T420 getting hot doing menial graphic loads

My T420 tends to run very hot while doing menial graphics tasks. Playing roller coaster tycoon 2, or playing SNES emulator, my CPU temp will rise to 82-87c very quickly. It runs the same sort of temps doing "real" gaming like playing world of warcraft, or league of legends, which I expect it in WoW as it is cpu intensive and somewhat graphic intensive.

I can't see a SNES emulator in window mode needing that much power, even if the emulator is minimized but still running, my laptop runs hot.

I upgraded my T420's I5 to a I7-2670QM which is a 35w processor vs the stock 25w, so I expect it to run a bit warmer. I've also changed the thermal paste countless times over the last year using AS5 and keep my heatsink spotless. When I switched to the I7 I began to run TP fan controller, my fan runs silent even at 4500rpm, and with the stock bios settings, it didn't hit 4500 tell like 95c, and that was its max speed. Now I have my fan set to always run around 3200rpm, hit 4500 around 60c, and by 85c it hits 5600rpm. That is the only way I can keep my I7's heat under control and not float around 97-99c while gaming lol

btw it uses intel 3000hd graphics. Just don't understand the excessive heat while playing low end games..

 

It clearly has something to do with how it renders video. Not that its a 'huge' issue, just didn't know if there was anything I could do.

I actually haven't played SNES in a few weeks, fired it up today (for a few hours now lol), using Zsnes emulator, runs a 'hair' cooler then I thought, 75-80c.. Only running a 1-3% processor load with chrome in the background with multiple windows. Running RCT2 though I hit 85-88c+ steadily

Some sort of graphic processing problem. I just like to take the 'best' care of my laptop as I can. My T420 has served me well, <3 this thing lol

 

I can't say for sure, but maybe look to replace your heatsink/fan? I've seen ThinkPad ones go out, it's not uncommon.