My A22m sometimes sneezes...

Message

stretch · #1 Post by **stretch** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:03 pm

I recently obtained a second hand A22m. The machine's in perfect condition. Probably been sitting unused in some office for may years. Anyway, I'm dual booting between Slackware Linux and XP.

Everything has been great until last couple of days when it started making a strange noise, a bit like a sneeze. It sounds as if it is coming from either the harddisk or the cpu fan but it's not the sort of noise you'd expect either to make.

Typically this happens after two or more hours use. This first started happening when running under Linux. The Linux install is new and I have not rebuilt the kernel yet so I thought it might be something to do with that, so I booted into XP and continued working -but then it did it again!

More details on the sound: It lasts about 1/4 second and occurs randomly. It sounds a little bit like a very small motor bike revving up. It's quite violent, if you're typing you can feel in your fingertips. Otherwise the machine is fine, but could it be something to do with overheating?

Has anybody had any similar experiences? Does anybody know what it might be?....

But most importantly; do I need to worry about it and if so, what should I do about it?

#2 Post by **rkawakami** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:24 pm

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

My guess would be that the fan is hitting the side of the fan housing. Besides the hard drive, that's the only moving component in the laptop. If it's the hard drive, you'd better get all of your important data off of it as soon as possible.

How to tell which it is? If it were me, I would replace the fan assembly and see what happens. I'd also backup my drive as well.

stretch · #3 Post by **stretch** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:40 pm

Ah you were too quick... I was just adding a comment about heat, (to the original post). Maybe something to do with heat???

I don't think it's the harddisk so fan is most likely. Fan casing makes sense but to be be honest it sounds and feels more like a sudden split second surge. A bit like a sneeze, which is the best way I cab describe it really.

As I mentioned, there's no other strange behavior so I suppose I'll just carry on using it as I am now. I keep everything important on another server so any loss due total breakdown will be minimal + 200 euro!

#4 Post by **rkawakami** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 8:17 pm

Here's a thought: Remove the hard disk drive, boot the system (with a floppy or simply leave it in the BIOS screen). Let it sit and see what happens. If you think that heat triggers the noise, then I would suggest running some sort of diagnostic (PC Doctor or memtest86+) so that the CPU is active.

stretch · #5 Post by **stretch** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 7:10 am

Thanks for the advice Ray.. I haven't actually followed your advice since it (the laptop) has not made the noise since. However I definitely think this machine has some over heating issues.

I've had a number of freezes I can't get out of without cutting the power, which is never the most elegant solution. A palm on the underside of the unit confirms that it's running hot. This occurs when it has been running for three or more hours and always when running from the mains, not from battery power. This was also true of the original funny noise problem...

Ok, so my question is: how can I monitor my CPU temperature. Is there some util I can download from somewhere? I'm assuming a Thinkpad has the hardware support for this...

#6 Post by **rkawakami** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 1:49 pm

The program I use on my systems is MobileMeter. You can download it from here:

Softpedia download site

There's very little documentation on the program other than this: MobileMeter README

My A22m sometimes sneezes...

My A22m sometimes sneezes...

Who is online