[ltp] T60p graphics/northbridge cooling

Paul Fisher linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
Thu, 14 Aug 2008 23:15:24 -0400


I've been trying to watch the Olympics (and other TV on occasion) on my
T60p, streaming from my (highly recommended) HDHomeRun
<http://www.silicondust.com/products/hdhomerun>, but my computer locks
up after a while, and I'm fairly certain it's related to heat.  I tried
replacing the pads that make contact with the heatsink and the graphics
card and northbridge with a different material, but found that didn't
work too well, so I put back the original stuff, and it seems to be
performing about as well as before.  Before the system locks up, a
typical output from /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal is
> temperatures:	65 36 37 75 -128 -128 -128 -128 47 56 54 -128 -128 -128 -128 -128

I have the ATI Mobility FireGL 5200 graphics card, and the fan/heatsink
FRU is 41V9932 (in case that helps anybody).

Does anybody have any recommendations about what else I could use to
bridge that ≈1 mm gap, or other ways to improve cooling?  I'm already
doing the usual prop-it-up, run without a battery type things, and I've
cleaned everything out underneath the keyboard.

Thanks!
Paul Fisher