IBM X31 Laptop PC Running Hot after Fresh Install of XP and HDD Change

[shovenose]

Well, in short, I decided to put in a 60GB hard drive with a fresh install of XP on my laptop, to replace the 32GB SSD I had in there before. Yeah, this might seem counter-intuitive, but I wanted to see if it would be any faster. Anyway, everything seems fine, except that I've noticed the fan is running a lot more than it used to. Even if the CPU has been almost idle the fans kicks in after a few minutes and pumps out very hot air for quite a while.
It might just be my imagination but it didn't used to do this; I think it used to not run as often.
Also, my battery life has decreased by a good 10% it seems like, but since the battery has alwasy been flaky that might just be random.
My theory is that this hard drive creates a lot more heat, and since it's right next to the CPU and heatsink/cooling fan, a higher temperature is detected by the motherboard.

Any ideas on how to make it run cooler besides putting the old drive back in? (All the data and OS is still perfectly intact)...
Thanks!

[c_hegge]

- Make sure that the heat sink is free of dust. I see it A LOT at work
- Replace the heat sink compound on the CPU. Use something half decent like arctic silver 5 that won't dry out after a year.

Those are my only 2 suggestions. If it still runs too hot, then it's just bad design by IBM

[shovenose]

I put AS5 on it and cleaned it when i rebuilt it last (about 3 months i guess)...But I am wondering why it is suddenly doing it, never did it before?

[c_hegge]

Oh. No idea why it would do it suddenly then.

[shovenose]

Oh. No idea why it would do it suddenly then.

Is it a possibility that the additional heat from the mechanical hard drive vs the SSD is making the temperature higher?

[c_hegge]

possibly

[Krzynowek]

Real contents deleted for:



c_hegge

[shovenose]

Haha Thanks c_hegge