Do Thermal Pads Cool the Hot Second SSD in a LOQ?

A thermal pad can lower the temperature of a hot second SSD in a Lenovo LOQ, and the Thermalright Odyssey is a sensible one to try, but only when there is a gap between the drive and the bottom cover that the pad can bridge. If the drive is sitting under a bare metal or plastic shell with no contact, a pad is the cheapest fix. If the real cause is that the slot sits next to the hot parts, a pad will take the edge off and not remove the difference.

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No independent lab has published measurements of the Odyssey pad on a LOQ’s second slot. What follows rests on the pad’s published specification, on how the LOQ’s slots are described by reviewers, and on general owner reports, and it says where those run out.

Why the second slot runs hotter

Reviewers at Laptopmedia describe the second M.2 slot on the LOQ 15 (Gen 10) as limited to PCIe 4.0 x2, which is slower than the primary slot. A slower link does not by itself explain a hotter drive, and nobody has published a test showing why the secondary drive runs warmer. The usual suspects are:

• Position. The second slot is often nearer the battery, VRM or exhaust path than the primary slot, so the drive sits in warmer air with less airflow.
• Drive choice. Many people fill the second slot with a cheaper or higher-capacity drive with a hotter controller than the factory one.
• Cover contact. The primary slot often has a factory pad or shield. A second drive added later has none.
• Fit. Laptopmedia’s 2023 LOQ 16 review reports the standoff for the shorter 2242 drive in one slot is too tall, which can bend a longer 2280 drive. A bent drive loses whatever contact it had.

What the Odyssey pad does

Retailers and the maker list the standard Odyssey at 12.8 W/mK, non-conductive, sold as an 85x45 mm sheet in thicknesses including 1.0 mm and 2.0 mm. It is not pre-cut for M.2. Cowcotland notes that the pads do not come in 2280-shaped cutouts, and buyers cut them with a scalpel.

That makes the pad a conductor between the drive’s flat surface and whatever is above it. It does not create airflow. The gain depends on what the other side of the pad touches: a metal plate or heatsink spreads the heat, while a thin plastic cover mostly does not.

For scale, Tom’s Hardware reported that Gigabyte’s pressurized pads lowered desktop M.2 temperatures by up to 12 C. That is a vendor claim about motherboard heatsinks, not a laptop figure, so treat it as a ceiling on what contact cooling can do.

Thickness: the decision that goes wrong

Too thin and it touches nothing. Too thick and it presses the drive upward and can bend it or lift the cover, which is worse than no pad. Before buying, check the gap with a strip of paper or a soft modelling clay press, then pick the thickness that is slightly compressible.

When a pad will not be enough

• Throttling at idle points to a drive or firmware issue, not a missing pad.
• Both drives hot points to a chassis airflow problem. Clear the vents and check the fan profile first.
• Double-sided drives. High-capacity drives with chips on both faces need contact on the underside too, which is usually not possible.

If a drive is hot even with a good pad, the realistic remedy is swapping to a cooler-running drive, or moving the hot one to the primary slot. Heatsink-equipped desktop SSDs such as the WD_BLACK SN850X with heatsink are the wrong buy here: the fins add height the bay probably cannot spare.

Safe way to try it

1. Note the drive temperature at idle and under a sustained copy, using the drive’s own utility or HWiNFO.
2. Power off, unplug, disconnect the battery connector if the service manual says so.
3. Cut the pad to the drive’s controller and NAND area, not the connector.
4. Refit the cover and repeat the same copy test.

If the number does not drop, remove the pad; it leaves no residue to speak of. A pad that changes nothing was bridging no gap. This cannot be settled without trying it on your own unit, because the gap varies by LOQ generation.

For related fit questions on another Lenovo gaming laptop, see IdeaPad Gaming 3 15ARH7 SSD: Is the WD Blue SN580 Right?.

The verdict

Try the Odyssey in the thickness that fits your measured gap. It is cheap, reversible and the right first step. The Odyssey II is a reasonable substitute if it is the one in stock, not a reason to wait. Skip heatsinked desktop drives for this job.