I just realized why the recents versions where not running correctly on my machine : NHC was running in the same time. I switched it off, and now everything is OK.

Sorry for my useless questions.

Have a nice trip troubadix! I'm new to the forum here and have read the the whole story of your software development. Until today I've used the original software from sourceforge (1.18 ).

I've seen, that you have got the latest stable version linked to your signature. Would it also be possible to link the latest stable source code version there? I would like to take a look at it, perhaps I could help to improve it a little bit by finding some nasty bugs or something like that?

Best regards

KingTutt

I know I'm a loser for making my first post be a help request, but here I am. Disclaimer - I fully understood the risks of installing this before I did!

I have an R40 with XP SP2. I've upgraded the WiFi from 802.11b and put in a bigger hard drive. I thought my fan was going (no real reason to think that, just a hunch), so I started searching for fan control programs.

Smart mode and Manual mode work great, but when I try to put the control back in the hand of the BIOS, I get lots of beeps and the software crashes.

My question - is there a way to force the BIOS to take control of the fan again without going through the software? I read the warnings, so I know it's my fault if there's no way to do it! It seems like the fan is running at times even with the software disabled, but I can't tell. My laptop has always run very cool.

Works great on R61i. I can finally get rid of the noise in WinXP (I hate Vista ).

I can't believe how primitive these fans are btw. Instead of having one constantly turning on and off at ~3000 RPM, why not have it run at all the time ~1000RPM?

Good question. The fan on my X61 Tablet has started making a rhythmic bumping noise when it spins up - i wonder if it's not designed to be constantly switched on and off? To prevent further damage I lowered the temperature threshold so the fan never turns off.

If that's a mechanical sound, you could have a bearing going bad, or some sort of obstruction in the fan (brought in thru the inlet perhaps) that is causing the sound. Pull the keyboard and take a look. Use canned air (holding the fan so it does not spin) or even a vacuum brush at low setting might help.

So I think I use TpFanControl in a way that's completely backwards to how most you guys do. I took a peak at the source code and I'm not sure exactly how to modify it for this, so here goes. I actually really like the way the BIOS controls the fan on my T61P. I think it's quiet and fairly intelligent. What I don't like is how it never ever spins the fan faster then 3000 rpm. So my use of the program has been along the lines of (from the ini file):

10 0
20 128
45 128
65 7
75 64

This way the BIOS is in control under all normal circumstances. If I game or do video processing and the laptop heats up then the fans will actually spin like they should to keep the laptop cooler.

The way the loop is written for bringing down fan speed it doesn't like having the 128 in there early. It wants the speeds to be in numerical order. As a result the feature of having the temperature reach the previous level before switching doesn't work. Instead what happens when cooling down is as soon as the temps hit 64 degrees the fan speed changes. The same is also true of the speed setting 64. Even when I use a normal ini file with all the speed settings in order and 64 being the last one it never stays at speed 64 until it reaches the previous level. I don't have any real problem with the way it's working right now but it does make for an oscillation in the fan speed when I'm around those levels. Around 65 degrees the fan speed will bounce back and forth between level 7 and bios controller and around 75 degrees it bounce back and forth between level's 7 and 64.

Is there any way to resolve this? Again, not a big deal to me so don't spend too much time on it if it's not necessary. The only thing I could think of with the way it's coded now is a lookup table where you could assign different levels different speed settings so you could keep the numerical ordering.

Oh Hi, thank you for making such a wonderful software. it's very helpful indeed, especially for T43.

HI ALL!

I'm fairly new here but have quickly become a forum fanatic and fan freak. Thanks for all the great info and a sweet tool. Props to Shimodax and troubadix for tpfancontrol!!!

I went through some fan and Mobo issues and have ended up with a hot CPU due to a fan that cannot speed up. I'm wondering whether there is an easy way to determine whether this is due to a bad embedded fan controller or the fan itself.

When I Manually set the fan speed to anything from 1-7 and tpfanconrol says "Result: OK" is it actually verifying the fan control registers or just sending the signal to set them?

The CPU temp idles around 55 after startup and ramps up to 70 under light usage. I opened up Picasa (Google's picture software) and fuggetaboutit! Temp shot up to 90 in about 2 seconds. Trying to control the Fan Speed with tpfancontrol utility produces no results. I can just turn the fan off (0) and on (1-7) where 1-7 should be different speeds. The log will show "Manual: Set fan control to 0x07, Result: OK" but there is no actual change in the sound/feel of the fan. It just runs (or rather crawls) forever at one single speed.

hi all,

i'm running tp fancontrol ver. 0.41 on T43 model 2668-W4P and everything works as it should as far as I run ms word (xp ver.) and endnote 8.02. then fancontrol has big (maybe huge) delays in responses. when the program window is opened and I want to close it, instead of minimizing to tray as usual, program fails and service stops.

I know that both ms word and endnote are really big "eaters" of performance but i need to use them because endnote is scientific citation manager which works only with ms word. And it's really time saving tool when writing science papers. Also i think that reporting temperatures is kinda weird (big jumps - e. g. for 4-5 degrees mainly while reporting CPU temp.), but it may be just result of slow responsivness.

it seems like that most system resources go to those aplications while omitting fancontrol. other services run correctly i think.

any suggestions? would be grateful for solving this.

btk

@mejdlos: use fancontrol.exe as non_service application, go to task manager [Ctrl Alt Del], choose running processes, right mouse click on fancontrol.exe, increase priority to real time.

Ciao, troubadix

edit 03.19.2008: Today I introduced a new parameter in fancontrol.ini: ProcessPriority=2 (0-5, normal=2), this way you can control process system priority even in service version:

http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/tpfc_v042.zip (just beta)

thanks very much. hopefully this will help also to somebody else

Hi troubadix !

You still there and keep this nice software alive. Thanks for your support. I'am gonna test the new one soon...

Hi troubadix / users of tpfancontrol,

I have a T61 and I love this tool! Since the fan is almost always running once you charge the battery it really helps to ged rid of the noise.

The tool and the options are great BUT I'd like to adjust the speed by myself. At the moment on "state 1" the fan blows with about 3000RPM in my configuration starting at 60Degrees.

Well, I would prefer if the fan would always run / start at lets say 50 Degrees but only with about 1500 to 2000 RPM. To me this would be great because 1500 to 2000 RPM makes almost no noise and the T61 does not get so warm which prevents it from higher RPM's and Noise.

What do you think about that? Would it be possible to programm tpfancontrol with this?? The question is how to decrease the RPM's at state 1?

For example: On my HP nc6910p the fan runs almost always, but so slow that you cannot hear it and the notebook stays cool which prevents it from producing to much noise. I'd love my T61 would be as silent as the nc6910p

@RPF: sorry, but fan levels and rpms are fixed the embedded controller firmware. Some guys here tried to deal with that, but not so luckily:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=20958

@Pascal_TTH: ...waiting most curiously for your results as you are known as an experienced TPFanControl tester

ciao, troubadix

Oh, I see...that's sad...would have been great and a powerful improvement.
I really don't understand why all or most Notebook vendors have such huge problems with fan noise, I think they do not spend time on thinking about that and their customer needs.....very bad. Apart from great products they produce, Lenovo should be more customer driven and implement such things in their "ThinkCenter".

But, thanks to such great tools like tpfancotrol this really annoying behavior can be partially mitigated.

Thanks for that

Hello Guys,

I was thinking to a simple HW solution to reduce the minimum RPM speed. Does anybody is interested to this?

Please can somebody write a comparison table with the RPM and levels (Eg. Level1=3000RPM, Lever2:....)

I try to work on It...

I can see that RPM levels can't be set through the software. It would be kind of nice to have the ability to "remap" the levels however so you can have out of order fan speeds.

Example:

Colume 1 is tpfan control Level Colume 2 is EC Level
1 128
2 128
3 128
4 6
5 7
6 64
7 64

This way the program would work properly for how I like to use it, where the BIOS is in control until the laptop gets really hot and then the program takes over and bumps the fan speeds up higher then the BIOS will.

And at the other end of the spectrum are those of us who would like to run the fan at, say, 1000 rpm @ level1 (rather than the 'factory' 3000 rpm). I look forward to seeing what you figure out, GPR! Keep us posted.

Well.. I have a simple question for you/everybody...

Has really sense to reduce the fan to a noise-less RPM and force it to run continuosly?

The answer should be yes if a const RPM should keep the temp under the next level for the general purpose use.. (office word processing, internet......) What's your Opinion about??

Assuming you say Yes, the simplest HW possibility I see is to reduce the fan speed in a linear mode.. so if level1=3000 and level7=4000 you can understand that, if I fix the Level1=2000 the level7=3000!!

I see 2 problems on this solution:

1. If to reduce the FAN speed is so easy.. why does anybody do that before? As troubadix said me.. there is a reaction control over the tachometer wire.. so it's possible to have an EC fan error.. If this happens ---> GAME OVER!!

2. If I solve the .1, this HW solution should disengaged itself when the Fan temp reaches 65/70 degree... I do not want a bug process fries me the CPU.. so It's safe to give back the original capabilities to the Fan.

A good electronic Engineer (and not one like me..) should easely project a smart interface to do that... But there is not enought space.. and a complex circuit needs to be made in SMD components.. not easy to self made...

So I'll try to work over a simple solution...

If you do not hear any news about me.. is because a f@cking process fried my TP while testing my interface!!

Stay tuned.. cu, bye

If I understand you correctly, the sense (for me) of running the fan at a low speed continuously is to combat a 'pulsing' fan, that is, a fan that constantly switches on/off at a preset threshold. A constant quiet noise is more tolerable than a sporadic harsh noise. Where I work in Solomon Islands the ambient temperature is quite hot and anything I can do to keep my computer temperature down (and the fan not on/off-ing all the time) is welcome. I hope that makes sense!

PS I hope you don't fry your computer!

Hi!

as there are no reported issues til now I put version 0.42 to the link in my signature. v0.41 is still available at:
http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/tpfc_v041.zip

Ciao, troubadix

Hi All,
I measured the FAN Voltage supply connected the speed levels.
This is the 1st step to modify the Fan speed.
I made this analysis on a T40, so my levels should differ from T60's.
So, levels may differ as differs the RPM speeds related to a Thnkpad model, but all models uses the same FAN, so the specifications are the same (Vin max= 5V).

LEVELS . . . Vin . . . Vtach
Level_1-2 [3.65 V] [1.86 V]
Level_3-5 [4.11 V] [1.95 V]
Level_6-7 [4.48 V] [2.04 V]
level_64_ [5.01 V] [2.35 V]

You can notice that T40 has four active levels only (64 is the disengaged).

The fan PINOUT is with the central wire (BLU) as Ground, the Red is the Vin and the Orange is the Vtach.

I think the easiest way to solve the noise at level 1 is to reduce a little the Vin supply. (A little means sone hundred of RPM..)
Easy to make, really cheap and not too much dangerous for the system, because the fan loses few RPM only.

This solution is to be verified if it's possible, because there is a reaction back of the Vtach and the CE should rise an error.
This because the Vtach changes when the Vin changes.

When I have the time to disassembly my T40 again I'll try this easy solution, inserting a diode in the supply line.

Stay Tuned!

Bye
-=GiP=-

Hi everybody..
finally.. I made it! I modified the FAN power Supply over my T40!

The solution used is the simpliest possible.. I introduced in the Vin line (the RED wire) a simply DIODE... and.. it works!! No CE error or other problems found.

I used a Diode type 1N4007, really common. But if you need a 20% efficiency more, you can use a Diode type 1N4148.

The 1N4007 reduces the FAN power supply by 0.8V (1.1V if you uses the 1N4148 diode). It seems too much, but...

..You should consider that the FAN Controller Embedded (CE) comphensate this modification (because of the reading back the Vtach) and inreases the Fan supply around +0.3V/+0.4V more (see the table in my previous Post).
So, inserting a Diode you can effectively reduce the Vin about 0.4V (0.6V is you use a 1N4148 diode).

Here attached an image that shows how to make it. (to see it you should have the http:8080 port opened. If you cannot see it, write here your email and I'll send to you).



Now the Level1 RPM is really noiseless!


I wait for your comments....

Enjoy

hi,

finaly, I got the the writing another paper and having chance to test your advise with process priority and a new version of fancontrol. Unfortunaly, I have to say that it does not work. Ms Word and Endnote still cause non-responding fancontrol even if the priority is set to realtime. It works until I enter some citations from endnote to word, then, the problem occurs.

another issue: from time to time, my computer experience some kind of serious error which is expressed by terribly slow function of harddrive or some bus. all other functions are affected: terribly slow hibernation, shutting down, loading the system, copping via usb ports etc. the only thing that helps is system restore, then computer works well but gradually slows down (but not terribly) through the time and finaly this bug occurs. I tried to look to event log but nothing obvious was there. But after the system restore, the only changes are in kernel system folder.

could this be linked to fancontrol? do you have any idea what's going on? some advice? would be gratefull for help. second issue is more important.

thanks

Lukas

Hi,

I never made this experience with TPFanControl nor heard of it before, but:

if your computer slows down in reaction, go to taskmanager (Ctrl-Alt-Del in XP, right click on taskbar in Vista) go to processes and sort them by cpu usage by clicking on top the column. This way you can find out what kind of process is eating the resources. Wonder what it is

Ciao, troubadix

Hi,

regarding processes, the only process eating resources is winword.exe. if the MSword is running without the endnote there is no problem - cpu usage virtually zero. If they run together - no problem until a insert citations from endnote to the word - then, cpu usage 99 % almost all the time (including cpu temperature constantly around 70°C even with fan under the bios control). Looks like maintaining the connection between those programs needs a lot of resources. question is why other programs take priority over the word (if switched between them) without any problems and TPfancontol not even if set to realtime?

If I could I would get rid of those two programs, but endnote is really useful.

thanks

Lukas

Hi,

I guess this is not an issue of TPFanControl, it's only linked to the matter that TPFanControl is using WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW :



I compiled a special version for you with ordinary window to check, just unzip and replace old fancontrol.exe in C:/tpfancontrol by new one.

http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~schmit ... ejdlos.zip

I guess it's an issue of endnote, but I know nothing but the name about it.

Ciao, troubadix

Hi,

thank you for your effort but this solution does not work as well. still delays, even if priority to realtime, chrashing while hitting closing the program window etc.

But, i don't want to bother you since I'm the only one who has this problem. I did a little research and there are some (even if just only two) other citation managers probably capable to replace the endnote. I don't know them well, probably will be worse (since they are free) but It pisses me off to have a such a badly written software (and don't talk of its selling price) eating everything it can.

I hope that your effort with process priority and ordinary toolwindow will be usefull for other users in different problems.

thanks again

Lukas

Your work is very interesting. I'd like share some experience with you.

I have an X60, which also has a noisy fan. I ever planed to modify the hardware since the maker would not provide the EC fix (I bet it is NOT so difficult). First, I measured the voltage applied to the fan by oscilloscope. No surprise, I saw a PWM waveform. The average voltage might be the same as what you have measured. I know there should be some feedback to control the rpm, so I guess that simply inserting a resister or diode would not reduce the rpm effectively. Now I am quite surprised you can reduce the rpm that way. I have not done any experiments because I have to use that X60 all the time. I am just wondering...

1. After you insert the diode, what is the real rpm? What about the system reading, is it the same as before?

2. Have you ever tried to eliminate the "pulsing noise"?

Thanks!