Three-year-old T61 standby/overheating (?) problem

Hi, all --

So my T61 has started (on occasion) going to standby unexpectedly; up to now I've been able to just start it up again without problem, but today for the first time it did it over and over again. I took it off the dock and noticed it was very hot on the bottom, which makes me think it's an overheating problem.

I've found some suggestions on here (and on the Lenovo site) for fixing it, but all of them involve opening up the machine myself -- which is something I am not comfortable with at all. So my real question is: Is there anything I can do without opening it up? If I need to take it to someone, will any computer repair place do, or should I look for a Lenovo authorized place (the search function on the website is pretty useless)?

Thanks in advance for your help...

 

Overheating is most probably related to dust congestition in the cooling unit. To get rid of this, there is no other way than to open up the machine in order to clean it. This is no rocket science at all, and to give you an idea what this actually involves, please check out the video explaining how to remove the keyboard in the "FRU Removals/Replacement" section on the www.lenovoservicetraining.com/ion/R61_T61 website. Once done, put a tooth pick or any other suitable item to block the fan from spinning, in order to prevent creation of any deadly currency for the mainboard electronics by rapid spiining of the fan. Then carefully and thoroughly blow out all the accumulated dust with canned air or an air pump, even a vacuum cleaner might help here. You will be surprised about the amount of accumulated dust you will find in the process. After that, reassemble the machine according to the videos, and check if this makes any temperature difference.
Note: If you don't prevent the fan from spinning during these operations, most certainly your mainboard electronics will be damaged by too high currencies created in the process. So please don't take the fan blocking advice lightly! Also note that blocking the fan by slighly pressing with one finger on it's center easliy breaks the fan bearing.
It might be even better to also properly reapply some thermal grease on the CPU and also the GPU (if present). But as this requires some special care it might be a good idea to ask someone with experience in such matters to take care of that.

 

Can of compressed air against the vents can be one way of cleaning out dust from the heatsinks though it would be more effective if you can fully access the CPU heatsink fan so you can directly give it a more thorough clean.

 

Don't ever try that without first blocking the fan from spinning. There have been reports from people doing just that, and who wondered why their machine wouldn't turn on anymore.

 

As cypherpunk says, you have to open up the machine. You must have quite a bit of dust in there if your computer is overheating. Blowing the vents from the outside will just move the dust around inside where it could end up back on the heatsink fins or jamming the fan.

 

Thanks, all. I guess I'll have to get up my courage to try it (and back everything up first).