T61 14.1" standard, nVidia NVS 140m overclocked, open

so I prepared myself for the need of a copper plate to seal the gap between the GPU and the heatsink, but yet it turned out that mine didn't have one. Not only that, but also the laptop came with thermal paste already put on from the factory ... duh ... so it kinda made my work seem like a wasted time.

but not really. I removed the factory compound, and put the one that I bought for the job - Noctua NT-H1 ... good stuff .. or to be exact - the best in the market Anyways, I put that one, and put a lot to make sure it goes everywhere.

notice that the laptop also has a thermal pad between the heatsink and the keyboard, so it uses the keypad as a heat sink as well .. so I guess Lenovo did everything possible, including the increased speed of the fan with their new BIOS update.

Results - my GPU temperatures dropped by 2 to 3 deg C over the factory thermal paste. Yey . So I guess it was somewhat worth it.

the video card is working at 648/900 (GPU/memory).

the test - gamming on C&C 3 Kane edition, at 1400x1050 with max detail. The performance difference - like a lot . Before the overclock, the GPU went to 75 deg C. After the overclock, it went to 87 deg C, so I lifted the laptop on some stands that I made (about 1/4 inch tall). This dropped the temps to 82 deg C. So finally with the new thermal paste on, it maxes out at 80 deg C while still lifted on the stands.

the laptop used to idle at 50 deg C, and now it idles at about 47 deg C.

However, if you happen to have one of those laptops, you don't have to open it to do all that work just for 2 -3 deg drop.

temperatures and overclocking done by RivaTuner

cheers
Miro

P.S. Did I say that I'm loving this laptop

 

Dang that's a lot of paste.

Great pictures. I have the 140M as well so if I plan to paste my GPU, I'll refer to the pics. Thanks!

 

widescreens are little different though, but not that much

 

any 3DMark06 benchmarks for that? And what drivers were you using?

I just opened my T61 up and aired out the dust, dropped temps by almost 10 C. I was running 600/800 with a bench of 2385.


except, of course when I was opening up the laptop, I forgot a small silver screw that must have dropped from the internals, because it doesn't screw to the back...

 

you can get even better temps with undervolting, bending fixtures, etc...

my max is 56 to 58 (assassin's creed) and tops out at 62 to 64 with gears of war and atitool testing (both overclocked 650/975)

overclock can go even higher (700 core) but I get artifacts depending on the game

 

What about painting the copper heatsink in black?

It should actually become an even better absorber of heat !
( but also a very good emitter of heat also, so I dunno )

Maybe someone should try that...

 

what values were you undervolting at, with no performance issues I assume?


my bios stops my fan at 51 C for the CPU (not using TPFanControl), is this normal? I am using Notebook Hardware Control and TPFan to check CPU temps.

 

That seems like alot of work. I also have mine overclocked to 600 / 800. I run around 65c - 70c during game play due to my little trick. Search in google for "TPfancontrol" and manually override your fans to run at 7 or max. I always do this right before starting a game up. I will get links to my bench marks later but I believe I scored a 2700 when I clocked it at 625/900. This ran alittle too hot during constant gaming 72-78c so I turned it down to 600/800. Also, I tried 650/900 and the temps were not too dangerous, however there was some tearing win I would play some games... so you might not want to go that high. For anyone wanting to play WAR, I am playing at around 40 FPS with every setting maxed at 1280X800

 

Nice pics!

Miro, just FYI but you do know that more paste is not better right?

It's supposed to be a paper thin layer on the die and from there it spreads out as needed. From the amount in your pictures, the paste is probably hurting your temps a bit as the amount applied was a bit excessive and therefore can serve as a bit of an insulator instead of a transparent heat conduit. Then again, if you got a temp drop from stock, then that's still an improvement worth noting.

Oh, off-topic here, but anyone know if there's an effective way to clean out the heatsinks without removing the whole assembly?

 

values vary with the processor but my values are:

0, 0.8500
1, 0.8500
2, 0.8750
3, 0.9250
4, 0.9750
5, 1.0375
6, 1.1000

these values are a little high for my t7500, but these values hold up when I stress the CPU & GPU while plugging in things into the usb, burn cds, etc...

no performance loss expect for whatever you lose when you keep rmclock in the background.

when I boot up my t61 from a cold start, the fan doesnt turn on until system hits about 52C, then it turns on and cools off to around 44 to 48 depending on room temp (vista with aero on, tpfancontrol in bios mode)

not sure about nbhc.

 

Warhammer Online? If so, that is seriously awesome news, because I wanted to see the benchs for the game before I could get into open beta.

I've thorougly cleaned my T61 with compressed air to get the dust out, dropped those 5-10 C degrees, but still not getting to what I want (45 C). Playing TF2 for a couple hours gets me at 78 C, which isn't what I'm looking for at overclocks of 600/800.

I haven't actually removed the fan from the laptop to clean under it... should I, and will I find some more dust that is impeding my temps?

 

Yeah it is.

Looks like peanutbutter spread on bread mmmmmm.

 

Hey, would I be incorrect in assuming that you can switch the CPU out fairly easily? (After getting as far as these pics of course ) From what I see there it doesn't look like alot of consumer systems where it's basically bolted or soldered in.

If so I'd get a basic T8100 and in a year or so grab a T9 series centrino just for the experience (I know it's expensive)

 

I can't get into very many details on WAR due to the NDA, but I can tell you it is very solid. I play AoC on my t61 right now at around 20 fps with all kinds of special tweaking... but WAR plays 40 - 50 with no special changes. I will note, in massive battles 20+ players you will get some drops down to 15 or 20 FPS but this only happens upon first entering battle. I think the NVS 140m stuggles a bit loading the character models, maybe more ram could help me?

 

Well the NDA soon will be dropped today, haha. I'm surpised you are able to obtain such performance, overclocking 600/800 basically makes the 140m into a 8600 GS.

Were you using any other tricks besides manual 7 on TPFancontrol (I do that too, also helps, because my T61 runs its fans all the time). Oh, and what drivers are you using?

 

I don't mess around with the internals at all. I do have this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834997340 which helps alot. Maybe I am lucky with my clocks? I have seen some people do crazy clocks at 700+/1000+, but thats just plain idiotic

 

well a notebook cooler does help a lot

700/900 wouldn't be out of the picture, probably would bench at 2700 + on 3DMark06.

600/800 is a happy medium for me currently, but if what you say about WAR applies to my T61 (T7300, 2 GB, XP Pro 32), I'll be even happier.

 

This is my configuration, looks like my CPU is a bit higher than yours.
42V8191 SBBB INTEL CORE 2 DUO T7500
42V8012 VBB MS WIN VISTA HOME BASIC
42V9597 SBB MSWIN VHB32 US ENGLISH
42V9323 SBB 14.1 WXGA TFT,W/OCAM.
42X5981 SBB NVIDIA QUADRO NVS 140M
41W2063 VBB 2GB PC2-5300 667MHZ 2DIMM
42V8195 SBB KEYBOARD US ENGLISH
42V9330 SBB UN(TRACKPOINT+TCHPD)+ FING.R
42V8705 SBB 100 GB HDD,7200RPM
42V8714 SBB CD-RW/DVD-ROM COM,UBAYSLIM
42X0903 VBB PC CARDSLOT ME CARDSLOT
41W1685 SBB 11ABGWIFI WL LAN USEULAANZ
62P6054 VBB INTEGR.BLUETOOTH PAN
42V9338 SBB 6 CELL LI-ION BATERRY
39T6442 SBB COUNTRY PACK NORTH AMERICA
42V9391 SBB LANG.PACK US ENGLISH

 

I've heard that 2 GB of RAM is the low end for Vista, but 2 GB seems to run better for XP. Either way we have similar laptops.

Still though, I'd like not to use any external cooling sources, and see if I can moderate my temps to 75 C... can't wait for open beta! Preview weekend this week too!

 

Dang, thats what copy and paste will do for accuracy... i downgraded to WinXP

Vista is terrible for gaming when your trying to play these new games on not so great video cards.

 

I have TPfanControl .. but don't use it.

with no AC working in the room at the end, I played NFS Carbon all day long (dang, long time), and the laptop maxed out at 85 deg C, with no problems what so ever

the next day I played some long time too, like 4 hours, but with AC working in the room, and the GPU maxed at 80 deg C .. duh. If I lived in Alaska then it could drop another 20 degrees, lol

all my previous temp measurements were with room AC being turn on .. lol, so that's still a 2 degree drop vs. the stock paste

I guess I could test it with TPfanControl working too.

 

Howdy guys. I've tried to overclock via RivaTuner and nTune however it doesn't seem to be working. ATITool and GPU-z show stock speeds. Is there something I'm missing here?

Cheers.

 

Nevermind, I needed to install modified drivers.

 

thought I'll post an update:

I run TPFanControl now, things look better, I max out at 72 deg C because at 70 my fan kicks at max speed of 4600 rpm ( the 64 value in tpfancontrol.ini ) .. so things are good

I may even do 700/900 now, lol.