I had a weird and disturbing shutdown incident on my tablet PC (a Lenovo X61) a week or two ago, which got me many screens of ominous looking text before it finally booted up properly again. Poking at it afterwards, it seemed to be running a bit hot, and it doesn't seem like there's a fan running.
This turns out to be a non-trivial problem. It's my personal machine, and out of warranty, so the folks in ITS can't touch it. And the local computer repair place that was recommended says that 1) Lenovo uses several different types of fans, so they can't say what part they would need without opening it up, and 2) once they know the part they need, it could be a couple of weeks before they can get it, depending on the part, the source, and the phase of the moon.
Given that, I would like to confirm that this really is the problem, and not just me overreacting to some random glitch. It ought to be possible to do some better diagnostic than "I think I remember more air coming from this spot than I'm getting now," but if it's included in the control panels or Lenovo options, they've hidden it well.
I know this can be done, though, so somebody tell me how-- if I need to install some third-party diagnostic thing, what is it and where do I get it? It's a Lenovo ThinkPad X61, running Vista. I'm looking for something to tell me whether the computer is, in fact, in danger of overheating, by some method short of leaving it on all night and seeing if it still runs in the morning.
(If you tell me to get a Mac, or to switch to Unix, I will ban your IP address.)
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Have you tried blowing compressed air through the vents to get rid of as much dust as possible? Could be it is just bunged up with crud. Even if it isn't a complete fix it might allow you to delay repair while you consider your options.
You should be able to look up the part number on lenovo's website.
I had a similar problem with my thinkpad, and as a first step opening it up and making sure that the fan was actually spinning and using a can of air to blow out the dust from around the vent helped a lot. Mind that you don't let air spin the fan or you'll break yours like I broke mine. (That being said, once I replaced the fan/heatsink assembly all of my overheating to shutdown problems when away, but I did break the fan on my first try to fix this.)
Support is sometimes a bit spotty for laptops; but Speedfan is worth a try.
You might also find the Hardware maintenance manual to be of use.
Also, most recent IBM/Lenovo BIOSes are pretty featureful. You might find it useful to take a poke around inside the BIOS, the odds are decent that you'll find fan speed numbers, temperatures, or both.
Speedfan (http://almico.com/speedfan.php) is a useful utility which can monitor your PC temperatures and fan speeds.
hwmonitor (http://cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php) is similar.
Yes, most BSOD's (Blue Screens of Death) are due to hardware failure.
If a cpu fan fails it'll generate BSOD's like crazy.
Lenove X6x Service Manual
Embrace the fact that yes, you can open up your laptop. Enjoy!
Any decent and large manufacturer ought to be able to tell you the EXACT parts in your system, based on your unique serial number of your exact computer, even if the model number may not be enough. (not had any experience with Lenova, but certainly true with Dell and others. You can do this from Dell website, not even need to call them.)
In my view, either your local repair shop was lazy or incompetent not to suggest this OR they knew your manufacturer was lazy or incompetent enough not to keep the parts that went into your computer on computerized record.
Not to threadjack, but have you been generally happy w/ your X61 tablet w/ Vista? I ask because my almost-three-years-old Lenovo 3000 (XP) is starting to have screen flicker issues, and I'm starting to look into a new machine. Any insights that you have about the utility of the tablet and the pain of Vista would be much appreciated.
IF the number of different fans is not extreme a way around this might be to have them order all of them. To motivate the shop to do this and not leave them with a bunch of unneeded fans you simply offer to pay for all of them. But you do so with the understanding that you will pay the normal retail price for the one they install but the wholesale/dealer price for the ones they don't. Most of those fans sell for less than $20 retail and about $5 to $8 wholesale.
The difference is you spend 10$ to $20 more, and end up with a couple of fans you don't need (they are fun to play with) but you get your laptop back sooner.
I had the same problem with my Lenovo T60 laptop. Running hot ... shutdown. Wait a couple of minutes, reboot. Some time later, shutdown again.
Went to a Lenovo Business Partner one morning, and they had it back to me with a new fan by noon the next day. No problems since.
I would walk out briskly and go someplace else. See the Lenovo website.
We had a Dell laptop in the shop last week that was running hot. The heat sink (visible from outside the laptop as a bunch of tiny copper fins choked with dust) was clogged. Our student tech blew air into the intake under the laptop and a huge cloud of dust came out the heat sink. BSODs gone now.
Definitely check the bios - it'll probably tell you how the fan itself is doing.
Aren't you up in New York state, Chad? Just use your computer only outside. It's got to be still chilly out there...!
You might also check to see if you have the most recent BIOS. If the overheating problem is widespread, they'll sometimes issue a new BIOS that adjusts the fan setpoints. Also, do you have an nVidia GPU? There was a huge problem with them overheating/failing (something about the packaging), and most manufacturers issued BIOS updates that turned the fans on sooner.
Ever tried siw? It's a free program that gives all kinds of hardware and software diagnostics on the computer, including fan speed, temps, etc.
Best of all, it is standalone, no installer, just one executable. Don't like it? Just delete it.
http://www.gtopala.com/siw-download.html
Try a util like speedfan as others have mentioned. If a fan has stopped the immediate solution is probably going to be a good cleaning rather then a replacement (the fan bearings are very well sealed). It seems strange that IT folks won't even do you a favor and crack it open to clear out the dust. Did you procure the standard sacrificial offering of beer and pizza? It could use a cleaning if you haven't had it apart to do so already and it has fans. Everything that has fans, and doesn't come apart regularly for cleaning can use a cleaning.
If the BSOD problem doesn't stay gone, take a look at the debugging tools for windows. With a simple change of the boot parameters to enable debug over firewire and a host machine for logging, and to break to debugger when the BSOD hits its a wonderful tool. Oh, and it also lets you take a look at the dumps that the BSOD signifies. For those of you *nix folks think gdb.