TPFanControl levels and fan speeds

Message

albo · #1 Post by **albo** » Wed Nov 28, 2012 3:21 pm

Hi folks,

Playing around with TPfancontrol, since my T410 gets crazy hot (80 deg +). I've tried setting up levels in the smart mode, but I'm getting strange fan speed responses. I have the following setup:

Level=55 0
Level=60 1
Level=62 2
Level=64 7
Level=66 64
Level=68 128

When it gets above 68, speed 128 kicks in and the fan spins around 4500 rpm. However, when it gets back down below 66 deg and speed "64" kicks in, the fan sounds like it's in overdrive (whirring like i've never heard it whirr before!), and gets up around 6500 rpm or more before I stop it.

What's going on here? Why is 64 (01000000) faster than 128 (10000000)? Any help greatly appreciated!

thanks!

T410
2516-CTO
NVIDIA NVS 3100M

EDIT:
Ah, just read this:
// Fan speed of 64 is extreme and may be an *unsupported*
// and *damaging* mode. A fan speed of 128 setting is
// not really a fan speed in itself but will instead switch
// fan control to BIOS mode (0x80). The idea of this
// is to let the program get out of the way and let the
// BIOS handle extremes.(and then switch back to smart if
// the temperature is okay again)

strange (and dangerous) then that a fan speed value of 64 would be in the default settings!

albo · #2 Post by **albo** » Wed Nov 28, 2012 4:31 pm

So, having said all of the above, I'm still not able to find anything much on fan speed levels. I guess it's just 0-7, and 128 for bios?

EDIT:
And, once again, answering my own premature question. Hopefully this will help someone else out:

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_control_fan_speed

albo · #3 Post by **albo** » Wed Nov 28, 2012 5:25 pm

Ok, I think this can all be summarized in the following question:

Is "disengaged" fan mode dangerous? On my T410, it gets up to around 6500 rpm when disengaged. I'd like to set my fan to run disengaged if the CPU temp gets above 72 (which it often does).

thoughts?

jayton4 · #4 Post by **jayton4** » Wed Nov 28, 2012 7:57 pm

albo wrote:Ok, I think this can all be summarized in the following question:

Is "disengaged" fan mode dangerous? On my T410, it gets up to around 6500 rpm when disengaged. I'd like to set my fan to run disengaged if the CPU temp gets above 72 (which it often does).

thoughts?

What kind of work is your computer doing to get that hot? With non CPU intensive tasks (web browsing, video, Word, Excel, email, etc.), mine will sit around 45C when in BIOS mode. I run disengaged mode all the time, so I don't think it is dangerous. However, disengaged mode on mine gets up to around 5600rpm. The only way I can get it to go up to 6500 is if I hold my hand over blocking the vents for a few seconds. If I am encoding video or playing Battlefield, I set it up to disengaged, otherwise, I keep it set to BIOS.

The Intel controller will throttle the processor to keep it from burning itself up. This usually happens around 85C. IntelBurnTest is a good program to play with when editing your tpfancontrol.ini.

I think running disengaged at 72C would be too low, but that is just an opinion.

As far as smart mode goes, there is a Smart Mode 2 that you can switch to by right clicking the icon in the system tray. It is more aggressive than the standard Smart Mode.

albo · #5 Post by **albo** » Wed Nov 28, 2012 10:48 pm

Thanks jayton. I'm running CPU-intensive data processing and statistical modeling tasks when it gets really hot. Maybe I'll bump up the point at which disengaged mode kicks in. Thanks a ton for the info! Good to know I won't screw up my system.

jayton4 · #6 Post by **jayton4** » Thu Nov 29, 2012 11:19 am

albo wrote:Thanks jayton. I'm running CPU-intensive data processing and statistical modeling tasks when it gets really hot. Maybe I'll bump up the point at which disengaged mode kicks in. Thanks a ton for the info! Good to know I won't screw up my system.

Is yours really running at 6500rpm or was it a typo for 5600rpm?

albo · #7 Post by **albo** » Fri Nov 30, 2012 5:01 pm

no typo. It really runs at 6500 rpm (at least that's what tpfancontrol reports).

By the way, do you get random machine shutdowns?

I started getting some, and I read on tpfancontrol's page that it might conflict with more recent versions of lenovo power manager. What version of power manager do you have installed?

I've uninstalled PM, but the thinkpad is a pain to use without it, as many of the on-screen utilities stop working.

jayton4 · #8 Post by **jayton4** » Fri Nov 30, 2012 7:19 pm

albo wrote:no typo. It really runs at 6500 rpm (at least that's what tpfancontrol reports).

By the way, do you get random machine shutdowns?

I started getting some, and I read on tpfancontrol's page that it might conflict with more recent versions of lenovo power manager. What version of power manager do you have installed?

I've uninstalled PM, but the thinkpad is a pain to use without it, as many of the on-screen utilities stop working.

Yes I did get random shutdowns, which is the main reason why I keep it set to BIOS mode so often now. It only happened while on battery power and never when plugged in. It was weird because I used tpfancontrol for a couple of months before the shutdowns started. This occurred on both my T410 and my T410s. I have not experimented around with removing power manager and keeping the on screen utilities. Have you tried the "Hotkey Features Integration for Windows 7" from the support site? One of the components of that package is called On Screen Display.