Thinkpads Forum

Just like many people on this forum I was having some issues regarding the noise, generated by my T60 (X1400). Especially in regard to the temperature of the GPU.
First of all you should read my thread in the Windows OS Software section of this forum, regarding the power manager problem. Now this is a real pain in the [censored], however as a side effect it has resolved all the noise issues I had. When looking at the Temperatures in Fancontrol now, my GPU is constantly idleing around 65-70 degrees with the fan rotating at a mere 2800 RPU in BIOS mode. I couldn't get it to rotate that slow before. It seems windows has taken over more of my system than I was aware of. So not only the management of my powerschemes is changed, but also the temperature management. So if anyone wants to try this, just uninstall the Power Manager and see what happenes to your noise.

Regards,
Vincent

filter wrote: First of all you should read my thread in the Windows OS Software section of this forum, regarding the power manager problem.

Do you mean the thread "Power Manager Profiles won't load"? If so, I'm not quite certain what you propose as a solution to the fan noise problem. Do you mean one should uninstall the TP Power Management?

Well, right now my IBM Power Manager does not work. Regardless of what I do. I can't control which profile windows is using via the Powermanager. The built-in powermanagement of windows does work however and I am getting GPU temperatures about 7-10 degrees below the state it was with the Power Manager. So this should tell you something.

By noise, are you talking about this one?
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=26346

No, I think he was referring to the general noise caused by the fan running too high. This is what many T60 users complain about, includng myself.

Well I can just repeat that the temperature and noise levels have changed completely after the IBM PowerManager broke. Windows took it over and its working like a charm. I don't think ill roll back to noise and heat. The GPU is running at about 60 degrees with 2700 to 2800 RPM and AC plugged in. Its even less when on Battery

filter wrote:Well I can just repeat that the temperature and noise levels have changed completely after the IBM PowerManager broke. Windows took it over and its working like a charm. I don't think ill roll back to noise and heat. The GPU is running at about 60 degrees with 2700 to 2800 RPM and AC plugged in. Its even less when on Battery

That's interesting... Can anyone else confirm this?

filter wrote:Well I can just repeat that the temperature and noise levels have changed completely after the IBM PowerManager broke. Windows took it over and its working like a charm. I don't think ill roll back to noise and heat. The GPU is running at about 60 degrees with 2700 to 2800 RPM and AC plugged in. Its even less when on Battery

How about running time on battery? Any change?

I'm not quite sure, since I didn't use it that much on battery before. However I am getting over 4 hours right now.

filter wrote:... the temperature and noise levels have changed completely after the IBM PowerManager broke. Windows took it over and its working like a charm.

I don't think that uninstalling IBM Power Manager and handing over control to Windows is a general solution to the fan noise issue.

The best I can achieve under IBM Power Manager is with the Maximum Perfromance scheme (which is plainly absurd and unsatisfactory):

-- GPU temp. 78 degrees, fan at 3270 rpm.

For comparison I used MSCONFIG to do a Selective Startup with Load Startup Items unchecked and all non-Microsoft services disabled. On reboot the fan is, of course, under Windows control. The result:

-- GPU temp. 71 degress, fan at 3780 rpm.

So, a bit cooler, but noisier fan.

Has anybody else made any comparisons?

Something else I have noticed is that its much (and I mean MUCH) quieter when on AC right now. As soon as I unplug it and go to battery mode its starting to get noisy. At this moment its running at 60 degrees GPU and 2900 RPM fan.

filter wrote:Something else I have noticed is that its much (and I mean MUCH) quieter when on AC right now. As soon as I unplug it and go to battery mode its starting to get noisy. At this moment its running at 60 degrees GPU and 2900 RPM fan.

I have noticed that behaviour on several thinkpads as well. So I took a look in the Power Manager's portion of the Registry and, interestingly enough, the fan level was specified to be higher on DC than AC; values were 2 and 1, respectively. Changed them around and got slightly different behaviour when AC line was connected in the sense that the fan wouldn't shut off, but got reversed.

Christopher:
I think the 1 and 2 do not correspond to the actual fan levels, but to the option set in the energy manager. So there is no way to directly control the fan speed via the registry, since its BIOS controlled anyway.