New Centrino Software to reduce fan noise and heat

Message

jhonyl · #61 Post by **jhonyl** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 7:55 pm

I also had some problems today with standby, however I tried many other hardware monitoring software today, since I couldn't get to monitor my fan speed, and I wanted to monitor it. So the problem could have been caused by any of these. I restarted the laptop twice. On the second time I managed a sleep with CHC on. So it might be one of the other monitors, or just pure luck.

During my FAN speed seek I found that CHC's Temp tab was disabled, MBM didn't have a ThinkPad motherboard, SpeedFan didn't show me a fan speed, nor did mobilemeter. Anyway, if one of you could tell me why am I not getting FAN speeds reported I'd appreciate that. Thanks.

dvorak · #62 Post by **dvorak** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 10:20 am

In reply to jhonyl:
I think it's luck (:)), I've gotten to standby a few times too, but after some time, again I'm forced to reboot and not start CHC to be able to standby.

doppler wrote:I'm running CHC 1.82 and am experiencing the exact same problem. Not sure how to debug it, but it is certainly annoying, but I really like what CHC brings to the machine. Just wanted to add another data point to the issue. Perhaps we should contact the author. Oh, I'm using a T42 1.8, I upgraded the BIOS and all the drivers to try to get away from this problem, no joy.

Same here, even with the newest version.

I haven't had the chance to write to the author although it has been on my agenda for weeks :P If you could, contact the author, see what he says.
Definitely report back! :)

dvorak · #63 Post by **dvorak** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 12:16 pm

Just noticed this on the FAQ

Mobilmeter and Centrino Hardware Control -> Standby Problem!
Mobilmeter and Centrino Hardware Control read the CPU temperature from ACPI. If Mobilmeter and CHC are used at the same time the System can't go to Standby because the system thinks that the ACPI driver is locked. To prevent this problem disable the CPU temperature reading in Mobilmeter.

I'm trying to find a work-around, I prefer Mobile Meter's graphs to CHC.

+ There's a 1.9 Beta available :)

nikemen · #64 Post by **nikemen** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 12:28 pm

man, I would pay BIG MONEY to get the fan controll enabled,

DAMB FAN!!!!!!!!!!!

dvorak · #65 Post by **dvorak** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 1:04 pm

BTW CHC seems to work nicely now that I disabled Mobile Meter's CPU Temp checking and using the CHC's.

nikemen wrote:man, I would pay BIG MONEY to get the fan controll enabled,

DAMB FAN!!!!!!!!!!!

Is it even possible to control the fan through software on a Thinkpad?

Navck · #66 Post by **Navck** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 3:27 pm

Argh, how do I turn off the temperature monitoring in CHC

dvorak · #67 Post by **dvorak** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 3:52 pm

Navck wrote:Argh, how do I turn off the temperature monitoring in CHC

Open it, then under the "Temp" menu there's the option, if you don't want it to appear on the traybar, just untick the option under "Settings".
(If you've disabled it under "Temp" and still enabled the displaying on traybar it'll present you with its white-emoticon instead of the temperature.)

Disabling temp-monitoring in CHC and still enabling it in Mobile Meter doesn't seem to work, correct me if I'm wrong :)

Navck · #68 Post by **Navck** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 4:32 pm

I know, disabling that monitoring thing doesn't help. I rather like the graph option on Mobilemeter.

doppler · #69 Post by **doppler** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 3:56 pm

Well throwing my 2-cents in. I removed mobilemeter, and CHC works fine, I'm using the 1.9b01 right now. Seems to work well, I have set my Voltages on my 1.8ghz machine too;

6x 0.700V
8x 0.732V
10x 0.796V
12x 0.876V
14x 0.956V
16x 1.036V
18x 1.132V

These voltages seem to be rock solid, with at least 10 minutes of prime 95 (I know I should do some much longer testing)... the similarity of these voltages is that one drop lower causes prime95 to error right away.

I haven't played with the ATI clock, but when on battery it says I can't change it, something called "powerplay" is running?????

Andrew

Torque · #70 Post by **Torque** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 5:18 pm

doppler wrote:Well throwing my 2-cents in. I removed mobilemeter, and CHC works fine, I'm using the 1.9b01 right now. Seems to work well, I have set my Voltages on my 1.8ghz machine too;

6x 0.700V
8x 0.732V
10x 0.796V
12x 0.876V
14x 0.956V
16x 1.036V
18x 1.132V

These voltages seem to be rock solid, with at least 10 minutes of prime 95 (I know I should do some much longer testing)... the similarity of these voltages is that one drop lower causes prime95 to error right away.

I haven't played with the ATI clock, but when on battery it says I can't change it, something called "powerplay" is running?????

Andrew

POWERPLAY is ATI's own underclocking solution. It lowers the clock frequensies of the GPU when on battery to save power

JHaislet · #71 Post by **JHaislet** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 6:17 pm

This might be a dumb question, but can ATI's PowerPlay work when on AC power? For example, when the T43 is docked & I want everything quiet, can I configure PowerPlay to kick in?

dvorak · #72 Post by **dvorak** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 7:14 pm

Torque, no need to remove MM, disabling temperature monitoring and restarting is enough, why give up the wonderful power consumption monitoring? :)

Weird, 1.9b1 gave me an error when it was testing the voltages (even 1 step below default, no such bug with yours?). Had to manually edit the .cfg file.

Is there a need to put every voltage manually, I've understood the missing gaps would be automatically filled? At least it seemed to be so with RMClock (and CPU-Z for 3rd party monitoring).

JHaislet wrote:This might be a dumb question, but can ATI's PowerPlay work when on AC power? For example, when the T43 is docked & I want everything quiet, can I configure PowerPlay to kick in?

Not to my knowledge, you should use other downclocking programs.

jonnnny · #73 Post by **jonnnny** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 12:37 pm

i'm confused as to what to set my cpu volting settings to....
i have a 1.7 banias

like... what do the numbers in the help file of CHC mean?
and are there only 2 numbers i have to change? the 6x and the 17x or should i change the numbers in between as well (i really only see the computer at 600mhz or 1.7ghz... never anything else in between)

sugo · #74 Post by **sugo** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 3:59 pm

The numbers in CHC help are the factory voltages at various clock speed. Ideally you want lowest voltages possible without making the system unstable. Minimum stable voltage increases with clock speed.

eefeft · #75 Post by **eefeft** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 3:14 am

I have a IBM T41, what is the average temperature my CPU should be running at?

Puttagee · #76 Post by **Puttagee** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 6:41 pm

The ambient temperature is 24C and my TP is at 35C. Usually it's about 38C. Under heavy use it get's up to about 42C.

bvaughn · #77 Post by **bvaughn** » Sun Aug 21, 2005 2:28 pm

I'm totally at sea here, since I don't understand anything at all about this topic (voltage, clocking, etc.), but I'm a little anxious because my T42p CPU (Pentium M 745, 1.8 GHz) temperature, per Centrino Hardware Control (ver. 1.9b02), seems very high compared to temperatures reported by many others in this thread. Here are the reported values on the "Status" tab from CHC:

CPU Clock: 1802 MHz (18x)
CPU Load: 100%
CPU Voltage: 1.340V
CPU Speed: Dynamic Switching
Charge Rate: 98%
Life Time: Unavailable
CPU Temp: 80°C
CASE Temp: ...
HD Temp: 39°C
ATI Core: 317.25MHz
ATI Memory: 202.50MHz

The ThinkPad is sitting on a wooden desktop and running on AC power. The fan is running (it never quits). The ambient air temperature around the ThinkPad is unmeasurable, but I'd say it's in the mid-60s Fahrenheit (65°F = 18°C).

I don't know what additional variables to mention, since I have no idea what affects the CPU temperature. Is the number of running processes (now 54) significant? How about the number of running applications (3 instances of IE, plus CHC and 2 instances of CHC Help)?

My T42p has the 15" UXGA FlexView screen, and I keep the display at maximum brightness (while on AC power).

Assuming that my CPU temperature is high enough to cause anxiety and therefore should be reduced promptly, I must ask for a little guidance. What settings in CHC should I change, and what values should I use?

dvorak · #78 Post by **dvorak** » Sun Aug 21, 2005 2:36 pm

That's likely because your CPU load is at 100%, open the Task Manager, sort it by CPU load, and check what's making the CPU sweat.

Normally the machine should idle at 40 degreesC, but I think in your case it's the CPU load, not a fault in the hardware.

bvaughn · #79 Post by **bvaughn** » Sun Aug 21, 2005 4:15 pm

dvorak wrote:That's likely because your CPU load is at 100%, open the Task Manager, sort it by CPU load, and check what's making the CPU sweat.

Normally the machine should idle at 40 degreesC, but I think in your case it's the CPU load, not a fault in the hardware.

Thank you for your reply.

Task Manager reports a file called "br_funcs.exe" with a value of 99 in the CPU column. Do you think that's the culprit? The file is in C:\Program Files\IBM\IBM Rapid Restore Ultra.

EDIT: I killed the "br_func.exe" process, and the CPU temperature immediately dropped. It's now 51°C and (slowly) falling. Thanks, dvorak. Now all I have to do is figure out how to deal with the problem mentioned below.

I've suspected for a while that something's not right with that "Rapid Restore Ultra" function, but I don't know what to do about it. Originally, I could get backups made; but for weeks now, the timed backup never occurs (even though the ThinkPad is on when the pre-set backup time rolls around). If I open the Rapid Restore Ultra application, I immediately see a message: "A backup of your system is now in progress." However, there never is any movement on the progress bar (which should show the percentage of the task completed: it stays at 0%). If I try to "Cancel" the backup, I see a "Canceling backup" message, but nothing further happens. I have to kill the application using Task Manager. (And so I never can get into other parts of the application window.) Do you have any suggestions about how to proceed?

boofoo · #80 Post by **boofoo** » Sun Aug 21, 2005 8:46 pm

There's a problem in one version of RR backups, where the system fails to create new backups after 5 (I think) are already created; there's an entry on the Thinkpad support site about the problem and how to resolve it (basically, you have to clear the old backups before it resets itself and can start running properly again).

br_funcs is the process that runs when a backup happens; I have mine set to run at night, and it chews up all the CPU while it's running, but then closes nicely.

You could also try upgrading to R&R 3.0, which seems to work well.

#81 Post by **GomJabbar** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 12:36 am

boofoo wrote:You could also try upgrading to R&R 3.0, which seems to work well.

The latest version of R&R that I see is 2.04.0182 for the T43p.

dvorak · #82 Post by **dvorak** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 2:06 am

I'm not a big fan of backuping programs that run in the background.

I've never used R&R, does it backup some specific folders? I can't imagine that it copies the whole C:\ to another partition, in my case that would take 17GB, and that's only consisted of installed programs, I keep my data on another partition.

You could try sorting it out with the hints on Lenovo's site.

boofoo · #83 Post by **boofoo** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 1:00 pm

The 3.0 version of R&R is here:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... TVAN-RNRDL

#84 Post by **GomJabbar** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 7:28 pm

boofoo wrote:The 3.0 version of R&R is here:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... TVAN-RNRDL

Sho-enuff! I do see though, that it is part of the Early Adopter Program.

ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery - Early Adopter Program

w0qj · #85 Post by **w0qj** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 9:48 am

Would be nice if they can include a quick description of what's new/changed, either in the web page, or downloadable readme.txt

Currently we have to download the 240 MB file to get the readme file??

#86 Post by **GomJabbar** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 12:31 pm

w0qj wrote:Would be nice if they can include a quick description of what's new/changed, either in the web page, or downloadable readme.txt

Currently we have to download the 240 MB file to get the readme file??

Negative. Readme

fschwep · #87 Post by **fschwep** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 1:49 pm

Great tip. Downloaded the utility, installed it and set my TP42's Dothan to mildly reduced voltage, and to dynamic switching. The ATI utility runs as well, clocking down the ATI card automatically after three minutes of idling. Now while I'm writing this, the CPU runs at 600 MHz and a temperature of 38° C. Whereas my left hand was formerly getting too warm all the time when resting on the edge of the case near the fan, there is virtually no heat output now. It will probably have some effect on battery life as well, but the cooling effect is great in any case.
Recommended.

meeotch · #88 Post by **meeotch** » Wed Nov 02, 2005 9:11 pm

Did anyone who was having the standby problem with CHC manage to fix it? I just installed CHC, spent a while tweaking my setup, then went to close the lid... whammo - ACPI error. I'm tellin' you - if it's not one thing, it's another.

I saw the post higher in the thread about CHC & mobmeter, but I'm not running them both.

mitch

gunston · #89 Post by **gunston** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 9:01 am

is there a good guide to clock down my ATI graphic?
T43, 64ATI Radeon X300, P M 750(1.86GHz)

nolifer · #90 Post by **nolifer** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 10:13 am

Centrino Hardware Control is now Notebook Hardware Control

http://www.pbus-167.com/chc.htm

The latest BETA version is Notebook Hardware Control 1.9 BETA 03 (26.10.2005)

New Centrino Software to reduce fan noise and heat

big money

Re: big money

Centrino Hardware Control

ATI core clock down guide

Who is online