Overheating laptop

MediaGuy

One for the laptop nerds...

I have a Thinkpad X201 that I love. Problem is, it is running what I believe to be extremely hot. Running a temp monitoring app, even on idle, doing nothing it didn't go below 60 degrees C. Even light-ish loads weigh in at 80 degrees.

I know it is hot at the moment but it is getting so how it is actually uncomfortable to pick it up. The fan seems to going permanently too. I think my next move is to clean it down and redo the thermal paste etc.

There has only been one thermal shutdown that I am aware of.

Any advice ?

Ben84

I'd check for dust and dirt inside that might block the air flow, but if that doesn't turn up anything, I'd try repasting the heat sink. I had to repaste my thinkpad W520 last year, which was running really hot. Although I can say many positive things about the build quality of thinkpads, the paste on this one was dried out and worn out three years after it was made. That surprised me. Fortunately, it was easy to fix in the end and has run cool and with a lower fan speed ever since.

[Deleted User]

MediaGuy wrote: »

One for the laptop nerds...

I have a Thinkpad X201 that I love. Problem is, it is running what I believe to be extremely hot. Running a temp monitoring app, even on idle, doing nothing it didn't go below 60 degrees C. Even light-ish loads weigh in at 80 degrees.

I have an older Thinkpad. Those figures are ok for a Thinkpad. Have you checked in the BIOS that the Intel power management has been activated?

Fightsback

The sooner you do it the better, hot running laptops are not good for solder joints.

prost

Check out
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5273017
where one user recommends Arctic Cooling MX4 paste & advises on how to apply it. There's a huge difference between MX4 & ordinary paste in performance in a laptop. The latter is sometimes hopelessly inadequate & even if it's not the MX4 will give a better heat flow so the fan won't come on as much. MX4 is pretty much the best paste there is.

For a laptop the processor fans have to be smaller than the ones in a desktop thus the choice of paste is much more important.

When major manufacturers make laptops they can use the same standard paste that are more suited to desktops to save money.

Browntoa

agree , you need a good quality thermal paste , cheapest is NOT best

Ben84

prost wrote: »

Ben84, what paste did you use?

I used IC diamond on the CPU and GPU. It had a few claims that sold me on it. It's apparently completely non-conductive, which reassured me as there are exposed traces next to the chips which I didn't ever want to short out. It also claims to have excellent long term stability, and I like repairs that last. I'm happy with the outcome, it was easy to apply and solved the problem completely.

MediaGuy

The BIOS is all looking good. I think I am gonna need to crack 'er open and do the paste thing.

poppellerant

Changing the paste won't miraculously drop your CPU temperature by 10c, perhaps only 4-5c at the most. You would do better to remove dust from the heatsink.

Ben84

My cpu and gpu both dropped around 25 degrees with the new paste, and that's with lower fan speeds too. This has to be take in context however - the original paste was significantly broken down by the time I replaced it. IC diamond is supposed to be good, but I'm sure the majority of the reduction was due to the terrible condition of the original paste.

You may pull the heat sink off and discover the paste was ok. You'll still need to repaste it if this is the case, but it's not expensive or usually too challenging to do. It's worth a go when other options haven't worked.

bsod

Your next move should be to check the power saving settings, power saver plan is a good starting point, check what's running, and check the vents aren't blocked. Monitoring apps themselves can cause a temperature increase that wasn't there before.

The assumption that it's something to do with thermal paste is a very random diagnosis, there will be a lot of hot machines out there in summer, they don't all suddenly need new paste.