Can I keep my computer running at 100c?

Hello, I have a t60 with 15" flex-view. My computer runs pretty fast and I use it about 10-12 hours a day for heavy browsing with Maxthon browser (usually 10 tabs open) and Microsoft Office word, excel, outlook at the same time. As many know, the thinkpads around this time run really hot (I believe it is because of a GPU problem) and the fan is just too loud and annoying and I finally just turned it off. I know my computer is "outdated" now, but I did spend about $2k to get the top of the line computer then, and I have thought about getting a new computer but really the only reason would be because of this temperature issue/fan noise. I've tried updating through TP SU and cleaning the dust out of computer (was really only a little dusty) and use Thinkpad fan control and the only way I can keep the fan off is if I adjust manual mode to not have the fan start/go to smart mode until 102 degrees celcius. I know this is much hotter than most people have their computers but really besides being a little hot to the touch, this solves the problem of the noise. Will keeping the computer at this temperature create problems (I've already backed everything up just in case)? Will I really have to get a new computer just for this?

 

Try to undervolt with throttlestop by unclewebb.
My laptop temp. is quite high as well but that's because I am running a faster T9900 cpu. With undervolting, I am hitting roughly 95C on both cores (my ambient is quite high).

Tjmax is 105C so I wouldnt worry about it.

 

The machine will eventually fail from overheating, no ifs ands or buts there.

I've never experienced those temperatures on a T60/p in normal use, and I've seen hundreds of them.

There's something *very* wrong there.

What CPU/GPU combo does your machine have?

 

Have you checked your thermal paste?

Also might help if you use a cooling station.

 

If you've turned off the fan it's guaranteed to fry the motherboard, it's just a matter of "when". I had a work T60 and when the fan died I just kept using it. I'd occasionally have to shut it down, let it cool and then re-start. I did this for about 6 months, and it finally gave up. I think I was lucky it lasted that long. If you're OK with that, then just keep using it with the fan off, but be aware it could give you the dreaded "1-beep, 2-beep" at any time.

 

Sure you can keep running at 100C, you'll fry something. The question is not if it will, it is when.

 

From my experience, a laptop can shutdown from a broken fan within 30 minutes. The season of summer has come and my T61 runs at
~105 F-110 F. My THM0 reads the highest temperature in the system (~130 F), possibly due to its unknown location on the motherboard.

 

Thank you all for your responses, I will turn the fan back on based on all your advice, it looks like I'll have to deal with the noise or buy a new computer just because of this issue. I have the intel Core 2 Duo Mobile T7200 @2000MHz and my GPU is the ATI Mobility Ratheon x1400. I believe other people have had this same issue with the GPU, but not as bad as mine. I heard Lenovo said they fixed the problem when you update to the new BIOS (2011). Even though I have used Thinkpad system update, it has not fixed the problem (or it has not downloaded the new BIOS for some reason). @v_chiip, I do not know how to check my thermal paste.

 

I believe the T60 has thermal pads instead of paste.

Check this source:
forum.thinkpads.com • T60 Replacing Fan - Thermal Grease (Pic warning)

Possible guides on the above linked site for handling heating issues.

 

I'm sure this wasn't a design flaw ( here) which easily reaches 212 F. I would like to know:

1-What's your room temperature?

2-Do you overclock your GPU or CPU?

Fans should never be shut off, even if they're subtly annoying. They're in your computer to prevent a case like this from occuring. The only time my computer ever reached 100C+ (105C) was when I overclocked my T9300 to 2.7GHz. The processors are built to shutoff once they reach 100C.

 

V_Chip is correct, T60 series utilizes thermal pads.

I have a 14" (and they generally run hotter than 15" units) with T7400 CPU and X1400 GPU and it never goes over 65C in normal use...

You can update the BIOS manually, BTW...

 

My room temperature is 72 and I do not overclock my gpu or cpu. I've tried everything in my knowledge power and have even expanded it greatly trying to fix this issue but nothing has worked. The fan is too loud/I guess I'm just sensitive to the noise, but if I don't keep the gpu/cpu fan on (turn on manual setting of tpfc), the computer will start at about 60 degrees and then work it's way up to 100c in a couple hours. I've tried restoring my computer to factory default, updated latest drivers, installing/uninstalling various programs thinking they may help, nothing has worked! I manually updated my BIOS as suggested it was possible here because I found out tpsu gave me the second most current update, not most current BIOS update for some reason. There have been some similar complaints with this fan noise, don't think as bad as my case, and there is this tpfc chip tpfc.mywo.org Worlds first intelligent ThinkPad fan controller. Super silent cpu fan operation!, but not sure if it will really help that much, and I know I wouldn't install it correctly. Any other suggestions or am I stuck buying another computer or dealing with this loud noise?

 

Sadly, I think those are your options. The newer machines are definitely a lot quieter. My X220 is extremely quiet. The T530 isn't quite as quiet, but will still be a huge improvement. There's some good emissions data here: Review Lenovo Thinkpad T520 Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

 

Letting the system run those high temperatures is an absolutely stupid decision. Grease the fan or replace it entirely. It's not like a FlexView is valuable or anything, is it?

 

My T60p idles around 60C both cores (T7200), if I fire up a gameboy advance emulator it jumps to around 85C. Normal usage would be aroud 70-75max. It's only forced itself off twice from overheating

 

Well, I finally did a simple solution although the solution definitely has some drawbacks. I changed the power scheme in Power Manager to a scheme that has a "maximum cpu performance" of "low" (before the scheme was set power source optimized and "highest" level cpu performance because laptop is plugged in 99% of time). This keeps the computer at about 70 degrees all day, but the computer and webpages run/load sooo slow, especially after a couple hours, so this is not an ideal solution. Gonna give "adaptive" cpu performance a try now.

 

You were running a High Performance plan with no fan?

 

I only tweaked tpfc to turn off the fan for the last couple days because I just did not want to deal with the fan noise anymore, turned it back on after realizing how bad an idea it was. I was on the power source optimized power scheme for years without this issue though and my computer usage habits were the same then (10-12 hours a day of heavy browsing with Maxthon browser (usually 10 tabs open) and Microsoft Office word, excel, outlook at the same time).

 

Balanced is a good profile for most people. With the new CPUs, Adaptive is more effective.

 

"Adaptive" makes my computer run slow, really everything was perfect (except the fan noise) on power source optimized/max performance. I'm not a computer expert, but would anyone recommend underclocking vs what I am currently doing with the power scheme.

 

I'd recommend dealing with the noise and saving you the trouble from frying your computer.

 

Okay, v_chip, thanks for the advice.

 

No problem.

A cooler would come handy as well so that your internal fan doesn't have to work so hard.

 

Okay, I just bought one on Amazon but seems they are only good for 5-10 degrees, my issue seems to be bigger than that, but any little bit helps. I actually very slightly prefer the slower performance (by using low cpu performance under tp power manager) for less fan noise, but maybe that will change in a few days, it sucks having to make that tradeoff so just might upgrade computer although it'd only be because of this temp issue. But again, thanks all for your help, might've left fan off longer if it weren't for the good advice found here.

 

I would highly suggest, if possible, to put a new thermal paste (thermal pads are inferior for cooling) and make sure the fan is running properly. If it's a Core2Duo CPU, they should run a bit cooler than newer Intel Core i3/i5/i7 CPUs and overall these older laptops should run more quiet.

Ideally, you'd want a nice thin layer of a decent thermal paste and a good contact between the CPU and the a chunk of metal above it so that heat transfers as good as possible. For example, Arctic Cooling or Arctic Silver but there are many others that are good too (I used these two). If the heat isn't dissipated from the CPU properly, a laptop cooler won't help much.

 

Another thing to try - a fan from a nVidia-based T61 or T61p. These have much better cooling properties than the original ones, and are a "plug & play" replacement.

I'm not a big fan of laptop coolers or adding shims to the heatsink.

All of that being said, I still believe that you have an underlying software issue somewhere.

Good luck.

 

Thanks so much, I'm fairly sure I would not be able to apply a new thermal paste or replace the fan myself so I would have to take my computer somewhere for that. ajkula66, after even more research, it is something reported on other t60s as well (apologize if I'm not supposed to have links here forum.thinkpads.com • NEW T60 Temperature Thread - Especially high GPU Temperature)
That's a 10 page thread of people with this issue and there are other threads on NR and other sites complaining about it too. Do you think it would be okay I kept my computer running in the 80s and up to 90c and fan comes on when reaching 92c? Or is that a big risk too?

 

Well it's not ideal, but I have an old laptop (Dell XPS) running like that (GPU 80+ C) since there's no way to lower the temperature further even after a bit of modding.

That said, is it the GPU or CPU that is overheating? I re-read the thread, but I am still not quite sure. I assumed you were talking about the CPU but the thread you linked refers to the GPU.

 

I skipped the T60, however I do still own a T61 that gets daily use... Couple of suggestions for you:

- If you want a system very close to your T60 without the temp issues, check out used T61s on eBay, they are not very expensive, you can get what was a loaded machine for just a few hundred dollars in good shape.

- I also wanted to state that my T61 got louder as it was heading towards a fan failure, I found a GENUINE (Make sure it's an actual Lenovo Part") Fan and Heatsink on ebay, it came with thermal paste, and put it in... It takes a few minutes, and you will want to make sure you pay attention to detail, but my T61 runs very quiet now even when the fan runs under load.

Nate

 

When was this machine made? In other words, how long has it been used?

 

The youngest T60 I've ever seen will be five by the end of the year...

 

Putting out to pasture comes to mind then. Or a .357 Magnum.

 

If my 701C hears you, you might just get hit with the object that is your user name... ...never underestimate the power of a ThinkPad...

 

Yea, I know. But when they start running loud and hot, it isn't a good sign.

 

unreal25, it is both the cpu and gpu on my computer that run hot according to tpfc, but I believe the problem to be gpu related, at least that's what the consensus I am seeing in researching issues with the t60 temp/fan noise.

Thanks for the good advice everyone, I don't think I would trust myself to 100% correctly replace the fan or apply the thermal paste correctly, anyone out there willing to let me pay them to do it for me (even better if you live somewhere near So Cal)? It was top of the line in 2007, it just may be time for a new computer, but really performance is still good/even great when "power source optimized" is selected as power scheme, so really it's just this temp/fan noise issue, so if I bought a new computer it kind of feels like buying a new car just because the air conditioner in my current car is broken.

 

I'd do it for free or maybe a cold beverage but unfortunately I live in NY state! .

 

Study the HMM a bit...

http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/42t7844_04.pdf

It's a lot easier than it might seem at first, even if you've never ever done it before. There's also a lot of good advice on this topic to be found on TPF.

Good luck.

 

No really, it's likely I'd mess it up and don't want to risk it. I took out the screws and cleaned it with compressed air and even messed that up a little (almost cracked the case as I was removing it and not sure I put the same size screw back in each place it was before).

There seem to be some good deals on the t520 now that the t530 came out, does anyone know if they'll still be selling t520's in a few months or does Lenovo usually phase them out the last model by then?

 

One last thing I'll suggest...join the TPF and see whether someone in your area is willing to swap the fan for you...

Good luck.

 

I agree, go to the Thinkpad Forum ( here) and consider asking for more advice there. Sometimes, if you browse their subforum "Marketplace" ( here), you may find rare accessories, rare parts, or an entire computer for sale.

 

Okay, thank you, started reading through their forum and talked to a customer rep at Lenovo. I have a feeling he may be telling me this just to buy but he says the t520 will no longer be available on their website after this week. Also, it was disappointing to read forum posts on that forum that discuss how the new thinkpads aren't built the way my t60 was (makes sense based on price) so will have to take that into account in my decision too.

 

I was also told by a rep that the x220 will not be available for long... I believe that Lenovo tends to send all of their extra stock to their channel partners soon after release of a new system... I went ahead and ordered my x220, wanted to get my full 4 year on site warranty which i don't believe you can get from another vendor. I would not have ordered a new system yet, purely driven by the fact that I want the old keyboard... I have to wonder how many _20 systems they are selling to people like me right now that don't want the new keyboard