My Thinkpad T61 has been running hot lately. Really hot. Hot enough that it was uncomfortable to hold in my lap for any considerable amount of time. Hot enough that the left metal hinge could almost burn flesh. I became convinced that my laptop must be plagued by the recently-discovered thermal defect with nvidia's graphics chips, as my T61 uses an nvidia Quadro NVS 140M, which is one of the affected G86 family.

Meanwhile, the right hinge of my screen had become a bit loose, so I removed the bezel to tighten the hinge, and while I was at it, I cleaned the whole inside of the case with a can of air. As I cleaned the heatsink fan, a cloud of dust rose from the machine. Then I blew air in through the copper heatsink fins, at the left-rear of the machine, and another large plume of dust erupted.

After finishing both jobs and rebooting, system temperatures are back in the normal range. My conclusion: the heatsink fins are so small and so close together in this system design that even a small amount of dust accumulation (1 years' worth) significantly interferes with system cooling. Advice of the day: keep those Thinkpads clean!