X220 randomly started getting really hot, palmrest very hot, burns lap

Any ideas?
Started happening a couple days ago, haven't changed any settings or anything.

If I leave it on doing nothing (not asleep just sitting at desktop) itll still be really hot when i come back 30 min later.

 

which power adapter are you using 65 or 90 watts?

also, how many background processes are running?

TPFancontrol installed?

BIOS firmware version?

Running the laptop with battery inserted?

Ambient room temperature?

 

I have to wonder whether the fan isn't working properly and/or the heatsink needs repasting on the CPU. Run HWiNFO32 in the background with the sensors enabled. This will enable you to quickly check the CPU activity, temperatures and fan speed.

John

 

90W,
Happens on Battery and on AC
Bios is latest (updated 3 weeks ago)

Ambient room is around 21-22C

69 Processes running

TPFancontrol not installed, will do that now and see thank you

HWiNFO is showing cpu temp as 58 and 52
W/ CPU usage fluctuating between 0-20% pretty regularly



Thank you for your help





Installed TPFancontrol and have the fan maxed, well see what happens.
The air coming out is pretty hot

 

A CPU temperature of <60C shouldn't cause noticeable heating.

Once you have got a feel for how TPFC works then switch control to the BIOS and see if the heating is different.

And another thought: Where is the CPU on the X220? Is it near the palm rest or is something else causing the heat? Was Windows doing some intensive HDD access while you were away?

John

 

Hi,
Thanks I will try that with TPFC.
I am pretty sure the CPU is at the back (near the battery) not by the palm rest.

It stopped this morning I think it was because I was downloading a 20gb file over the last couple days. I have never downloaded any large files on this before and that is the only thing that changed over that period of time. Could that have caused it?

Thanks

 

If you have a mechanical hdd in your Thinkpad and you downloaded the 20GB file to your C drive, then that could have caused it. Any time I download anything that is going to take a lot of space on the drive, or a lot of time, I download it to an external (USB) HDD. That usually helps with the heat.

 

would a solid state drive do the same thing?

 

I wish I could tell you, for I stopped downloading large files to my internal HDD long before I bought an internal SSD.

 

thanks anyways. Appreciate your input

 

Unlikely. Under most situations SSDs use significantly less power than HDDs and I would see writing a file as it downloaded as not being challenging for an SSD. In fact, I've never seen my SSD get warm even with intensive R/W activity.

John

 

On my x201t so can I run any kind of software (inkluding games), and it doesn't get hot. Except when I scanned the computer with AVG Antivirus. Then my computer would get hot, but not where the SSD or CPU is located, but beneath my left palm!? This has never happened before, and have never happened again after I removed AVG.