Noisy brand new T43

[Maria]

Hi, I was wondering if somebody knows how can I make my T43 less noisy. Is driving me crazy. In fact I am planning to return it and maybe buy other brand. I cannot use it in public spaces because the fan makes too much noise, is this normal? Is tehre any way I can make it more discrete?
Thanks
MAria

[christopher_wolf]

Welcome to the Thinkpad Forums, Maria

Here is a link to the TP Fan Control Utility Forum;

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewforum.php?f=27

and here is the link to the program on Sourceforge;

https://sourceforge.net/project/showfil ... _id=153962

Using that, you can control the fan in your T43 to varying degrees.

HTH

[leif]

Why lots of people mentioned that the noise of T43's fan is such annoying to them?

Maria, is it very very quiet in the public spaces you mentioned? Maybe you can ask lenovo to make sure that it's something wrong with your machine.

Christ, how about your machine? Do you straight use the fan control program? And, do you think if this program will cause some problem?

[bzzz]

Why lots of people mentioned that the noise of T43's fan is such annoying to them?

just because it's noisy. I work from home. and I dislike this much when it's tonight, tv is off and the fan simple makes impossible to listen to the quiet music.

[lophiomys]

Maria,

I have already asked for this on a similar thread:

Would it possible for you, to produce a high-quality sound recording
of your T43?
And publish it on the web?
I could also offer you to add the recodings on my Thinkpad-noise-related web page:
http://lophiomys.gmxhome.de/Thinkpad_R5 ... Noise.html

Then it would be a undisputable fact, and especially for the producer
one more incentive to build quiet and cool Thinkpads.

You would need a:
good micro
good soundcard (e.g. Audigy)
reference recording of the "silence" in your environment
good speakers
and possibly a lossless audio compression (e.g. Monkey's audio *.ape)

[bzzz]

Maria,
Then it would be a undisputable fact, and especially for the producer
one more incentive to build quiet and cool Thinkpads.

You would need a:
good micro
good soundcard (e.g. Audigy)
reference recording of the "silence" in your environment
good speakers
and possibly a lossless audio compression (e.g. Monkey's audio *.ape)

I don't think it's that easy. you somehow need to get into a very clear and smart agreement about environmental noise, level of recording and level of playing. And even after that it will stay very subjective.

[christopher_wolf]

Yup; you actually need some very sensitive equipment to measure the fan noise and distinguish it from ambient noise from other rotating things inside the Thinkpad. My T43 has been on for an hour now and the fan has yet to come on, it usually goes to level 1 once it does. Right now, I can hear the two HDDs I have in my Thinkpad, but that is about it. I tried measuring the sound level, no go with a standard computer mic; you need low impedence and high gain, I think, and then a filter to even get a good basis to work off of. All I got off the last recoding was quiet and then some background humming that wasn't the fan when it was on. Turning enable spin-down and quiet mode on for both HDDs really takes the noise down (I just did it now, I am suprised...Wow, all the drives stopped; awesome ). My system temperature has stayed at 38 Degrees now and both HDDs are around 24.

[leegaard]

I agree that a recording does not make much sense. The noise of a fan is not that distinct from other noise. Either the level is comparable.

[fullauto]

[censored] it Christopher...how is your machine staying so cool?

My T43 (2668B1U) shoots up past 50 degC even at idle (i.e. NO apps running)

I am using it on a glass table with plenty of ventilation.

Dude, what do you have your house thermostat set to?

Hmmmm....

[sugo]

My system temperature has stayed at 38 Degrees now and both HDDs are around 24.

I wonder, what is the room temperature and the HDD model? Or, were you driving a BMW Z3 on I-5 at night with unlimited ventilation?

[christopher_wolf]

It was early in the morning here, not too chilly as compared to past days; just a tad below 20 Degrees, more lik 18 to 19 degrees. There is some link with the ambient temperature as well as I have noticed. I used it outside on a few occasions, when I needed a jacket due to the temperature, and it was fine.

So...Anybody willing to support me driving down I5 in a Roadster, Z3, SL500, and/or Porsche (I am not picky ) and a trip to the Caribbean for temperature testing of the T43 Thinkpad? Remember, it is for *Science* and a Good Cause.

[bzzz]

[censored] it Christopher...how is your machine staying so cool?

My T43 (2668B1U) shoots up past 50 degC even at idle (i.e. NO apps running)

I am using it on a glass table with plenty of ventilation.

I wonder too.

My root temperature is about 22C. and I couldn't get 2668-4DU lower 42C even with regular fan speed. Needless to say, at level 2 it was making noticable noise. If I use fan control utility, it was blowing at level 1 making less noise (still quite noticable tonight) and CPU was 44-45C warm. In the end I decided I don't need that that power at that noisy cost. I bought T42. Now the fan goes off often; the fan running at level 1 makes less noise than fan at level 1 of T43, most of time CPU is 33-34C warm.

[christopher_wolf]

Right now I am at a comfortable 19 Degrees ambient temperature; I have been on for two hours and the fan came on at the end of the first hour. If you want, I can try and log my temps with the Fan Contol Utility in a passive, monitor mode. That is why I said it depends on room temperature as it seems to have a mind of its own sometimes.I think, however, that I can show you a screenshot movie of the temps, as reported by either NHC or FCU, as staying around 38-39 Degrees. If I knew anything else about what I knowingly/unknowingly did/didn't do that helped/didn't help this, I would post it.

Just a crazy thought; but I noticed that the PCMCIA bay is a major inlet for the fan, it might not be sci-fi to mount a thin dry-ice slab on a PCMCIA chassis/frame and slide it in there with insulation around it. Now *that* would help cooling alot

Hitachi also tried a water-cooled P4 Laptop awhile back; only available in Japan as far as I know and may not be in production any longer.

Full throttle plugged in, it gets hotter; yet it hasn't broken 60 Degrees yet and I am running it on full from day to day. The only thing that I can do to get it to go above 60 is BOINC (SETI, Folding@Home) and Prime95 all running at the same time in the background.

[lophiomys]

I dont see, why it should be so difficult to record the sound of a Thinkpad.

If its mixing in with ambient noise, you wont hear it, everything fine then.
If its slightly too noisy by design,
or noisy caused by a technical fault
you will hear it.

For this purpose it doesnt need to bee a studio quality/ultra silent room recording. E.g. an external micro from an old Sony Professional Walkman and a good PC soundcard would be sufficient.

The benefit would be, that the facts would be on the table and undisputable.

[dr_st]

The benefit would be, that the facts would be on the table and undisputable.

There's no point. The noise issue is present on some T43 units, but not on all of them. Just like some Intel Prescott CPUs got really hot and others didn't. Overall, it's a problem that exists to some extent but in no way is universal. Either you're lucky or you're not.

[sugo]

more lik 18 to 19 degrees.

That explains it. At that temperature even a Prescott will run fine without a fan

My room temperature is 25'C. My cpu/hdd is at 40'C/30'C.