Tale of two T61's One hot, the other cool [ Editado ]

[Olwe]

I've got two T61's and one runs very hot (imagine a heating pad set to maximum) and the other is very cool. The only difference I can tell is that the hot one has nvida graphics and built-in bluetooth, and the cool one doesn't (just on-board Intel graphics). I do have a cooling thingy, but I'd like to keep the hot T61 in its docking station. On a hunch, I got into hot T61 and vacuumed out the fan of dust.

So is running hot an issue I need to worry about? I can take it out of its docking station and cool it with the laptop cooler if necessary. . . .

[Mornsgrans]

Vaccum cleaning does not help. The dust seats behind the ribs like a thick carpet.

Cleaning:

• detach keyboard
• block fan with a match or tooth pick
• blow compressed air from outside between the fan ribs into the heat sink
• carefully remove the dust with a vaccum cleaner on low power while blocking the fan

With TPFanControl you can check, which component is the hot one (CPU or GPU). Perhaps you'll need to remove the heat sink and renew the thermal grease on the CPU. Leave the thermal pad on the CPU and southbridge as the are if the are not damaged. (It is easier to remove the heat sink, if the computer was running for 15 minutes or longer before detaching)

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

Can you give some accurate figure about the actual temp? Ie using hwinfo32 if possible.

[Olwe]

I'm on Ubuntu 11.10 and I did get the ThinkPad Fan Control software (from Stanko) following the advice at this linkhere. I also took it off the docking station and set a laptop cooler gizmo (w/ two fans) under it. The tpfc program told me last night that got up to 70C. Now, this morning, it says I'm right around "critical" 55C. I'm suspecting the Nvidia chip is the culprit. As I said earlier, my other T61 is quite cool, but has only the Intel on-board graphics. I've ordered thermal grease and will apply. But again, what's my risk of high temperatures? Is it hyper-critical to keep these temps down? Also, is the Nvidia in fact the culprit?

[TuuS]

I use thinkpad fan control to monitor the temps (TPfancontrol.com). It will tell you the temp of both the cpu and the nVidia GPU, at idle an nVidia unit with a well functioning cooling system will run with cdp at 60-65c and gpu about 8-10 degrees cooler. You definitely don't want to overheat an nVidia chip or you'll need a new systemboard.

With the age of these units, the thermal paste tends to get dried out and crusty, then any jarring can dislodge the heatsink and cause it to crumble and lose thermal conductivity. Cleaning your CPU and GPU and replacing the thermal paste with some Arctic Silver #5 would be a good idea, and you can better clean out the fan assembly when it's removed.