Back on my T60p; overheating issues; please help...

Alright, so I sold my W700 just in time for the W701. Between now and when I can get a W701, I'm back on my T60p. Here's a quick rundown of what I did with my T60p when I got it three years ago. Besides getting the T60p itself, I also got a T7600 CPU, and an Atheros N WiFi card, both of which I upgraded my T60p to so as to get 64-bit capability (it originally had a T2600; 32-bit Core Duo 2.16GHz CPU). Besides that, wireless N has always been important to me, so all of that worked out great.

However, I remember the last month and a half using the T60p, before I received my W700, it had already started overheating to the point where it would just shut off when it got to hot. Or did it??? I say that because the T60 (T2500 2GHz) that I gave my GF about a year and a half ago, does not ever shut down, even though it gets just as fast when playing back a Bluray or DVD movie. Yes, I'll go in and apply more silver paste, and try to clean out the dust from the fan, but I'm starting to think that it's not even necessarily a heat issue. Although when getting extra hot, I can wait for it to simply turn off. Then again, running a 1080p Bluray earlier today made my girl's T60 run super hot for a good while and to the point where you couldn't really touch it for more than a second. It never shut down, though.

One difference is that hers has a 32-bit CPU, and runs Windows 7 32-bit, while mine was upgraded to a 64-bit CPU, and I have read tons of stories linking 64-bit CPU's to running significantly hotter than their 32-bit counterparts. I tried installing Windows 7 32-bit, and while I can work just fine, a movie will bring it down. I do not seem to have to worry about the hear much at all running Windows 7 32-bit, but with my 64-bit installation, it's more of an issue.

Do you think the SSD could have anything to do with it?? It doesn't contribute to heat, that's for sure due to the nature of SSD's, but maybe for some other reason...? I really want to get to the bottom of this, and would welcome your ideas, suggestions, comments, and any other help.

Thanks very much.

 

Alrighty... here's my take on the subject, from recently owning a T60p.

The combination of a Core 2 Duo and the FireGL V5200/V5250 make them run very, very hot. My idle temp on this system was in the low 60C range... any sort of work on it(even light) made that shoot up to 70C. Anything GPU-intensive, like gaming, made it run nearly 100C... although I never saw any thermal shutdowns. I was running the T7200 in my system; I could see where running something like the T7600 might make things an issue.

The solution I ended up doing was to buy a brand new fan and attach a 1mm copper sheet to the GPU heatplate using Arctic Silver thermal adhesive. This let me apply AS5 to the GPU as well, instead of the thermal pad. While this did not reduce temperatures at idle, it reduced load temperatures by at least 10C and cooled back down to idle temps very quickly.

If you haven't read it, this thread at the ThinkPad forums was very informative in how to reduce temps on a T60/p system:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=54334

Edit: Even after my modifications I wasn't able to make my T60p cool enough to really use on my lap. I typically sat mine on a desk; this was one of the major reasons that I sold it and went for a T400.

 

The 7xxx merom processor was never a good processor due to the heat issues, and it combination with your FireGL GPU, you are basically getting a lap cooker or lap warmer (if you stayed outside in the freezing cold of New York right now).

Maybe one should consider undervolting the CPU, to make it run a little cooler.

The heat is my biggest complaint of the T60p despite the brilliant LCD it has.

 

I've got a 4-GB T61p and it runs cooler than a cucumber. It has the fastest processor made for that cpu.

Renee

 

Thank you very much for your excellent input and the thread from the thinkpads forums is a great find as well! I never knew that the Merom CPU's suffered from poor performance regarding heating issues. I also noticed that the GPU (the ATI FireGL V5200 w/ 256MB of RAM) often times gets even hotter than the T7600. My girlfriend has the ATI Radeon X1400 w/ 128MB of video RAM, and while also getting super hot, I was able to watch 3:10 to Yuma in 1080p from start to finish on her T60. lol...I was impressed that her T60 with a Yonah T2500 @ 2GHz, along with the X1400 would let me watch a 1080p without any hiccups.

At any rate, I also found an interesting article that probably applies to my T60p, at least to some extent. Check out the second to last picture of that (quite recent) story, which has some excellent suggestions as well. That's probably what my T60p looks like after I take the heat sink out to clean it.


In the interim, I've found a way to keep it from overheating by simply running Windows 7 32-bit instead of Win 7 64-bit. There are a LOT of people who claim that 64-bit runs hotter, and it certainly seems to be the case for me as well. There are some people who strongly disagree with that. I wonder what you guys think about that.

My idle temps are in the low 50's C with the fan running some of the time. When I had Win 7 x64 installed, it would be in the high 60's C. As I'm writing this, the fan is running consistently, and the temps are now in the high 50's C. (in x64, low to mid-70's C would apply). While I'm not into gaming really, I DO love to watch movies. In high quality, which means running movies in DVD and 720p Bluray with the occasional 1080p Bluray as well. THAT's when things get hot! Temp's will go into the mid to high 80's C, with 90+ C in extreme circumstances. This is when shutdowns become highly likely, especially when I am running 64-bit, any type of video will go into the mid-90's, and approaching 100C, which is 212F, the point at which water boils. lol...

720p Bluray's and DVD's used to run fine, albeit running the temps up into the high-70's to mid-80's C, so I'm going to guess that I can return to that blissful experience with my beloved T60p if I keep running Windows 7 32-bit, after I "clean house" in that baby.

Any additional thoughts on any of the above? I'd love to get some additional input before I get my vacuum cleaner and put my T60p under the knife.

 

I will admit it's kinda strange how people are talking about Win7 x64 running hotter than Win7 x32. Personally, my T400 with Win7 Pro x64 is the coolest running notebook I have ever used; currently with Net surfing, some Office work, and all of that I'm running 43C on integrated GPU. However, if you find x32's running cooler for you, go for it.

As far as your g/f's machine goes, the X1400 should do just fine for HD video. It's a dedicated GPU and even though it's older, it benchmarks around the same level as an Intel X4500... which is good enough for HD video as well.

I was meaning to edit my post with this thread I started on the Thinkpads.com forums as well... the info I got helped me immensely with my temp management on my old T60p: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=79473

Also, if you haven't cleaned your T60p out you really should. If you're comfortable with pulling off the heat sink(and if it's out of warranty), I'd give the fan a thorough cleaning and apply a newer, better-performing thermal compound. The T60p's thermal solution is at its limits of coping with its hardware, and making sure the heat sink is as clean as it can get is critical for it to maintain its temps.

 

ThanksLegendaryKA8. Well, it's done. What a difference a little spring cleaning makes. Besides putting AS5 silver paste on the T7600, I also put some on the ATI GPU. The amount of dust, ...dust balls really lol...no wonder the laptop pushed back crying for a well overdue cleaning.

I haven't been able to crash it, and I did try. I ran a 720p Bluray for 20 mins., while at the same time had iTunes open, charging my PDA, had 20 tabs open in Firefox, and I changed the power profile from Balanced to High Performance. It barely made it above 60C.

As I'm typing this, temps are in the mid to upper 40's C, and the fan runs very quietly.

I'll be going back to Windows 7 64-bit, although due to limitations of this particular system board, I won't be able to use more than 3GB's. I just want to see if it runs any hotter, which wouldn't matter much, even if it shot up by 10C. I shall report my findings as to that.

Hopefully, someone will find this thread useful if they're in a similar predicament.

Thanks for the help, guys.