Light gaming on Thinkpad T430

Before I get started I realize Thinkpads are not meant for gaming and I know that I may very well be expecting too much.

I recently installed Grand Theft Auto IV and Skyrim on my T430 and it actually runs them fairly well on lower settings. My problem is that the laptop overheats very quickly. Within 5 minutes of starting the game up, my cpu temps jump up to 80+. I have thinkpad fan control installed and it seems like once the temps reach about 85, it glitches out the turns the fan down to the default, which just makes the temps go higher. Is there any way I can bring temps down and make it so the fan stays on it's highest setting while gaming to try and keep things cool?

Also on a slightly related note, do any of you use cooling pads? Which one would you recommend?

 

You can use TPFC to set the fan speed on high all the time (while you game). Put your headphones on, though.

 

Ya I guess I never thought to use Manual mode. Thanks!

On an unrelated note, my power manager refuses to come up. When I click on the icon, nothing happens. Any idea why?

 

Those Lenovo programs can be flaky. (Affected by gaming heat?)

Try this: uninstall both Power Manager and Power Management Driver, restart Windows, and run Lenovo System Update to get them back -- or download and install their latest versions yourself.

 

So even after manually setting TPFC to setting 7 while gaming, my laptop temps still go up to 90+ degrees C. I'm pretty sure the bios takes over at that point and my laptop starts doing weird stuff. Is this an indication that my thermal paste may be applied wrong? Is the best solution just to get a cooling pad?

Also, does anyone have any input on using copper shims to reduce CPU and GPU temps on a T430? Anyone done it successfully before?

 

I can only ask you to revisit your initial statement.

(I consider thermal paste and heat sink and cooling mechanisms only when I build my own heavy-duty gigs with parts from Newegg.)

 

Heat is the ultimate killer of notebooks. A T430 wasn't meant to game. It just wasn't designed with that in mind.

 

85-90°C are actually fairly cool. The X220 climbs up to 99°C under load, so you shouldn't complain.

 

I have used the copper shims on my thinkpad t420 and my thinkpad t400. I bought some shims from ebay and I am going to try it on my thinkpad t430.

 

I used copper shims along with Arctic Silver 5 on my ThinkPad T420 and it made a positive difference to the CPU temps. My idle temps tends to be around 37c on average which is decent for a Core i5, before it was in the low 40-45's with the stock setup.