New T61W 15.4 question.

I got my new (YES ANOTHER) lappy...

Anyway... the screen is nice (there's some sparkle) , the keyboard is ok.

but the buttom part gets very warm. The fan harly runs.

Also i noticed that the computer is slugish. (but its not a fresh install vista, so it could be the reason.)


Anyone else gets his lap toasted ?




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The part that usually gets uncomfortably warm is the RAM portion. I have a 14.1" T61 and my RAM area is below the touchpad and it gets really warm. Check to see if the area that's too warm is where the RAM is.

Other than that I've not burnt my lap on other parts of the T61.

Cheers,
Nick

 

I've just noticed the palm rests getting slightly warm.

 

After some CPU and HDD intensive tasks the CPU/GPU/RAM area is a LITTLE warm.

You guys that are running hot -- that is probably what Skibunny was referring to... all those improperly seated heatsinks... maybe you should get some thermal paste and reseat them....

 

Take a look at this:
http://tel3deal.com/pics/T61/T61_cpuspeed1.jpg
http://tel3deal.com/pics/T61/T61_cpuspeed2.jpg
http://tel3deal.com/pics/T61/T61_cpuspeed3.jpg

70 C !!! and the fan is only going 2999 rpm.

I wasn't even crunching for a long time (about 1-2 min) compressing pictures.

I don't think this is normal.



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Yes, be careful of the improperly seated heatsinks, it can happen with just about every notebook company. When you first get a new notebook watch the temperatures for a day or two on different amounts of load. If it does seem like its getting to warm, aka, 70C then give tech support a call and tell them whats going on.

As for different places on the notebook getting warm, the only place I notice get warm is the bottom left corner, the area where the vents are at. I really haven't noticed my wrist rest get to warm after I was finished installing Vista and all my apps.

 

Wow, you weren't lying!

 

Why would i lie ?

Is 3050(~) RPM the highest speed the fan can/will go ?

So far i like the laptop, if they can fix the temp and slugish feel, i'll keep it.



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Why would it not try to spin the fan faster ? 3000rpm seems really slow. in fact until i saw it on the utility i didn't think it was running.

So i think there's 2 problems, improper seating and some sort of fan problem.

The ironic part is that i got the fully copper heat sink.





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It depends on what size the fan is inside, the larger the fan the slower it needs to spin to push the amount of air it needs to keep cool.I haven't looked at the rpm of the fan inside my T61 so I really can't say how fast it should be going.

Call tech support and tell them whats going on and send it in.

 

I did a burn in test with sandra... didn't pass the first pass....

http://tel3deal.com/pics/T61/sandra.jpg

Now i'm like should i have them fix it ? or send it back ?

I got a sweet deal... $1200 including shipping and tax with 4 years on site TPP.

I like the laptop other than the heating and a little sluggish... but i think the sluggishness could be due to the cpu throttling down so it doesn't melt.



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It wont be running that long with that temperature no matter how good of a deal you got. Call tech support and tell them what its running at and they'll tell you what you should do.

 

Well the thing is i did call... They said the best is i ship it to them.... but i don't really want to do that. (its 2 day old)

I did tell them that i have on site service so they told me well the guy doesn't diagnose stuff, he just replaces the parts they tell them to replace.

The tech support didn't even know that 70C is very hot.

So my options are:
1) return it, and lose a good deal
2) exchange it, but then i might not get the same LG LCD and NMB keyboard and copper heat sink
3) have them service it on site with some bozzo that only replaces parts, not sure if they are even trained to handle T61. (i would be probably better off doing it myself)



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3) Make them service it on-site or do it yourself. The heatsink is defective or hasn't been seated properly. I'm not aware of any other reason for overheating.

 

You know of a detailed explaination of how to remove it and re-seat it ? (i have thermal paste)



Thanks.



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Sorry, I don't.
I'm sure someone around here will chime in...

 

I call them up to get on site service, 3rd time i'm waiting at least 15 minutes.

1st call - 15min.
2nd call - i actually fell asleep after an hour, don't know if they picked up.
3rd (today) - 30 minutes.

So i talk to this guy... and he says "i don't see your warranty"... (even though the 1st time i called they transferred me to entitlement... ) so that took another 15 minutes.

He said he doesn't know if they have a fan/heatsink component and would have to call me back (tomorrow or next day)

What does next-day on site service mean ? they will come next day if they have the part ? he also mentioned that the part needs to be shipped to the installer... which could take a day or two. so i don't see how i can get a next business day service...

Anyone else with onsite service experience?



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That temperature is under load right? (it must be. task manager says CPU 71% If so that isn't out of the ordinary. Look at the temps in this review: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3885

 

They actually told me that at idle it should be no more than 43 and at load about 53.

This is the coolest thinkpad ever. 70C is crazy. At that temp i believe the cpu starts the throttle down. (correct me if i'm wrong)



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Who are "they". The same people that didn't know if 70C was hot?

I'm not saying you are wrong, but I think you are. This might be the coolest Thinkpad ever, but I've heard of temps higher than that in a desktop. In general laptops are always going to be hotter than desktops because everything is crammed into such a small space.

Have you seen any other temps reported under load with a T61? I realize that the link I provided was an Asus laptop, but it has a T7500 processor and a similar spec'd graphics card. So temperatures are going to be in the same general area as a T61. That Asus has a CPU temp of 76C. I'd say if the T61 can keep that temp down to 70C that's pretty good.

I think it is most important to know the spec of the processor and what it can handle. http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLA44 Unless I am misinterpreting the spec it looks like the T7500 can handle 100C before you are in trouble. That certainly doesn't mean that temps of 95C are OK, but tome that certainly means that temps of 70C are quite good.

I don't know what processor you have, but you can select yours from here: http://processorfinder.intel.com/List.aspx?ProcFam=2643

 

I got the T7300 with integrated GPU




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The temperature spec for the T7300 is exactly the same. GPU doesn't matter much. Discrete will increase overall temps some, but only by about 2C.

 

I don't claim to know it all. I'm just trying to help. The reason you failed Sandra is because it is set to stop at 68C. That doesn't mean that your CPU can't handle much more. I'm also not telling you to increase the limit until you find out for sure what the CPU can handle. I'd like to hear someone else chime in about the T7300 specs and if I am interpreting it correctly. It would be nice to hear about some under load temps with the T61. Maybe I'll give it a try tomorrow.

I really don't know anything about your T61 other than T7300 and integrated. You think it is sluggish? How much RAM do you have? Have you done a clean install?

 

OK... here is the T61P review:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3889

It shows idle temps of about 44C and load temps of about 83C.

This is with a T7700 so temps will be higher than yours. BUT the T7700 is rated with the same temperature spec as yours.

70C for your CPU is nothing to be alarmed about. The limits in Sandra can be adjusted. Your CPU didn't "fail" the Sandra test, it just stopped at the pre-set limit.

 

Thanks for trying to help, even some input is great.

Clean install, 2GB. WSXGA+.

The thing is it gets to those high temps pretty quick... and my idle temp is not even close.

I can feel the slugishness opening and closing windows. Also when working with rawshooter it takes too long to get the sharp preview.

I have as a comparison an Acer X2 64 1.7Ghz with 1gb and it runs much faster with an inferior integrated GPU.


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Stallen, what are your load CPU temps?

 

Well, I don't have a lot more to offer. I haven't run any stress tests on my T61 yet, but when I run them on my desktop I can watch the temps increase by about 5C every couple seconds untill they level out after a few minutes.

The only other thing I can say is to put in another GB of RAM. It's fairly cheap. Also, the newer 7200RPM HDD such as the Hitachi 200GB 7k200 and Seagate Momentus 160GB 7200.2 are pretty fast.

I purchased a T61 with 1GB of RAM and a 5400RPM HDD. I was seriously scared of how slow it was. It was slower than my 5 yr old Toshiba 1.6Ghz XP laptop. After upgrading to the Hitachi 7K200 and 4GB RAM and doing a clean install with Vista 64-bit, I can say this laptop is VERY fast. It is a night and day difference.

Good Luck. I hope you get it worked out.

 

So, 70 degrees is the default limit in Sandra?
Sounds pretty reasonable.
I'd consider 80 degrees under load extremely hot.
btw, the basic rule of overclocking to keep the temps under 60 degrees, no matter what.

 

I'll check it out soon. Gotta catch some zzzzzzzzzzzs

 

How do you compare this screen (is it the LG one?) with the one on the previous T61 (Samsung)?

Thanks!

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=161869

These temps are to be expected guys. I'm not trying to beat a dead horse here. I just think lowspeed will be waisting time and energy trying to mess with the CPU heatsink when the will most likely have the same temps when you are done.

 

Before calling it waste of time, would you post your temps under load.
Please...

 

Oh alright!!!!!!!!! I was hoping to avoid the hassle.[lazy]

I just don't know why. I mean there is an ASUS review and a T61P review and an Intel spec that all show this is normal.

You realize we are talking Celcius here right? If Intel rates the max temp of 100C and lowspeed is getting a max underload temp of 70C that is a difference of 30C which is a difference of 86F. That's 86 degrees Fahrenheit difference between his underload temp and the rated max temp!

Even at 80C that is a difference of 68F between 80C and 100C.

I'll do it. I'll download the stuff and I'm sure I'll get temps in the 80C range.

What are your temps????

 

I've shipped my T60 with T7200 back to Lenovo.
As I remember it was running no hotter than 70C at full speed, if not cooler.
My newly ordered T61 with the T7300 is on the UPS truck, awaiting delivery, as of this moment.

 

Is there a temp utility built in? Or do I need to download something? I use an nVidia utility on my desktop, but I'm not sure if it has Vista 64-bit support. Thought you might help me save some time searching if you already know of something that works.

 

I use Everest Ultimate.
Love it.
It's Vista and Vista 64-bit compatible.
There is a free version but I'm not sure about its x64 compatibility (probably not).

http://www.lavalys.com/products/sysreq.php?ps=UE&lang=en

 

OK... done!

So I was wrong about temps in the 80Cs, but I did get the same thing as lowspeed.

I used speedfan to check my temps. The processor temps are core 1 and core 2. This is my idle temp. I bounced around between 37C and 43C at idle. I made sure to let my laptop sit in idle for about 5 minutes before I took this screenshot.


I ran two applications of prime95. With the affinity set so Prime95 would max out to 100% on each core. If anyone is interested in knowing how to do this, you just download two copies of Prime95 into separate folders. Then open Prime95 from each folder. Go to the task manager -> "Processes" tab -> right click Prime95 and set the affinity to CPU 0. Then right click the other Prime95 and set the affinity to CPU 1. This will make sure that Prime95 will stress and max out both cores. Here is a screenshot of setting affinity. This shot shows another shot of idle temps.


When you are ready to stress test. Go to Options -> Torture Test -> Select Small FFTs and click OK. Do this for both running applications to stress test both cores. When you want to stop the test you must go to "Test" -> "Stop". then "Test" -> "Exit" to close out.

Now for the money shot.


I don't know how well this screenshot will turn out, but it says 70C and 71C for CPU temps under 100% full load. These temps are after about 10 minutes. The temps after 5 minutes were both about 69C.

You have to also keep in mind that ambient temp in the room plays a role in these temps as well. My current ambient temp is 74F.

 

70C at 74F ambient with both cores fully stressed looks good.
Lowspeed, what are your idle temps?
Can you run the same test the way stallen just described and report your findings?

 

If you do this, Lowspeed, make sure to tell us the ambient temp of the room. Also, make sure your laptop is sitting on a flat hard surface. That might sound silly to say, but I see people using their laptop on a pillow sitting on their lap. This blocks the vents from blowing out hot air.

 

Ok this will take a while


but ambient temp is 70-71.


You know what i wouldn't care what the cpu temp is, but it transfers to the bottom of the laptop and palm rests instead of quickly fanning it out.



Where do i get prime95 ? it says vista not supported?



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Ok this is at idle:

http://tel3deal.com/pics/T61/t61_idle.jpg

But fanspeed doesnt show fan speed... ?!

 

Looks good but i don't trust speedfan much.
You can verify the temps by downloading the trial version of Everest Ultimate. It's more accurate from my experience.

http://www.lavalys.com/products/download.php?ps=UE&lang=en

 

I've measured my T61, T7100 CPU, integrated X3100 gfx.

After compressing a 700mb file with WinRAR and then a few mins of Super Pi abuse, I got it up to 56 degrees Celcius. I stress tested my HDD (5400rpm, 120gb) with HD Tune and that got up to about 42-46 degrees at max.

The CPU idles at about 39-43c average
The HDD idles at about 36-38c average

This is in XP.
my .2c

 

That's more inline with my T7200 in the T60, which wasn't getting much hotter than 60-65C.

 

..............

 

Prime95 is found here:
http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm

Follow these instructions:
Step 1. Download the appropriate program for your OS.

* Windows Vista: WARNING: Vista no longer supports services that interact with the desktop. Follow the download instructions below for Windows XP and the first time you run prime95 make sure the "Start at bootup" option is not selected.

 

Dowload the XP version and make sure "start at bootup" is deselected from options tab. It probably is by default.

The only thing you can't do is run Prime95 on start-up with Vista. You aren't trying to do that anyway.

 

I got to 74C in less than a minute... i stopped it. (it seems like it kept going up)



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^^^^chicken

 

With all of the reported temps in the 90C range on these laptops, 74C is like sippin' iced tea under a shade tree.