t500 overheating

Hi, I have a T500 2081 with discrete graphics card. T9900 3.06ghz processor and Radeon 3650. My processor has been overheating. At idle it was at 40-50c, with skype on 60-70c, and with games on 80-99c. After reaching 99c it would spontaneously shut down.

So I bought a new heatsink/fan combo. Disassembled my computer, replaced it. Used Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste. Now that the heatsink/fan is replaced its idling at 50c, with skype runs at 70c, and when using games goes between ~75c to 95c. It however does not shut down.

I expected replacing the fan/heatsink to improve the heat situation greatly, but it still seems to be present. I was wondering if there are any ideas how to fix this? Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

Thank you

 

this temperature behaviour is quite normal for the ATI GPU and the T9900 in the T500. The heatsink and fan just can't handle the heat load of this powerful combination.

 

you could try undervolting while playing games. i don't have any (bad) heat issues on my W500 while gaming but it only has a T9600. i didn't repaste either.

 

Well, thank you for your help. I don't remember it actually overheating for the first year I owned it. Seems worthless for lenovo to make a computer that needs to undervolt itself in order to prevent from overheating.

Thank you for your help, if there are other ideas please let me know.

Thank you again.

 

I've never seen my T500's CPU above 75C, and my GPU above 90C. At idle, depending on ambient temperature, it's usually in the mid-30C. Your temperatures are definitely high, and I would imagine they're abnormal. Granted, my T500 has a lower-power P-series CPU.

Do you have some ventilation room below your T500, or are you using it flat on a desk?

How's the contact with just AS? The thermal pad has some thickness, so make sure the contact is good with only thermal paste (if there's a gap, heat transfer will be inefficient--use a thin copper shim to bridge it).

 

I have it sitting on a targus cooling pad with 2 fans in it... the temperatures I quoted are with the fans off, but the laptop sitting on the pad. I'll recheck the contact with the AS, i thought the contact was good when I initially put it in. But I'll be glad to recheck. Thank you for the idea.

 

I have the same set up and pretty much here's what I found works.
In my case, it only overheats in the summer\spring months when the house is 22C or warmer.

You could:
-Keep you house slightly cooler 20C or cooler
-Game on a flat surface with a good cooling pad
-undervolt with throttle stop
-repaste but apply as5 liberally especially to the GPU\chipset (i notice more of a gap)
-thoroughly clean out HSF

I don't notice my laptop overheating as much simply because I don't have enough time to game. The T500 hsf is simply not sufficient enough to keep the T9900 cool at peak speeds. Hope these tricks work.

 

^^
Generally...just load up throttle stop when you're playing your fav. games and this works fine. LMK if you want my specific settings for throttle stop, otherwise it's just trial and error.

 

I removed the factory thermal compound in my T500 and cleaned the CPU/GPU with rubbing alcool and applied some Arctic Silver 5, it lowered temperature quite well. You should try it and clean out the cooling fan at the same time.