The playstation guy specifically states in one of his videos that the penny trick is stupid.
Extra pressure doesn't help and most likely hurts.

myne wrote on 2025-07-15, 05:37:

The playstation guy specifically states in one of his videos that the penny trick is stupid.
Extra pressure doesn't help and most likely hurts.

The heatsink was not making full contact with the chip itself, Only 3/4 of the chip was covered, in this case, it helped. I haven't used a penny but an aluminum washer since it was glued to an aluminum part anyway.

Archer57 wrote on 2025-07-15, 05:32:

Did you use glue which can handle up to 100C? It may fall off otherwise... Also should be really careful with this - pretty easy […]
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Vany wrote on 2025-07-15, 05:17:

I went with "Solution C" and modified the heatsink by gluing a single 1mm washer on top of it so that the keyboard keeps it squeezed down.

Did you use glue which can handle up to 100C? It may fall off otherwise...
Also should be really careful with this - pretty easy to break the die if you apply uneven pressure. I'd be pretty hesitant to keep it "squeezed" by keyboard just in case i type on it with a bit too much force...

Vany wrote on 2025-07-15, 05:17:

Now that I've confirmed though that the Radeon chip in the T500 is good, I'll do some stress testing.

Be careful with this. I am not sure it is a good idea to torture old chip with stress tests. If it's working i'd just use it normally and hope it lasts, no reason to basically do accelerated aging/wear on purpose...

I don't believe the Mobile 3650 can reach such temperatures, it is a mid range chip, but if the glue fails, the keyboard will hold it down. Initially I tried with two washers but there was an obvious bump when I started tightening the screws, so I removed one and just kept the one. There is no curve on the keyboard now, don't worry the chip still works 😀

Regarding the stress testing, there won't be any overclock, I plan to only use the laptop as it normally would be used so I'll test video encoding, 3dmark, some actual era-specific games for that chip and such and that is it really. Either way it is a mid-range chip from 2008... if it can at least show me how it behaves after I've done the bare minimum to ensure that it has factory-cooling, stock airflow and clean heatsinks. Goal is to have it under 70C when it plays a heavy game like Crysis. If it doesn't, I'll see what I can do to modify the cooling further.

TLDR: I want to give it the best possible chance at surviving normal workload under "normal" conditions.

Vany wrote on 2025-07-15, 05:51:

I don't believe the Mobile 3650 can reach such temperatures, it is a mid range chip, but if the glue fails, the keyboard will hold it down. Initially I tried with two washers but there was an obvious bump when I started tightening the screws, so I removed one and just kept the one. There is no curve on the keyboard now, don't worry the chip still works 😀

It can, and probably does, most laptops i've seen bump against 100C or so limit...

Just be careful - it may fall off over time and short something... may be worth getting something automotive just to be safe. I've used gasket sealant for stuff like this before 😀

Vany wrote on 2025-07-15, 05:51:

Regarding the stress testing, there won't be any overclock, I plan to only use the laptop as it normally would be used so I'll test video encoding, 3dmark, some actual era-specific games for that chip and such and that is it really. Either way it is a mid-range chip from 2008... if it can at least show me how it behaves after I've done the bare minimum to ensure that it has factory-cooling, stock airflow and clean heatsinks. Goal is to have it under 70C when it plays a heavy game like Crysis. If it doesn't, I'll see what I can do to modify the cooling further.

TLDR: I want to give it the best possible chance at surviving normal workload under "normal" conditions.

Yeah, that's fine. Some people like to run 3dmark on a loop overnight, or worse - furmark. I personally consider that... questionable idea. Especially furmark - it creates much more load than any real task would and can outright kill chips which do not have power limit yet.

Archer57 wrote on 2025-07-15, 06:12:

It can, and probably does, most laptops i've seen bump against 100C or so limit... […]
Show full quote

Vany wrote on 2025-07-15, 05:51:

I don't believe the Mobile 3650 can reach such temperatures, it is a mid range chip, but if the glue fails, the keyboard will hold it down. Initially I tried with two washers but there was an obvious bump when I started tightening the screws, so I removed one and just kept the one. There is no curve on the keyboard now, don't worry the chip still works 😀

It can, and probably does, most laptops i've seen bump against 100C or so limit...

Just be careful - it may fall off over time and short something... may be worth getting something automotive just to be safe. I've used gasket sealant for stuff like this before 😀

Vany wrote on 2025-07-15, 05:51:

Regarding the stress testing, there won't be any overclock, I plan to only use the laptop as it normally would be used so I'll test video encoding, 3dmark, some actual era-specific games for that chip and such and that is it really. Either way it is a mid-range chip from 2008... if it can at least show me how it behaves after I've done the bare minimum to ensure that it has factory-cooling, stock airflow and clean heatsinks. Goal is to have it under 70C when it plays a heavy game like Crysis. If it doesn't, I'll see what I can do to modify the cooling further.

TLDR: I want to give it the best possible chance at surviving normal workload under "normal" conditions.

Yeah, that's fine. Some people like to run 3dmark on a loop overnight, or worse - furmark. I personally consider that... questionable idea. Especially furmark - it creates much more load than any real task would and can outright kill chips which do not have power limit yet.

The moment the temps become unsatisfactory I'll stop the testing - in this case, gpu above 70C. After that I'll go and mess with the heatsink again, see if I can Frankenstein something to keep the temps low. Sadly the CPU is also one of the hot ones and isn't helping the situation. Original goal was Max 60C but I don't think that is possible without an additional fan... I'll post my results here when I'm done though!

If someone knows what the deal with this laptop is, when I install latest official HD 3650 drivers, laptop restarts, install fails. When I Install latest windows 7 drivers, the laptop bluescreens. When I install random non-latest drivers, it works fine, but those drivers lack the switchable mode. I don't know where to get older switchable drivers 😒 At this point I am not sure if the 3650 is "done" or if the drivers are really that awful.

The T500 is an awful machine, I have to say. It is the hottest laptop that I own, hot to the touch from the bottom so much that I can't even hold it. How did it get so hot? Just the browser was running...

So does the card work with some drivers in some configuration? Because if it does you can probably consider hardware functional. If it does not it may very well be dead.

But yeah, "frustrating experience" is how i'd describe my own interactions with AMD graphics from that time period. AMD drivers are really that awful, especially when switchable graphics are involved. It is frustrating and so bad it is hard to figure out is it still drivers, or if hardware is faulty. That said - do not get stuck on it too much - if nothing works at all it is probably hardware.

Archer57 wrote on 2025-07-18, 02:59:

So does the card work with some drivers in some configuration? Because if it does you can probably consider hardware functional. If it does not it may very well be dead.

But yeah, "frustrating experience" is how i'd describe my own interactions with AMD graphics from that time period. AMD drivers are really that awful, especially when switchable graphics are involved. It is frustrating and so bad it is hard to figure out is it still drivers, or if hardware is faulty. That said - do not get stuck on it too much - if nothing works at all it is probably hardware.

To be honest, the only driver that doesn't crash the system is a driver from 2015 (WTF in itself) that is available from Microsoft's driver catalog and it works under Windows 10. Windows 10 22H2 on a mid-range laptop from 2008 that spins rust is a thing to behold, after taking some calming medication. I decided to go with windows 7, thinking it'll be more compatible but nope. I am still not done with it, I should have more time over the weekend and I'll try some more things.

By the way, this laptop runs so hot that, I am not joking, nearly burned my hand... and I thought the C55A Toshiba with an i5 was a good cooker... I believe the poor radeon didn't even need to be in use, it got cooked raw... Hope I am wrong though.

The fan is working....
Right?

myne wrote on 2025-07-21, 14:41:

The fan is working....
Right?

Of course, 🤣. Single fan cooling 2 gpus and 1 cpu with a single copper pipe. Brilliance of design.

I doubt it was released back in the day as a crotchburner

myne wrote on 2025-07-22, 00:13:

I doubt it was released back in the day as a crotchburner

From what I gather, it depends entirely on the CPU and sadly mine has the P8400 that idles at around 50C. Some suggest either disabling the radeon or the gma to improve the temps. I'll see what I can do and report back.

I was in the process of testing the thing after finally finding all the good drivers that play nice. Everything was set to performance but framecapped at 60 fps. The laptop managed to play ziggurat and flatout 2 without any issues at max resolution, then I tried Crysis. Autodetected medium settings, so went with it. GPU temp reached 120C!!! Then the laptop shut itself down... The images show that the fan is at 30% but that is incorrect, I used ThinkPad Fan Control and set the fan to max.

120 degrees celsius... with Arctic MX4 freshly applied days before, with heatsink tightly pressed against the chip. Sadly I haven't managed to take a picture of this before it shut itself down, but I did manage to take two, one at 108C and another at 112C when I set the game to all low settings.

I mean... who would have even thought that ONE THIN COPPER PIPE would not be enough for a 35W CPU, a Mid-range GPU that uses 35W and an intel integrated gpu that draws 13W...

Well, I have nothing to test with this machine anymore. The 3650 still works after it cooled down and I don't want to cook it, there is barely enough room inside to place another fan but it will still all be cooled by that single copper pipe. I don't know what to do with this laptop now, I wanted to preserve it but it's kinda pointless since it was quite obviously designed to fail. The only reason I think it didn't was because it was used by some seniors before I bought it (Wipe your HDDs before you sell your laptops peeps!) and it was set only to use Intel's GMA 4500. Kudos to Lenovo, but hiring oven/barbecue engineers to do cooling for a laptop isn't the way.

Pics are here https://imgur.com/a/LmcijAk
I recorded 10-15 minutes of the machine in action, might do a yt video later.

Pipe might have leaked.

myne wrote on 2025-07-23, 10:53:

Pipe might have leaked.

Havent found any signs of damage during cleaning, the pipe was just bent slightly upwards where the heatsink for ATI chip is.

Got a stove?
Hold one end, heat the other.
If the heat is nearly instant, it's fine.

Something must be wrong. I mean they do design this cooling systems to run at around 90C under load, but overheat and shutdown? That is unlikely...

Either heatpipe no longer works properly, it does not make a good contact, fan is not spinning as fast as it was designed to or something. May be some parts were replaced at some point...

Archer57 wrote on 2025-07-24, 02:59:

Something must be wrong. I mean they do design this cooling systems to run at around 90C under load, but overheat and shutdown? That is unlikely...

Either heatpipe no longer works properly, it does not make a good contact, fan is not spinning as fast as it was designed to or something. May be some parts were replaced at some point...

Problem is that just the radeon gpu has this problem with overheating. Either way, this might sound dumb and insane but I've decided to create a custom cooling solution for this thing that must fit in the original case. Plan is to cannibalize a low profile gpu's heatsink, and solder a dedicated usb fan directly to one of the usb ports. Whenever I get the parts to do so, I'll post the photos here.

Now that I re-read this, how stupid it all sounds, saving a mid-range laptop from 2008 for no reason at all... hah

I still say it's probably the heat pipe.

Sure, they're sealed, but literally every material is porous to some extent.
It's old. Time kills everything.

Vany wrote on 2025-07-24, 03:35:

Problem is that just the radeon gpu has this problem with overheating. Either way, this might sound dumb and insane but I've decided to create a custom cooling solution for this thing that must fit in the original case. Plan is to cannibalize a low profile gpu's heatsink, and solder a dedicated usb fan directly to one of the usb ports. Whenever I get the parts to do so, I'll post the photos here.

Now that I re-read this, how stupid it all sounds, saving a mid-range laptop from 2008 for no reason at all... hah

Do not underestimate the effectiveness of this heatpipe + fin stack + fast radial fan design. Small as that fin stack is such cooling solution is used everywhere for a reason - when everything works properly it can dissipate a lot of heat.

Do not expect simple heatsink fitted within the same space to be more effective.

Also strange that only GPU has issues. Being connected with a heatpipe temperatures should not be dramatically different. This points towards heat pipe not working properly or contact issues even more.

And it is not stupid at all, as long as it is fun - why not fool around with old hardware?