Hot laptop while gaming

I finally installed a game on my t61p... World of warcraft! Yes, it's not the best game to push the limits of my video card, but it's all i had access to at the moment.

Anyway, i was playing for about an hour, and as i was playing i noticed the left side of the computer was becoming sorta hot. i don't know how hot exactly, but it was way warmer than the right side. i assume the left side of the laptop is where the gpu is.

i (think) am running the v169.09 (NVIDIA, "CRYSIS", 2007-11-12) drivers from laptopvideo2go. i say i think because i do not have my laptop infront of me to check, but i'm almost positive these are the drivers i currently have installed.

is it possibly the drivers i am running that is causing the left side of my laptop to become hot? anyone else ever use these drivers on a t61p?

thanks

 

It's normal that many laptops will become quite warm during heavy gaming, this is why many gamers bought a notebook cooler to help the cooling.

Some GPU drivers will make the GPU run warmer than others, you will have to test it yourself. For me, 169.28 ran few degrees cooler than 17X.XX. But I think 17X.XX's 3D performance is better than 169.XX. Since I don't play games anymore, I stayed with 169.28 for the lower temp.

You can also try undervolting your CPU, this will keep your CPU cooler, which will help to reduce the overall temperature of the laptop. Most people are able to lower their CPU temp by at least 10c, which is quite good imo.

Check out the Undervolting Guide by flipfire.

 

Download HWMonitor and open it, leave it open and play WoW for about 20 minutes.
Close WoW and check the temperatures.

 

i'll do this once i get home.

 

also make sure your vents are clean of dust. Dust creates heat and traps it in the laptop

 

I'm almost positive his thinkpad is brand new so dust isn't the problem.

At first I thought that heat wasn't a problem, but now I realize it does need some management. I haven't seen any locking up or any performance slowdown but it gets warmer than I like.

Running different video drivers may have caused some increase temperatures but this is only my observation and I haven't tested this.

For now, I just have a small fan blowing across the left side of the keyboard and it does help with the temperatures a bit. The bottom of the laptop gets very warm as well. A cooling pad would help.

 

yea, my laptop is brand new and i was also thinking about blowing a fan on the left side of it. i think i'm too lazy to test different drivers and record the temperatures though.

 

WOW makes the left side of my T61p uncomfortably hot as well. I would actually like the fan to kick up higher to keep the thing cooler. I'd trade a bit of fan noise for not roasting my left leg.

 

Or roasting something else

 

well yesterday i was monitoring the temps while playing WoW...
the highest the gpu got was 81 C. i think it was around ~55 C idle. however, when i quit the game, i received a BSOD stating my video memory manager has encountered an unexpected error. i'm assuming this is due to the video drivers i have installed (169.09 from laptopvideo2go). i've did a little bit of research on this BSOD and WoW and they appear to be related. there is a thread on worldofwarcraft.com where a lot of people seem to be getting the same error with their nvidia cards and WoW.

 

You would assume that a fix for this would have been found already, considering the amount of users for that game.

At least now you know the heat is from the driver+game combination and should not occur with other games.

 

is 81 C under load and ~53-55 C idle normal?

 

Yes.

......

 

alright, atleast it's not overheating. i just hope the BSODs are not frequent. i think i can handle a few, but if they happen everyday i guess i'm going to need to get new drivers.

 

Too many BSODs are not that great. Why not try another driver, like 169.28 or 174.74, both should be pretty stable.

 

maybe i'll give it a shot once i get home. i didn't even look at the 17x.xx drivers. i just went to laptopvideo2go and downloaded the newest 16x.xx after clicking the Vista 32-bit link

 

You need to go to the forum for the actual latest drivers, they don't update their non-forum site very often.

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/

17X.XX series

16X.XX series

FAQ

Also, try to read users' posts, you can see which ones are more popular and which ones have more problems.

 

By the way, latest version does not always mean it's the best or most stable.

 

yeah, i've been reading them. lots of people say good things about 174.74. i think i might try them later tonight.

 

If you use 174.74, then use the OEM infs that come with it rather than the modded inf, you don't need to download the modded inf. You will see it comes with a separate zip folder of OEM infs. Extract them to another folder, then find the matching one for your Lenovo ThinkPad. Also, make sure that's the only inf file in the installation directory, delete the default one.

The easiest way to find the matching one, download the driver from Lenovo for your laptop, extract it, then see which nvxx.inf does it use. Then go back to the other OEM infs folder and find he exact file name.

 

BSODs still happen even with the 174.74 drivers. ugh.

 

hmm... that sucks man. :/

Then I'd try 174.93 or something in the 175.XX series.

 

i'm thinking it has something to do with WoW+nvidia.

 

Are you using a disc? Have you tried disabling DLA (R-click optical drive)?

I played Oblivion and found out DLA was the source of my BSODs.