Comments on: Lenovo Thinkpad Silent Fan

By: T60p Heat Issues from GPU and CPU with external monitor « IT Tech Notes

T60p Heat Issues from GPU and CPU with external monitor « IT Tech Notes — Sat, 17 May 2008 16:05:28 +0000

[...] but I didn’t realy find any posts indicating that it was Ubuntu. Instead I found this post (http://justaddwater.dk/2007/11/06/lenovo-thinkpad-silent-fan/) talking about the ATI GPU causing issues. There is another long discussion about T60p GPU heat [...]

By: Mogens Nielsen

Mogens Nielsen — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:21:14 +0000

Thanks for sharing your experiences on the T60.

By: Silencer

Silencer — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 09:07:21 +0000

Yep, it looks like a major flaw. A guy on the forum investigated it and made a rather easy mod of the heatsink to cool GPU better: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?p=372176

By: Jesper Rønn-Jensen

Jesper Rønn-Jensen — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 07:53:32 +0000

@Silencer After the replacement, the GPU is still running hot, but now without any problems. The GPU temp is still around 70 degrees (normally cooled) but behaves perfectly. What is really interesting (as I note in the article) is that it looks like a design flaw, that the GPU heatsink is too small to pull the heat out of the GPU and out to the fan.

By: Silencer

Silencer — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 00:15:57 +0000

What about GPU temp after replacement? I’m now struggling with my load fan and I’ve checked, GPU is 67-69 degrees hot even when fan is running full speed.

There’s also a very interesting thread here: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=35070&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

By: Jesper Rønn-Jensen

Jesper Rønn-Jensen — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 18:49:46 +0000

UPDATE: A technician has just replaced the graphics controller (and the entire motherboard). Since then, I have not had a single problem with external screens

By: justaddwater.dk | New Laptop With Better Defaults

justaddwater.dk | New Laptop With Better Defaults — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 16:31:22 +0000

[...] running hot. This is apparently a design issue because GPU is not cooled by the fan: See “Lenovo Thinkpad Silent Fan” (November [...]

By: Lars Jacobsen

Lars Jacobsen — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 17:12:54 +0000

There will probably be some transfer of heat from one to the other – and if the cooling is inadequate the fan will run at all times. This was especially true of older notebooks running Pentium 4 cpu’s that was not made for notebooks.

However most moderns cpu’s wont show any erratic behaviour but will instead lower their speeds (and thereby their generation of heat) – or simply shut of to protect themself.

To make a long story short: The graphics card i probably broken :-)
(or the driver has problems, thats often the case with notebooks)

By: Jesper Rønn-Jensen

Jesper Rønn-Jensen — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 09:54:28 +0000

@Lars: Good to know that the graphics chip can handle the hot temperatures. I heard the limit for this particular FireGL v5250 is around 120 degrees Celcius. That would worry me a bit though: there is very little distance between the CPU and the GPU Take a look at the technical hardware maintenance manual. Page 83 shows that they almost touch corners. Lenovo technical hardware maintenance manual (local copy of PDF, 3.89MB)

By: Lars Jacobsen

Lars Jacobsen — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 09:30:17 +0000

While the cooling solution seems to be lacking in quality and your card seems to be acting strangely, I should point out that most GPUs are made to run at high temperatures. Most CPUs have a threshold where they stop functioning to protect them selves, but most GPSs that I have seen runs fine at 60+