Lenovo T420s heatsink and fan disassembly - overheating solution
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- Опубликовано: 21 авг 2024
- Lenovo T420s are known for overheating a lot.
I have top configuration: i7 2640M and nVidia NVS4200M and it easily reach 99+ C.
The best overheating solution is to replace thermal paste under heatsink on CPU and graphic card. In this video, i will show you how to replace thermal paste (how to remove heatsink fan) on Lenovo Thinkpad T420s . With new thermal paste, my laptop now reaches max temp 91C
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Do you have any problems or troubles with your Thinkpad T420s ? Just write in a comment and I will make DIY video for you fixing any problems I could.
Followed your video step for step and sucessfully replaced the thermal compound on my t420s. Even though it is only the i5-2520m it got over 95°C and shut down when under heavy load for a while. Now it does not go past 75°C. Thank you very much!
Here's a Pro Tip: Before you screw the base back on, reconnect everything and boot the computer to check that everything works.
I also did it that way: Even though the disassembly consists of a long list of steps - making the rig run again takes only a few steps backwards from maximum deconstruction. In my case that was also very much needed, as I needed multiple attempts to get the thermal paste done right (so that it really decreased the laptop's temperatures).
I'm not planning to ruin any parts ;). That's why I watch this, before dismantling. Point is maybe more valid if you change something broken. My TP-fan is probably full of dust. My old XPS had like a carpet stuck in front of out-filter
Thanks for creating this video, it was very helpful. I'd like to add: If you've assembled the laptop up to this point, you will want to take the time to disassemble the fan housing, too (e.g. just two very small screws and removal of two stickers): In mine, I found half a polar bear's worth of fluff. With that removed, the fan runs much more freely and meaningfully.
Thanks for sharing this video - I’ve read the manual, but it really helps to watch someone else wrestle with (for example) getting those wires out of the way to remove the keyboard bezel. (The machine I’m working on is a T430s, but the insides are almost identical.)
I watched the video the first time - it was scary in the middle, did not understand.
I watched the video the second time - fainted at the end :)... I do not understand.
Downloaded the Hardware Maintenance Manual from Lenovo. Read. Ah, that's what you did, good man!
Well, I can! And was able!!!
I gave up replacing thermal paste on my T430s just by watching this video
I have the T430s and this does look pretty complicated.
Git gud
weakling
@@rationalityfirst hahahahhaha, these scrubs
Well i am thankful for this video, there are only pretty much only T430 and T420 vids, not the slim models.
For those who have followed this video. if you have problems with keyboard or mouse..... They're two flat ribbon connectors under the keyboard. That have to be put in prefect.... The main ribbon is on the right of the keyboard,,, It is very (ribbon)picky on how it is put in.. If you have problems with either the keyboard or the mouse. Once your system boots up... Please check the connections. I had this problem three times... The instructions are dead on...
i used this guide to replace the thermal compound on my thinkpad t430s and it's +- the same. The only difference with mine was that i had a piece of aluminium foil taped just above the hole where the antenna cables go through to the back of the laptop.
I have no clue what this could be or whether it's added later or not idk. Bought it refurbished
Lil Johny says, get a strong vacuum cleaner and blow the heatsing in and out as strong as possible. some brush hair reaching inside helps to release the the dust as well
I used to be a technician for doing this kind of thing and i can tell you its no fun sometimes... lol especially when you have a laptop like this one that needs the mainboard to come out just to replace the paste... what a disgrace lenovo... not like my old t42. Now i've had my T420s for about 3 years and I guess i'm gon have to get my hands dirty again.
my god, so complex! everything else is all nice and easy, but for something like a fan and heatsink which I imagine would need regular reaching for maintenance...
Thank you, nice video, my worries is to put it back together
weren't they supposed to be easy to maintain? THIS IS A NIGHTMARE
Obviously they want money for repair
My T420s with the nVidia seems fine. I am thinking about replacing my fan soon, but mainly because its starting to get fairly old now. I run my laptop all day and night, usually with F@H running, so the fan is always on the highest speed. Its been maybe 2 years since I opened my laptop to clean it, and put fresh thermal paste on the original fan.
Do remember, the T420s is a powerful but compact laptop. The price to pay is more work to replace a fan, which honestly is still easy to do.
The classic thinkpads are a charm to work on. but since lenovo overtook they pressed towards the ultrabook hype and especially their s-series also called "slimline" compromises on maintainability for a slim device. welcome to the present where maintenance isnt a thing anymore.
damn! i am really handy in things like this, but this is really a nightmare!
Very good! The critical points shown.
Thanks for this-got my new fan installed and running cause of your great video.
Random question I can't find an answer to online: what are the three extra wires from the monitor, (blue, orange and white) for? Is there a small graphics card that can slip in there?
Those are antennas wires for the upgraded wifi card and I believe a 3g/4g cell card.
In the monitor bezel there is the wifi antenna and wwan antenna.
the blue and orange are for the WWAN card
Black, white, and gray is usually for the wifi.
Of course These aren't really a standard but really a general guide that manufactures follow.
I have T420 and suddenly got no audio on it the other day.. instead I got silence through ehadphones, and a weir squeal through the external speakers... basically I seem to have fixed it albeit maybe temporarily, by taking this thing apart as you show, then liftin gup the keyboard (being careful not to dsetach or damage the ribbon that connects that assembly... seemingly, "crud" inside the keyboard assembly causes the issue... the better I clean it, the more consistently I get sound. Now I've lost a few screws and the whole assembly of the laptop feels kinda cheap/ not flush.. but that's better than no freakin' sound. I wonder if that's related.. it did sound.. if that makes sense "sound" like an overheating cpu being broadcast louder.. amplified through the speakers. I think linux by default, at least the debian distro and related like kali, don't do the best job often with cooling The T420 and probably other laptops. There actually are programs for linux made like "thinkfan" is one, I think... meant to control the RPMs but yeah, I guess these are made poorly when it comes to cooling. Oh, also - *my backspace and enter keys stopped working... lol. even in the BIOS and everything so I cant even edit it- o fcourse unless I plug in an external keyboard or whatever. For now, it's the on-screen keyboard in Kali Linux.. yay. So I click to backspace, and lcick to return lmao.. also the up arrow stpoped working months ago ranodmly.
Can you make an assembly video because my laptop works fine but I have extra screws and that worries me
Try using this guide www.ifixit.com/Guide/Lenovo+ThinkPad+T420s+Power+Jack+Replacement/41920
As for me I find it handy to stick the screws in improvised template like piece of paper or cardboard(Look at the screw layout, make the hole in paper, put the screw in), also making a video on smartphone or webcam may help with assembly.
swallow them
Very nice and helpful video. I have one of these laying around. If I find a decent i7 cpu for it I'll probably make a video about the upgrade. It also has the DC connector damaged.
I saw your video and changed the fan. Thank you.
I applied liquid metal on my T420s with i7-2640m, but still runs very very hot
Great video! just finished changing my heatsink/fan thanks to you, cheers!
I think I'm going to try this. My t 420s has been up to 215 degrees Fahrenheit
Hello, i've done this and now wegen There should be black, The Screen ist blinking Green.
Update: I opened it again, cleaned the connector a bit and now it works fine.
incredibly helpful thankyou!
This was very helpful, I really had to renew the thermal paste after 10 years :D. Some steps are not necessary, like removing the modules on the backside, etc., so you could save yourself some time.
Very useful vid, thanks!
The fan is a AVC therfor not a original part. am i right?
great vid. how much did it actually help? you said it now only reaches 91c (i think thats still pretty hot). what did it reach before?
i work in IT and have some laptops to sell. i have some t430s and t420s (as well as 410 and 440s). i want to get a t420s for my friend (she wants the cheapest option that is good). but as i am setting it up for her it was reaching 80c. its now at 49c.
i am not afraid to redo the thermal paste (and clean the fan). i just want to make sure it will actually drop it 10c at least. otherwise i can get her a t430s, but the price will be twice as much (though still pretty cheap).
thanks mate, just put new paste in it not quite the best but it was cheap paste
before 98c
after 89c
both under 100% load for 5 min on ac power
Same problem with my T520. i7-2760QM and nVidia NVS4200M. Even after a repaste I can hit 96c.
I'd say the difficulty level for this disassembly is about mid-hard. I have taken apart quite a few laptops where the process is similar (Sony Vaio, Acer, HP, etc), where you just have to reroute some cables and place daughter boards correctly.
A really stupid HARD laptop to keep track of in disassembly is the Ibook G3 Clamshell. Holy shit... I have no words to describe how difficult is that bitch to take apart (and put back together) :¦(
replaced the optical drive (and actually also banged out the tweaked chassis with a mallet) on a MacBook 10" (aluminum or titanium) from like 2000. Holy mother f'ing F, harder than Chinese arithmetic. you literally had to remove every other component to remove the optical, because they ingeniously put a completely c**k-block retainer ring in the mix that forced you to strip the whole thing down to the chassis just to get at the screw that held the retainer ring captive.
Stay thirsty, comrade.
is it possible to put a drop of some oil or lubricant into the fan?? my fan makes some tiny but very irritating whine noise and i think it could stop it.
If the fan is already making noise, the lubricant is too late. Yes you can do this, yes it is a hack and just a patch really.
I've done this to a desktop (IBM Netvista) and it ran fine for another year or two until I stopped using it. In a laptop, spend the $20 or $30 and buy the new fan. The amount of work to get to it isn't worth being cheap.
T420s without nVidia Fan FRU: 04W0416 or 04W1712
T420s with Vidia Fan FRU: 04W0417 or 04W1713
(I have no idea why they have two part numbers for each fan, the hardware maintenance manual doesn't make any distinction between them)
Try to buy genuine parts, no one has a reason to make a part better than the original, so how can you trust which one will last as long as the original.
I suggest getting one of those screwdrivers with the tips as magnets to deal with those annoying screws
Thank you for posting this video king! You really helped me out! Bless up!
12:26 i can't get the board out. seems to be stuck wehre the fan is located.
any ideas?
followed every screw so far but no luck
I faced a similar issue - and in my case I forgot to remove the plastic dummy, which is put into the ExpressCard 34mm slot.
@@RC-ic1co yeah. I think that was my issue too, all of a sudden a plastic piece fell out. never got behind what it was. a dummy? lol
Did this the other day. Now it runs under load at around 50C.
what was load temp before? 51c, 60c, 90c, 100c? thank for the info. i think i am going to do it either way, but knowing how much it helped, is helpful for others to know.
Thank you for help.
What happened to your magnetic screwdriver?
Could they of made it any more harder and annoying?
Off course they could. They could seal it with resin :)
I'll never buy a Notebook from this company again before looking for the disassembling procedure in advance (if at all).
Well I did it and its not that difficult. Taking it apart and putting it back together only took me around 1 hr. Plus, most of the screws are the same.
hey man I have a T510 and I took it apart to clean the fan and put new thermal paste on the cpu and now it's not working, the power comes on but the fan doesn't run. looks cpu isn't engaging. what do u think I messed up
I know it's an old video but I have a question. Can the fan be removed from the heatsink and replaced without the need for a complete new heatsink assembly?
thanks a lot
Yeah. Not something I'd do personally. I wonder how different this is from a normal t420
+evan water there is a big difference. T420 acces to fan is from top , you just have to disconnect the keyboard and remove the palm rest. On T420s the fan is connected to motherboard from bottom, that is why you need to disassemble the whole motherboard to acces the heatsink.
btw those 2 parts under the laptop yea i have 3 wires on the smaller one and i forgot the order
Thank you so much!
My PC worked the whole morning with its new fan, and now for the third time in a row, probably due to too much heat, it shuts itself down brutally. This creates of course a lot of problems as the files I was working on are mostly lost... Anyone knows what to do?
The first time, it worked for probably 6 hours. Now it shuts down avery rapidly. Could there be some sort of short-circuit?
I have a 2008 T420s and it reaches average temperature of 78-83C. No impact on performance. Worth doing all of this just to cool it down?
I have done all these steps, because I had to change the thermal transport medium, in german it's called "Wärmeleitpaste", and clean the fan, but now runs at idle on 29°C, and with SETI @72°C, so i'm very happy about that.
at what power-profile ?
Mine idles at 50 deg C in Balanced using the BIOS automatic Fan speed of about 4000rpm
when doing modest work it easily reach 60deg and 5000rpm :(
maybe i should replace the Thermal paste or clean the heatsink from dust...
I'm quite sad that this machine is not dead silent like so many other Thinkpads.
Thinkpads are no more what they used to be :(
Shame on IBM for selling it to the Chinese.
Does this work for the t430s? I can't find a video disassembling the t430s that is not sped up and not up close.
Is the processor soldered to the motherboard on the T420s ?!
Tx, do I need to get that paste from any special place, removed old one, apply think layer of new one and then do reverse assembly?
Tx much . Mario
+Mario Ma just as you said :)
Where is the connector for the webcam? It's now showing as a device and it's driving me mad.
can you show how to upgrade the cpu from i7-2620M to i7-2640M
This is not possible as it is soldered. Or in other words; if you want to spend a few grands on a professional BGA resoldering device you should spend that money an a newer laptop anyways.
Aright! thanks for the info.
@@XXXScarabangle you can upgrade the CPU in the T420 without A thought, as it is socketed. But the T420 ist a bit thicker and heavier.
THANK YOU!
has anyone tried this? if so, can they validate if this makes a significant difference? this looks hard AF and don't want to go through the trouble or the possibility of damaging internal components
It depends of how bad your situation is. I did this and the only major difference was that the temperature decreased about 17 degrees and the fan still kept spinning at a high 3650 rpm. (Before 95 After 76)
The high fan speed is due to the broken BIOS (goes hand in hand with the broken physical design). I'm using thinkfan and now my fan only rotates at 1900 Rpm or even stops at idle (at 55°C)
17c difference is a pretty huge difference. i think thats worth it.
I did this and now my screen wont turn on. Everything else works beside the screen. And when I connect to a display port everything seems to be fine. Please Help. I think I might have disconnected something related to the screen. I really don´t want to do this again. Can somebody help?
I'm disconnecting LCD from mainboard at 9:20 and 9:45. You should check those cables again.
YES!!!! Man you just got a new subscriber! It was the cable at 9:45 it wasn´t plugged in properly. Thanks a lot!!!
Tx Biokrb for manual, can anybody point me to link how to do thermal paste job? Is only for CPU?
+Mario Ma I was expecting the same...this video is only the disassembly part :(
it's very easy just clean the old paste with a tissue and some component cleaner and the put some Artic silver 5 paste on and only put a dot of paste in the middle if you put too much it will heat up instead of cooling properly.
at the factory they always put way too much paste on their laptops i've seen it many times... lol
Mine suddenly shutsdown when im using it for more than 5 hours, the Video will be blurred then it shutsdown after 1 minute i will switch on then its okay, really don't know what is the problem why it shuts down
Is a BGA processor less reliable than a PGA one? The only reason I bought a T420 was for the socketed processor, but does it make any difference on longevity?
You can swap it out to a i7, but the cooling will kinda bottleneck there.
is the cpu soldered to the mobo?
Yes
can this type install an mSATA SSD in the Wwan slot?
Hi Can you help me??? Same computer but I can not pull the plug of the heatsink fan out. There is a lock or just pull it back. Many Thanks
There is no lock as i remember correctly
Richard, my touchpad is not working after reassembly. Would you know which connector is not properly attached? Thanks.
Pierre, check around 5:40
Thanks, Gauthier, I will check it later. I am using my reassembled computer right now, working but for the touch pad.
@@pierre10000 You might need to reinstall the drivers
I hope those screws are all the same?
+Mario Ma No, there are M2, M2.5 and M3 screws . (M3x 3mm, M5x 2mm, M5x 5mm, M2.5 x 5mm ) .... more details here: download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/t420s_t420si_hmm_en_0a60241_07.pdf
Congrats :-)
where does a second stick of RAM go?
in your bunghole
blindedby2monkeys 😋
in the first 3 minutes of the vid you can see. its in the same place as the first one. However, on the non-s model there is one with the network card and one under the keyboard.
I cant pit out the keyboard
did this, now i'm fucked cause i can't put it back together haha
+Joel Hoffmeier Where are you stuck exactly? Just do everything vice-versa.
+Richard Gurdely I am doing it step by step, following the video backwards, I think I'll manage ;)
The wires at 06:25, there are 5 of them, and I have no clue which goes where. I can't really tell by the video.
completely irrelevant now, being four years later - but hey - the wires are for the WLAN and WWAN antennas, which run along the sides of the display inside the display casing.
Looks like your gonna want to use long life thermal paste like arctic mx-4 so you won't have to do this again in 3 more years
Sorry Richard, you look like you know your trade but I really do not get it why you stop at the disassembly! It just does not make sense. You had to reassemble what you showed us, why not film it?
Besides that, with so many screws unscrewed, why not suggest in which size pile each screw goes? Makes it easier when you reassemble.
You did a few things on the edge of the area being filmed...
But stopping halfway is really what I do not understand.
wow okay, screw this, time to spend 80 bucks on a technician xD
damn i thougt lenovo has some kind of easy-built system but that is fucking dificult!
+Bastian S. some are easy this one not so much
Oh boy, what a totally fucked up design. If I only knew before I would never have bought this roaring piece of shit :(
The design of Thinkpad slim version T420s is more complicated than T420, that is for sure. And that is why I shoot this How-to video to help you guys out. But sir. the Thinkpad magnesium inner frame is no shit at all. After all this years everything works and are in place, the frame is just perfect. I already disassembled my wife's laptop (Lenovo z580 - all plastic frame) and 2 of the plastic screw holes just broke . Thisis something that can't happen on Thinkpads :)
Off course, the material is excellent. Only what they made of it (aka. design) is horrible. A fan should be a serviceable part. In this notebook a broken fan is almost a total loss unless you can fix it yourself and your time doesn't count.
Paul Sommer on newer models the fan is easier to replace t440p, t440-t460
WORST. LAPTOP. EVER