T21 powers down - heat problem?

[rpiontek]

I have a T21. It powers down after running for a while. Usually it will immediately reboot one time, then run for a while again before powering off. Then it has to sit for about 24 hours before it will boot up again, but it always works after sitting for a full day.

I replaced the CPU/Fan grease. I blew out a bunch of dust from the fan unit and it now seems to be reasonably clean. After installing the TP fan control program I now know that the fan is at least working, and the fan was turning on more often with this program installed. Temps seemed to be not too out of wack, but I'm not exactly sure what to look for, then very quickly one of the sensors hit 95 and it went down. I don't know which sensor as it happened quickly and I only saw the reading in the system try icon.

Any suggestions for what to do next? With the grease replaced and the fan clean is there any hope?

[RealBlackStuff]

You only need a 'film' of thermal paste. If you put too much on it, it does not, or hardly, work.
The symptoms sound like it's overheating.
Did you clean out the old gunk with Isopropyl Alcohol first, before applying new paste?

[rpiontek]

I just wiped it off with tissue paper. Just put a little bit back on. Could it really be that Isopropyl Alcohol could make a difference? Since the grease I assume only helps to conduct heat it does not seem like it could be important that the old grease was completely removed.

[tfflivemb2]

It can make a difference, because the grease has to evenly fill the thin gap between the processor and the cooling element, to help transfer the heat. If it is too thick, it will cause the heat to disperse unevenly, and almost work against you, instead of for you. The alcohol helps you gain a smooth clean surface.

[rpiontek]

So I would like to update my T21 status in case anyone can help...

I re-cleaned the CPU/Fan with rubbing alcohol, as well as applied less grease than the first time, but this did not make a difference. The T21 still crashed like before, with TPFancontrol running.

What has seemed to help was I reduced the temperatures at which the fan starts running in TPFancontrol. I think I set upper limit at 60C, and I did not let the bios take over if it gets any hotter (since it was already crashing without TPFancontrol). The T21 ran all night downloading torrents, whereas before it crashed doing the same thing.

Also I configured TPFancontrol to log the temps, but unfortunately it only writes to the log every 5 minutes or so, and this is not often enough to see anything interesting happening.

Does this help to indicate what might be wrong?

[RealBlackStuff]

Torrent downloads put a lot of stress on the CPU, with up to 100% CPU usage.
On such an oldie, it's no wonder it's overheating.
Apart from the legality of most torrents, maybe you should use a PC -rather than a laptop- for that type of work.
Also check your torrent program's guide on CPU usage, if it has one.
Setting the priority of that program to 'high' in Task Manager, may also help.

[rpiontek]

It has overheated (assuming that is the problem) during normal office tasks as well as surfing the web. Idling temps are around 35C. The torrent download was just a test. I've downloaded many torrents before with no problem. But the last time it crashed was during a torrent download so this was a reasonable stress test. After adjusting the fan limits the temp rose to around 65-70 under load.

Is it possible the fan works, but is not working at 100%? Any way to confirm this? Or that the temp sensors are incorrect? TPFancontrol does have seem to generally have the functionality to read the fan speed, but does not report my fan speed. Maybe this is because the TPFancontrol was written for the T60? The operates at different speeds, and I would say it is as loud as it has ever been. I blew out the dust as well as I could.

I thought about re-installing the OS, but I'm worried that the process will crash mid way through and then I'll be stuck. I could try linux just to see if it works or not.

[RealBlackStuff]

Run a Linux-Live CD, such as Mint or Ubuntu, no need to install it.

[rpiontek]

Yeah, I will try that. Thank you.