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Any heat problems with t61's are going to come from the CPU or the GPU, not the ram/storage. Take out the heat sink, blast all dust out of it with a blower, clean the old crusty thermal paste off the CPU/GPU and the heatsink, and apply new. Doing that usually dramatically reduces how hot the bottom of the laptop gets under load.skylerwhite wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 3:53 amHi everyone, I just got a used T61 and I’m thinking about upgrading the RAM and maybe swapping the HDD for an SSD. I’m a bit worried about overheating since these laptops are pretty old. Has anyone done this successfully? Any tips on which RAM/SSD combo works best without causing thermal issues?
My experience with messing with the fans in thinkpads has been uniformly negative - I can easily, despite being careful and putting things back exactly as they were, end up with a fan that doesn't want to spin freely. If there's something wrong with the fan, trying to replace it might work and be cheaper than buying a new heatsink assembly, but if it's working OK, I would not take it apart. Blowing it out without disassembly works and is safe.Gonzaleitor wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 9:27 amI don't think the RAM and SSD could be a problem with your thermal issues. I would clean heatsink and fan(Separate the fan from the heatsink assembly and make sure that there is nothing blocking the output), remove old thermal paste and repaste if I were you.
The assembly can accumulate filth and block the output, rendering the repaste useless. That's why you have to separate them and clean them. It's only a couple tabs and a strip of kapton tape, there should be no damage involved in removing the fan from the heatsink.Glaurung-quena wrote: ↑Thu Aug 28, 2025 2:15 amMy experience with messing with the fans in thinkpads has been uniformly negative - I can easily, despite being careful and putting things back exactly as they were, end up with a fan that doesn't want to spin freely. If there's something wrong with the fan, trying to replace it might work and be cheaper than buying a new heatsink assembly, but if it's working OK, I would not take it apart. Blowing it out without disassembly works and is safe.Gonzaleitor wrote: ↑Wed Aug 27, 2025 9:27 amI don't think the RAM and SSD could be a problem with your thermal issues. I would clean heatsink and fan(Separate the fan from the heatsink assembly and make sure that there is nothing blocking the output), remove old thermal paste and repaste if I were you.