CPU temperature Thinkpad R61

[Fernando Cassia]

On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 7:18 AM, Fernando Cassia <fcassia at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/10/16 Christoph Höger <choeger at cs.tu-berlin.de>:
>> Am Donnerstag, den 15.10.2009, 17:34 -0500 schrieb Mikkel:
>>> Christoph Höger wrote:
>>> > Hi,
>>> >
>>> > I just wondered why my fan always runs after a while. After closing
>>> > firefox (which took 50% cpu along with X) I now have a load of roughly
>>> > 0.06 - barely nothing computed at all. Both cores are in the lowest
>>> > config and yet my cpu temperature goes from 42°C to 47°C in roughly 2
>>> > minutes (and back by fan activity).
>>> >
>>> > I would understand this if there was some load, but what causes my CPU
>>> > to heat if it does nothing? Design failure? Has anybody seen such a
>>> > thing?
>>> >
>>> > regards
>>> >
>>> > Christoph
>>> >
>>> When was the last time you cleaned the dust out? Also are the air
>>> vents on the laptop clear when in use?
>>
>> I am aware of that dust thing (I am going to give a compressor a try),
>> but the heat goes up when the notebook and the fan is idle. That should
>> not have anything to do with dust, right?
>
> When computers are idle (but active, I mean NOT hibernating or
> suspended) it doesn´t mean the CPU fan stops completely. Sometimes
> those spin at very low rpm so you don´t "hear" it, but the fan IS
> spinning, albeit at very slow speed.
>
> If there´s dust inside the heatsink system, the fan spins slowly, but
> air doesn´t move inside, because of the dust. Hence temperature builds
> up until it reaches a certain threshold, which is when the system-bios
> increase fan speed to lower the temperature.
>
> Here´s what a totally clogged up notebook fan-heatsink looks like.
>
> http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/808/heatsinkuy8.jpg
>
> Obviously this is an extreme case. But that´s what it gets to
> eventually if you never blow compressed air to clean the very thin
> ducts inside.
> FC

By the way, when I say "air compressor" I mean one like these.
http://toolmonger.com/2006/05/31/home-use-air-compressor-on-a-budget/

These are small, have wheels, and can be easily moved around your
home/office and are small enough to be stored in a closet.

Before someone mentions compressed air, let me tell you that you
cannot match with a can of compressed air the cleaning power of the
air coming out of an air compressor. That´s what llows you to
completely clean a notebook cooler from the outside without ever
opening up your notebook (and as I said, you must do it with the
notebook powered up and functioning, otherwise the dust you remove
won´t be expelled out by the notebook´s own fans and air flow, but you
would be just moving dust inwards..

FC

>



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