t61p 'middle aged' problems?

I've had my t61p with a 2.6ghz processor for nearly 18 months now.

I've noticed a couple of things recently that I'd like to get fixed and wonder if anyone else who's got a t61p of a similar age is having the same issues or can point out other things I should be aware of.

The first, and most concerning it the heat. I notice that the machine now gets far hotter than it used to in in first year of life. Sat on a stone table, running firefox and a few background apps (less than 10% cpu usage) I'm around 60 degrees. With more apps, or being used sat on my lap the temperature frequently rises to 80 - and I've seen it as high as 90 (both cores of the cpu and the gpu seem to be around the same temp). I'm guessing there must be a physical reason for this increase in temperature. Blocked vents, worn thermal compound and the like. Ideally I'd prefer to tackle the problem at it's cause rather than resort to underclocking. Any ideas?

Second, the last few days a creaking noise has developed as I lift the screen. It occurs 15 degrees or so either side of the screen being vertical. It's pretty quiet, but the hinge was always silent before, so I worry it's a sign of things to come. The creak can be felt as a vibration, and seems to be strongest if I rest my fungers on the plastic just above the keyboard where the ribbon cable for the screen is exposed.

Any advice welcome

 

I can't comment on the lid issue, but as for the heating issue, most probably the heatsink is clogged with dust, but from the inside, so even blowing air from the outside wouldn't do much. I remember I had a similar problem with another laptop brand, took out the heatsink, and it was totally clogged, practically no air was going through the heatsink. As soon as I cleaned it, the temperatures decreased dramatically and the laptop wouldn't shut itself down due to overheating

 

Hmm, I looked at the videos for accessing the fan unit on the t61p... got to remove quite a lot of stuff which i don't feel particularly comfortable doing. I think I've got a 3yr warranty, so I might try and get Lenovo to do it.

I installed TPFanControl and have been able to reduce the temp with that a little. Although I have a seperate issue where i'm sometimes unable to select "manual". If I click it, it immediatley deselects itself, although sometimes it will stay... but eventually it moves back to "tpfanconrol.ini" of its own accord. Any ideas what is causing that behavior?

Thanks

 

change the temps in your tpfancontrol.ini file so that the fan would speed up at lower temperatures.

my laptop does not go over 72 deg C when playing games for hours with overclocked video card (big time)

the other thing that you could do besides cleaning the fan is to replace the thermal paste between the chips (2) and the heatsink.

and check if your keyboard is attached to the heatsink as well since it's used as heatsink by itself as well.

 

Definitely try cleaning out the fan. Remove the bezel and keyboard and blow on the fan with some compressed air. As for the hinge, I suppose you can try oiling it.

 

Thanks for the advice. I'll locate a suitable screw driver and attempt cleaning the fan.

I've been trying to configure tpfancontrol.ini with mediocre success. It seems to just stop working after a while. For example, I came to my laptop 10 minutes ago to see the CPU at 96 degrees. The profile I setup seems to be being ignored. So I close, and restart tpfancontrol, select Smart2 (which is the profile I use) and the fan been spinning at around 6000rpm and the temp is now down to 56 degrees. I suspect that in a few hours, the temperature will be back up to 95-ish and I'll need to restart tpfancontrol to bring the temp down.

any ideas?

 

is that celsius or farenheit?

You could take the whole thing appart, clean it well and re-apply new thermal paste. That should bring the tempratures down somewhat (worked in some of my old laptops). Do it only if you are off-warranty, as taking off heatsinks will void it for sure.

 

I have a t61p also and I use tpfancontrol, my laptop stays 30C-35C idle, and never goes over 75C when I'm playing the games. I just set it to manual level 7 all the time and level 64 when I'm playing for games. It works wonders. When you turn on the computer just set it to manual and put 7, it'll stay that way until you restart your computer. I just do that whenever I turn it on, and turn it to 64 when you're playing games, it'll be somewhat loud but the temp will stay down.

 

^ or do like me and program the 64 setting in the tpfancontrol.ini file so that you dont have to do anything but just start game and play

but I agree, the 64 level makes wonders )))) How else would I run 650MHz core and 950MHz memory ... huh

on the side note, how come your 64 setting spin up the fan to 6000rpm ? Mine goes to 4600rpm max :|

 

Mine goes at about 6000 using the "64" level. I seem to remember reading in the tpfancontrol that the 64 level may cause longterm damage to the fan unit, so ideally I dont' want to be using it long term.

Anyway, I've setup Smart1 with the following settings:

The above has been working reasonably well, although when I move away from my stone table, level 64 still comes on quite often and is on almost permanently if I use it on my lap or bed.

I've got a compressed air can and was planning on dissassembling so I can properly clean the fan unit. I've just had a concern about warranty though. Will such disassembly void my warranty?

I bought my laptop in Hong Kong, but am now living in the UK. I was told at the time that I had a 3 year worldwide warranty. Looking on the lenovo site it suggests: "In warranty 2010-11-16 HONG KONG" for my laptop model. and that I'm entitled to mail in or carry in service.

I've just tried phoning Lenovo but the team that deals with laptops aren't in till 9am. Anyone had experience with this type of warranty before?

If I won't void the warranty, I'm tempted to do the cleaning myself. If I will void the warranty I guess I'll have to mail it off. Perhaps they will also replace the thermal paste if I send it in... which is a procedure I'd not be comfortable doing myself.

Any views?
Thanks