X240 fan running more frequently after ssd upgrade

[rmendoza]

Hello everyone,

I just upgraded my X240 from the HGST 500gb HDD to a Samsung EVO 850 SSD. I did a clean install of W10.

While things seem to be running ok, I noticed that the fan is running more frequently and at higher RPMs (louder) than it did with the HDD. Isn't this supposed to be the other way around? Does anyone have the same issue? Any solutions to this? Any help is much appreciated. Thanks.

Benno

[ajkula66]

Were you running the same OS (W10) on the spinning drive?

[Hans Gruber]

Windows 10 does a lot of scanning of your HDD. Keep an eye on your drive for a few days and weeks to see if the HDD light and CPU are used less as time goes on. I have Windows 10 on my fast desktop computer and there is a lot hitting the 128GB SSD that is just for the OS when I boot the machine up.

[rmendoza]

Thank you for the replies.

Yes, I was running W10 with the hdd, and I was very happy with it. Faster and quieter than W8.1. In the X240, there is no hdd light, so I have no way of verifying that.

The fan seems to start almost the moment I turn the computer on (30 seconds after). I don't think this matters, but when I installed it, I din't put the anti-static foil that was wrapped around the hdd, figuring that the SSD would not need it.

Samsung Magician says that the computer is not optimized for an SSD, so I should turn off superfetch and a couple other settings. However, I have found contradictory information on whether to turn settings off. The read and write speeds are great, though.

Additionally-and I have no way to measure this-, I have the impression that the battery is draining faster with the SSD than with the HDD.

Lastly, as a point of reference, my work computer is an X230, which was also upgraded to the same drive (120gb Samsung EVO 850), and it's like night and day-it's faster, battery lasts longer, and the fan is super quiet (using W10 Enterprise).

Again, any help is greatly appreciated.

[rmendoza]

Today at work I actually made an effort to monitor my x230 to see if it behaved similarly. To my surprise, the X230 is running like a charm. No heat, no loud fan. The x240, as I said, gets loud within a minute or two of my turning it on. What gives?

Any help is welcome.

Benno

[Hurstbridge]

Have you checked their respective temp's with Tpfancontrol? Maybe you can find some correlation.
http://www.staff.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/donate.html
(The download is at the bottom of the page).

On my X230, it only shows CPU-temp, so I guess that would also be the case for the X240. (On my old x32 it also showed GPU, HDD-temp and much more).

You can set the fan settings to "smart", which generally lowers the RPMs, and also set the max processor usage in your advanced power settings to less than 100%. This will stop it from taking off when you for a few seconds are doing some CPU-intensive work. (I never use the full capacity of my i7-3520M anyway, when making powerpoints and reading pdf's).

I've got my max processor usage set to 85% when wall-connected, and 60% on battery, and don't feel any noticeable change when only doing light office work. I've also set cooling policies to passive on battery, and active when wall-connected.

But those things will of course only minimize the symptoms, not solve the actual problem.

[rmendoza]

I apologize for the late response - I was busy at work.

I thank you for the suggestion, and I think it's good. However, I still have my doubts, because my x230 has the same processor power ranges (100% both plugged in and battery), and it's whisper quiet. Moreover, it seems faster than the x240, which it didn't before I replaced both hdds. They have almost the same configuration, with the same software (W10, Adobe CS 6, Office Pro, etc.), same memory (4 GB RAM), etc. I even get the impression that the battery is draining a bit faster than with the hdd, which might make sense of the fan is spinning all the time.

Don't get me wrong, overall I am happy with the x240 (except the button-less pad, ofcourse), but the extra heat and the "lag" as compared to the X230 is oddly irksome.

In any event, I am close to reformatting the SSD and reinstalling W10. I will test diminishing the processor power to see if it helps. Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated. Best.

Benno

[Hurstbridge]

The only thing I can think of then, is to check the CPU-temp. If it does indeed heat up, then check CPU-utilization with some monitor programme. The SSD should definately draw less power and heat up less, than your old HDD, so it probably is some Win 10 task draining the CPU.

[fb1996]

...did you update the UEFI recently? One of the last UEFI updates for the X240 included an update for the Embedded Controller that is in charge of the fan. After the update, the fan was even spinning at a CPU temperature of approx. 40° Celsius.