X61 Stress Test Temperatures [Help Requested!]

Recently, my heatsink fan failed on my x61, so I bought a new one off of ebay and installed it with some AS5 thermal compound. I followed the instructions on the box and reassembled my x61. However, I am having difficulty determining if I have done an adequate job of applying the thermal paste due to the temperatures I am experiencing while stressing the cpu to ensure the laptop is running ok.

I have a couple of problems that I am experiencing in regards to this:

1) When I run Prime95 to stress the cpu, the fan kicks on very high and then slows. I checked CPU-Z to see what was going on, and the cpu was throttling down the multiplier by half once the tests started. I am guessing this is due to overheating? Or is this normal behavior for Prime 95.

2) I am having difficulty in finding exactly what "normal" and "high" cpu temperatures are for the x61. Core Temp 0.99.6 is reporting the cpu reaching a high of 96c prior to the cpu cutting the multiplier.

I would appreciate the help of some of the seasoned thinkpad veterans in here. Is the cutting of the multiplier a intel tactic to prevent frying of the cpu in loading situations? Is this a result of normal stress testing or is it more likely that I poorly applied the thermal compound?

Any help that anyone could offer would be greatly appreciated!

 

anything above 85 degrees on the X61 CPU is high.

melting temp of the CPU is around 105 degrees.

The fan you got is properly a faulty one. Although how much thermal compound did you use?

 

I should clarify, the fan is working properly as far as I can tell. It only drops to lower after the temperature drops as a result of the multiplier speed decreasing. When I set it to a manual level in tpfancontrol, it has no problem keeping a level amount.

I put enough for a very thin layer on the cpu in accordance with the instructions included in the box for the thermal paste and the guide in this thread. I did not measure the previous temperatures for my x61, so I am unsure if this is better or worse than before.

 

fan maybe working, but is the heat pipe working properly? I had a X61, the maximum temperature i ever get with 100% CPU load was around 80 degrees Celsius.

 

Prime 95 is a very tough app for CPU testing and not entirely realistic for checking your CPU stability. You almost never get that kind of load in real life situations.
What are your regular temps (Idle and @load)?

 

Right now at idle TPFanControl is reporting 44c and Core Temp 0.99.6 is reporting 37c. Not sure which is more accurate.

Since Prime 95 is not a good benchmark for load temperatures, what do you think would be a good test to run to find my temps at load?

 

Same here. Maximum temps I have had on both X61s L7500 and X61 T7300 was about 80-85 degrees at full load. Ambient temp around 23 degrees.