Thinkpads Forum

Currently only three Internet Explorer window is open and running on battery.

Will the fan continuously run even when not doing any memory/cpu intensive programs? The fan is audible and as I'm typing, the fan changes its speed every 30 seconds.

X60
512mb
XP Home
Avast Home Antivirus (On-Access Scanner,Virus Recovery Database), Java 2, Thinkpad Battery Manager/Password Manager, Disk Keeper Lite, Wireless OFF, and several Thinkpad utilities running on the background based on the processes.

I have an X60s, but the same things may apply..

I find that when on battery power, it does occasionally turn the fan on; but is so quiet that it's masked out by the sound of the HDD running (and the HDD is one of the quieter 5400rpm drives I've heard).

The overall sound between just the HDD, and HDD+low speed fan is slightly different though.

Both on battery (8 cell) and ac adapter cause the fan to run all day long. If several programs are running, the fan rpm increases.

It could be due to the 7200rpm harddrive and/or the C2D cpu, but man is this really bothersome. I never expected this nor did I find a thread about this problem on thinkpads.com.


If you have a x60s with a 5400rpm harddrive, is your fan constantly on? Or is it dead silent with absolutely no fan running?

The temperature is at 20C with the battery management setting with FAN sound level 2.

And not interested in installing the fan control utility program yet. Just hoping Lenovo releases a driver or a bios update that decreases the level of fan activity.