Running windows 7 on my x60. It's a fairly new fresh install of windows (3 months old). All recent versions of the lenovo drivers and software.

Yesterday when I was middle of typing something, my laptop suddenly went into sleep. I thought maybe I hit fn f4 by mistake.

I immediately took it out of sleep but the LCD only came on for a few seconds and then went off -- I notice this happens in windows 7 if you go into sleep and sunddenly remember you forgot to do something so you quickly take it out of sleep.

Anyways, so I forced a hard power off since screen was off. When windows started back up, within a minute it went into sleep again, this time without me even using the keyboard.

I went through 3 power cycles and sleeps.

The 4th time it slept, I let it sleep for 5 mins. I observed the bottom of the unit was hot and thought maybe it is overheating. I took the machine out of sleep 5 mins later and checked the running tasks. My virus scanner was running and taking up 80-100% doing a scan, so assumed that with my actual use of the laptop was causing an overheating issue. After I stopped the antivirus software the CPU returned to normal levels, heating subsided and sleep issue hasn't reoccured.

Is this an overheating issue / feature of windows 7 and/or lenovo?

I have a friend who has a x60 and uses Linux and he has gone through 3 replacement units because his units would overheat -- all that kernel compiling and lack luster power management in Linux I say. He noted when his unit overheated, he would receive bios alerts on power on and not the symptoms I encountered.

Any ideas? Is my beloved 4 year old X60 showing her age?

I do properly maintain the unit such and clearing out dust from fan etc. I also did a full virus scan and scan with malware bytes just to make sure I didnt get infected -- all good with that regards.

If you have cleaned the fan...the only other thought would be the fan is failing. Use a fan speed monitoring program to watch the fan speed and the cpu temperature. Also, when cleaning the fan make sure not to spin it fast using the can of air. That will shorten the life of the fan.

The X60 is usually a rock solid performer. I had nothing but good luck with mine.

Ya, I love the X series I've never had one fail. I've passed on most of my X machines onto family members that just need a computer for email / web etc. A X30 with a 7200rpm HD isn't too bad even compared to today's horsepower. Running rock-solid to-date.

I'm suspecting this "overheating" more likely a Windows 7 induced issue, maybe coupled with Lenovo's Window 7 software.

I notice in the Lenovo Power Manager (I'm running 3.45) that it's optimizing performance based on establishing "passive" as opposed to "active" cooling. Supposed to reduce power consumption (by reducing cpu usage etc). I may try meddling with this.

I have a spare X60 that I bought for cheap off ebay last year that is laying in wait. If something ever goes on this primary X60 (that I've owned for 4 years, I use for work and play, so 12+ hour a day, 365 days a year, for 4+ years), so this X60 has really live a great life. The bezel on both sides are breaking away etc (lost the pcmcia door, etc).

I have X2*s plugged in around the house for various purposes, and they too are rock-solid.

I've gone through the exactly same things as you did.

First of all, get rmclock. undervolt your cpu.
Get tpfan control.

My x60 did go hot for 2 years before actual fixing it.
First get most expensive thermal paste there is
Then take your entire machine apart and umount the fan heatsink from the cpu, use a vacuum cleaner to blow out the dust of the fan.
Make sure to use a pen or something to make sure the fan is not rotating while using the vacuum cleaner to blow it out off dust. when you put the vacuum-cleaner to the the heatsink mount your hand around the vacuumcleaner and the heatsink to make sure it blows out all dust there is between the fan and the vacuum cleaner, it's like a 2-3cm of small holes where the fan blows out the air. hold it tight. If you don't put a pen or something to make sure your fan don't rotate it will probably rotate in 15-20k rpm and will sound very much. I did and i recommend you to not. The fan will sound bad forever if you do. so take care. When your done blowing out the dust of the fan apply thermal paste and remount the heat sink to the motherboard

My x60 does maximum 58c in windows with undervolting when maxxing out both cores.

Edit: before taking your machine apart make big space on a table, read through the entire hardware manual so everything is correctly done. and make sure all screws stays in a cup or something so they don't get away. Note that you need take your entire machine apart to fix this and it take sometime the first doing it. I've done it so many times that i don't even open the hardware manual anymore. But if you have not before i stronlgy recommend it. There's actual one fault in the hardware manual which tells you to take away the ac-in thing. that's really not neccesary, but do it anyway if you want to make sure nothing is damaged.

Artic Silver MX-3 or MX-4 is really good choices. And before applying new paste clean the cpu and thermal sink from all old thermalpaste. to make a perfect apply with the paste take the heatsink upside down (you will understand what i mean when you actual have taken the machine apart) and put the thermalpaste on the heatsink not the cpu. use as little as possible and apply from above, you don't need to use a creditcard to have it on heat sink. it will float out on the core perfectly if you just take some on it. note that it's not neccesary to change the thermalpaste on the GPU. my heatsink was entirely tosated on the cpu and the heatsink. i even managed to melt the alloy on the heatsink. Note that just applying thermal paste does not do much at all. the dust in the heatsink between the fan and the outside of the heatsink is way more important to take care of. if you just reapply thermalpaste you will most likely not encounter any problems, but by blowing the fan out of dust will make way more difference then applying the thermal paste correctly

I can confirm the advice that's been given here... My x60 used to go to sleep under load as well. Neither my fan nor heatsink had any appreciable dust buildup. Reapplying new thermal compound did fix the issue (no undervolting required)


You have to literally disassemble the entire computer (follow the directions for "fansink" in the service manual here : http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-62866.html)

When I removed my the heatsink, the thermal compound was crumbled and dry. I cleaned it off and replaced it with Arctic Silver 5. It's been running like a champ ever since!


P.S. Contrary to the previous poster, I recommend placing the heatsink compound directly on the CPU die (ESPECIALLY if you are using a conductive paste like AS5). There are tiny SMDs on the chip package. If you place it on the heatsink you risk shorting them!

yep, and when applying the thermal paste remember - a little goes a long way

I am having similar issue.
I ran rmclock and it found memory errors.

As of now my x60 becomes too hot soon when running Windows 7
I have installed Windows XP and it isn't going that hot but still.

Earlier when I was running Windows 7 I could feel hot palm rest [ specially right hand side where HDD resides. Unfortunately I noticed in x60 their is no room for HDD to throw out hot air ]

Should I think of buying thermal paste?

Rmclock finds memory errors? what do you mean exactly? Maybe you should start by testing your memory chips with memtest for 1 or 2h first thing before troubleshooting anything else.

@ kamaleon >> The program started scanning rams using some paterns. As it was taking much time I stopped but after a while it counted 8 memory errors. There is provision in that program to display memory errors. But no further info was given by the program.

I assembled motherboard,cleaned up fan,also ensured their is thermal paste between processor and copper plate. Paste was in liquid form only some how wasn't hard.

As of now machine isn't going too hot. I am running OpenSuSe 12.1.
I think cleaning of dust helped me at some extent but still I can feel hot below palm rest near HDD slot.
Any work around for this?

Memtest just runs ad inifinitum so as soon as you encounter errors you can stop it because you have found what you wanted. Run memtest again now that you've applied thermal paste, but if you are having errors your problem is probably your mem chips and not your cpu or motherboard. Did you upgrade the dimms or are they the original ones?

There is a high likelihood that you have bad memory.




Too hot meaning it is unstable? If so, this is probably caused by your memory problems (above)


The palm rest is where the radios are. The CPU is in the upper left of the unit, and the hdd is mid-left (IIRC). A warm palm rest is uncomfortable, but should not affect the stability of the system.



from your later post, it sounds like you disassembled the unit, looked at the existing thermal paste, and did NOT apply new thermal paste. DEFINITELY buy new thermal paste and apply to the CPU every time you take off the heatsink!

I did upgrade i.e. removed original module and fixed Hynix 1gb x 2 DIMM's.

Oh I see. I'll consider buying thermal paste soon. Surprisingly after I cleaned up heat sink since then I don't really feel too hot smokes from heat sink fan [ While running Win 7 OS ]. But palm rest at right hand side becomes hot soon.

I had a bit hard time assembling whole notebook. For once it wasn't able to power ON after I fixed it back. I think I did not fix monitor cable properly in socket on motherboard thats why power wasn't coming up.
This time I'll bring notebook to professional repair center to apply heat sink paste.

And @Tomz17 >> Temperaturewise notebook becomes hot. I leave notebook ON over night some times and it doesnt shut down or no blue errors.

When RAM is highly utilized, notebook starts becoming more hot.

Mine is actually doing the same thing, randomly going into sleep and sometimes will not wake up. I do notice it is hot on the bottom. Ill prep time to clean my out

Hi I recently got an X60 Tablet and I have the same issues with heat and thermal problems. From what I can gather around its an issue with Windows 7 and the tablet it self. Its Windows 7 flaw on how it handles RAM usage and CPU usage and internet usage all at the same time. Constitant RAM usuage for one has the RAM working up to almost 1GB causing a lot heat along with the wireless card is horrible. From that I could see that XP would run at least 9 degrees lower on the same set up because XP doesnt use as much RAM as 7 let alone the wireless usage. I got my X60 down to 46 to 43 on idle by turning off Speed Step and putting the fan control on Balance, Windos 7 had constiant cpu throttling resulting in very high heat through out the machine.I also set up my own costumized power options and set up TPFc. I am some what disappointed that I had to downclock the cpu to get the laptop in working condition. I am thinking of even putting XP on it but I dont know because I was looking forward towards using 7 as the main os. I had the screen issue of it blacking out after a certain amount mins the only I was able to get it out of the black screen was putting it on Standby but I fixed that by turning off the option to turn off the display by a certain amount of minutes.

Well, I did wonder whether to start a new thread but this one was really useful before to others so I thought it better to resurrect it instead...

I am a true newbie and am hoping for some clarification please...

I have a problem with a fan that is not working and the X60 (1706-B94) is consequently overheating VERY badly causing it either to switch off or to freeze (needing a forced shutdown). So I have ordered the fan system (FRU 42W522) and I have also ordered a tube of Arctic Silver 5 with plans to replace my useless fan and to renew the thermal paste based on the advice already printed above in this thread. I have followed the instructions all the way through dismantling the X60 and have just removed my current fan. Now I don't really know where to place the thermal paste...bear with me...

On the fan/heatsink system there are three main areas: the fan (in a copper case with nearby vents), then a triangular copper piece (with three spring-loaded screws that hold it down), and then a square copper piece (that has one smaller non-sprung screw to hold it down). The triangular copper part has a silvery-grey goo under it that measures about 10x15mm in size; some of this is dried out. The square copper part has a black underside and in the middle of it is a rubbery-soft grey pad that feels a bit like play-doh. So this brings me to my questions:

1) Of these two copper parts, which one do I put new thermal paste on? Or do I put it on both? And how much do I put on - is it about the size of a grain of rice? More? Less?
2) How do I clean this goo/play-doh off the copper part(s) safely? Do I use an alcohol wipe? Is it OK to scrape it off the copper?
3) How do I clean this goo (well, it's more solidified and dried out) off the components that were covered by the copper parts? I especially don't want to damage these bits by doing the wrong thing because they look very delicate (one lies under the square copper part, is fairly clean, square, black and shiny like a black mirror - I think it says E636A329 on it in tiny letters; and the other which lies under the triangular copper part is slightly more rectangular in shape, smothered in grey goo and nearby are the letters INTEL so I suppose that is the Core Duo chip?). Again, can I use an alcohol wipe or is that a no-no. The grey stuff is pretty solidly dry so it's not going to simply wipe off with a dry cloth and I'm worried that it'll be grainy and cause the component to sustain fine scratches (or is that not a problem?).

I'd be very grateful if someone could clarify for me please...

Many thanks!

Clean off the dried bits on the (old) heatsink and the CPU (ca. 10x15mm), using Isopropyl Alcohol.
You could also use those alcohol-wipes. Let it dry.
Leave the thermal pad (what you call play-doh) alone.
Do NOT scrape a CPU or heatsink EVER!
Since you are putting in a new fan, the next 2 sentences do not apply to you.
- Blow out the fan in the cooler, using e.g. a can with compressed air, or the blowing end of a vacuum cleaner.
- Hold a wooden toothpick between the blades of the small fan, to stop it from spinning while you blow it out.
Now apply a rice-corn sized drop of AS5 ONLY on the 10x15mm square that you just cleaned (which is the CPU), and spread it out evenly, using e.g. a credit card.
Put the fan in with the screws, and connect the little power cable.
Connect the keyboard temporarily and start the laptop to check that the fan runs.
Disconnect keyboard again, and reassemble the rest of the laptop.

THANK YOU "RealBlackStuff"!!! It was very kind of you to walk me through that in layperson's terms. I've successfully installed a new heatsink and renewed the thermal paste - all is running very nicely indeed on a brand new operating system too, Windows 7.