My refurbished laptop is about 1 month old. It is Lenovo ThinkPad T480s. Recently, the laptop base at the top side will get hot easily. I need to shut down and wait maybe 20 minutes for it to cool down.

May I know how can I solve the overheat problem? I am afraid it will burn the motherboard.

Thank you.

Need to replace the thermal paste. Check the fan and heat exhaust got dust or not

Thermal paste hardened. Need to replace it.

Also, clean the CPU fan too. Thin laptops usually have very thin fan but lousy at thermals and will fail overtime.

look like the shop doesnt do good job in refurbished ur laptop..overheat usually because of the CPU fan got a lot of dust blocking the air circulation and old thermal paste which is crusty. need to do deep cleaning and change the thermalpaste to a better one. hope this help you

I tried to open all the screws at the base of the laptop and unable to take it out, although can turn the screws. Then, I opened the cover to take a look. All the screws have a thin layer thing blocked me unscrew. In this case I cannot clean the fan and apply thermal paste.

Google for the service manual. Latitude and ThinkPad will have those online to download.

What is the those online can download?

Service manual which u can use for DIY servicing or replacement. I have been using those to repair and service my laptop collections.

The problem is I cannot take out the screws. There is a tiny layer locked the screw. I can turn the screws using the screwdriver but cannot took it out.

Go to youtube search your laptop model and watch those video and learn how to open the case.

If you're so inexperience on computer DIY, take to shop and pay money.

Open the casing is the first step, next you need to uninstall the fan, heatsink, correct way to apply thermal paste, you need to watch a lot of videos.

Or take it back to the shop you bought it 2nd hand and ask them to fix it. you pay for the thermal paste.

I assume your refurbished laptop purchased should comes with warranty with the dealer at least one month.

Advise return to the dealer or ask the dealer top-up for you to send to service center for service.

If you're not confident in doing it yourself, I suggest you go to any computer repair shop to get it done for you by the professional.

Replacing or reapplying thermal paste sometimes won't solve the issue if your fan motor spinning is weakening. Get a new fan replacement and reapply new thermal paste for your laptop probably will fix the issue more effectively. Parts are available at Plaza Imbi (DS Notebook, Faith IT, Rascotec or Laptop Depot).

I suggest you to replace the thermal paste, clean the CPU fan from dust and buy a USB laptop vacuum fan, this will help maintain your CPU temperature.

what happens when the fans spins like crazy, but i've already cleaned the fan and heating coils?

Hello, one of the possibilities is to open up the back of the laptop, vacuum away the dust or have a technician or if you know how-to re-apply thermal paste on the laptop heatsink

If you're using Windows 10/11, chance are your laptop could not handle the sheer amount of process running on background.

Windows is never optimized to run on older CPU, you can run but your CPU will be stressed = constantly running over 80% utilization = high power draw = heat

The reason would be,

1. Dusty, like very very dusty. Blew it off with strong blower.
2. Thermal paste, need to wipe it off with alcohol wipe then re-apply new thermal paste
3. Computer ran too many application, this can cause by virus attack where the virus run as an app and start stressing the processor/hard drive, so you need to run virus scan. Else you just open those application one at a time, close it if you're not using them.

This post has been edited by Napalm_man: Dec 16 2022, 04:43 PM