Bloody cpu fan, worst thing. Speed below 2700rpm?

[mahdi0]

I find the laptop almost unusable in a silent environment. Most new laptops are fairly quiet, and most are silent-ish like another cheap i3 lenovo I've got. I don't know what those HP dudes were smoking, but have any of y'all got the fan under 2700rpm? Seems to be off or low speed at initial boot up, then BAM, the fan goes to max or something.

Some initial reviews suggested this laptop is quiet, so maybe not everyone has the same coolers. I have a 2350m i3 F.20 bios. temps in 40s, loud in win7 also.

 

[RehabMan]

I find the laptop almost unusable in a silent environment. Most new laptops are fairly quiet, and most are silent-ish like another cheap i3 lenovo I've got. I don't know what those HP dudes were smoking, but have any of y'all got the fan under 2700rpm? Seems to be off or low speed at initial boot up, then BAM, the fan goes to max or something.

Some initial reviews suggested this laptop is quiet, so maybe not everyone has the same coolers. I have a 2350m i3 F.20 bios. temps in 40s, loud in win7 also.

The fan is either off or at about 2600-2700 RPM. It is evidently controlled in hardware. There is a setting in the EC, but the 2700 RPM is the lowest. I'm almost considering using a resistor to control voltage to the fan to slow it down. Something I might do if I ever upgrade the CPU or have the unit apart for some other reason. Right now, it is still under warranty, so I don't think I'll be doing that anytime soon.

And yeah, HP is being pretty dumb about loud fans...

 

[mahdi0]

check out this thread here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...ays-help-dsdt-editing-nhc-acpi-module-17.html

this program: http://www.staff.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/donate.html
(scroll to bottom)

seems what can be changed is the fan on/off threshold. for example if you can set it to turn on at 60C instead of 40C. (windows only)

but what would be better is to have the fan run at lower speeds all the time, like 1000rpm, and then maybe 2000rpm when things are heavy.

i'm tempted to try the resistor mod you suggested, too. is it also possible replace the fan? i have a load of resistors from old school days, what is a good value?

 

[RehabMan]

check out this thread here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...ays-help-dsdt-editing-nhc-acpi-module-17.html

this program: http://www.staff.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/donate.html
(scroll to bottom)

seems what can be changed is the fan on/off threshold. for example if you can set it to turn on at 60C instead of 40C. (windows only)

but what would be better is to have the fan run at lower speeds all the time, like 1000rpm, and then maybe 2000rpm when things are heavy.

i'm tempted to try the resistor mod you suggested, too. is it also possible replace the fan? i have a load of resistors from old school days, what is a good value?

I think we are already doing something similar with HWMonitor and the DSDT edits for the fan. I have to admit, I don't really understand it all. But that is why you might notice your fan drops to a lower rate (or off) as soon as you run HWMonitor. I have HWMonitor in my logon items.

I've tried the hpfancontrol (on Windows) and it did strange things on my laptop. Sometimes it would lose the ability to see the actual CPU temp. This could cause the CPU to overheat if pushed hard. Too bad it is not open source... perhaps it could be fixed.

As far as the resistor thing, it will be hard to get a good answer. Even my "electronics minded" friends can't give me a good answer to questions like "How much resistance to reduce fan speed by half." And I'm a software guy, not really a hardware guy. I can put computers together, but I don't really have a grasp on DC circuitry. I would probably experiment until I came up with something workable (done that before with way-too-bright LEDs). Also from experience playing with fans on desktop machines, it is possible to reduce the voltage so much that the fan fails to start (it will stay going once moving, but not be able to start itself). I think that is why BIOSes tend to fire up fans full blast at system startup...

At this point, the fan doesn't bother me so much as to force me to take the entire laptop apart...

 

[mahdi0]

Yeah, I'm gonna see about the possibility of replacing the fan. About the resistors, I think they would need be 1/2 watt or better because regular 1/4 watt resistors aren't good for these things from what I see on google. I probably won't try it, but man it would be nice to have a silent system.

 

[RehabMan]

Yeah, I'm gonna see about the possibility of replacing the fan. About the resistors, I think they would need be 1/2 watt or better because regular 1/4 watt resistors aren't good for these things from what I see on google. I probably won't try it, but man it would be nice to have a silent system.

I think resistors are measured in ohms. Replacing the fan would be a good project provided it is not too specialized...

 

[mahdi0]

sorry, i meant the power rating for the resistor. like a low rated one may not handle the power it dissipates maybe. regarding fan replacement, it may be difficult to find a compatible one that is known to be quiet. i'll see what i can google later ...

 

[mahdi0]

yo, this HPFC app on windows is awesome. the fan is off with browsing and for half of a movie (h.264) i was watching, switching between off and 2700rpm. it's pretty hot where i'm at too, so for light usage the fan doesn't need to come on. same can be done in osx now?