what to do next.
T520 4239-CTO
T61/p 6459-CTO (Gone but not forgotten)
A31/p XP Pro 1 gig memory
A30/p XP Pro 1 gig memory
TP600 Win 2K 288 mb memory
701C Win 98 Don't ask
