Z61T Duo Core-TPFanControl-Any Chance of an Update?

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amsbestbuy · #1 Post by **amsbestbuy** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 4:30 pm

Ok, I admit it.....I am anal retentive about fan noise. In my defense, I always work in a dead silent room and I got spoiled with my Z60T with tpfancontrol. The Z60T an relatively cool with no fan (or no higher than 'speed 1') and I never encountered any issues in the year or so that I used it daily.

I now have a Z61T and am very happy with the better performance of the duo core processor; it also runs cooler, but alas, the fan seems to run much of the time and I am therefore annoyed (dang).

A lot of the time I can open Power Manager and change the power profile and then the fan spins down and stops indefinitely (usually for most of the day). Other times, this has no affect and the fan will run most of the day; frankly there isn't any rhyme or reason to the bios controlled fan-it just seems to run when it wants to. I believe that this fan activitiy is NOT a defect, but only the quirkly 'normal' behavior of a Thinkpad fan.

I say that it runs when it wants to because as I run Notebook Hardware Control mainly to monitor temperatures, the fan tends to run more when the notebook is cooler and less (or not at all) at slightly higher temperatures......hence it seems to run when it wants to. I did go through tech support on this and they also concluded that this is just the way it works.

I installed tpfancontrol, but I get errors and eventually it crashes. When it does try to read temps, it indicates a conflict with another program, etc......but it never actually functions. I suspect that it isn't compatible with duo core processors.

Since I ran my Z60T with no fan at all, never had any problems, and since it ran hotter than this Z61T ever will, my next thought was to disconnect the fan. When I did this and rebooted, I got a fan error so this didn't seem to work out.

At any rate, (yes I know I am an idiot), I would like to get the fan to either stop, or only run at the very low speeds where it is inaudible (in other words so I can hear the hard drive noise over the fan noise; this is what I was used to day in and day out with the Z60T). As I said, I can accomplish this sometimes by changing power profiles, but it doesn't always work. When this strategy decides not to work, the fan will run all day. And yes, the workload on the system is relatively constant:

Light browsing in Mozilla, Outlook open, LAN on, Bluetooth off, Verizon radio off.

So are there any of you clever types that can suggest a solution other than years of therapy for my problem? For the most part I am very normal and not really all that nuts; except for this fan issue.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Scott

christopher_wolf · #2 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 4:40 pm

Welcome to the Thinkpad Forums

Known problem; it doesn't run well in conjunction with NHC, that is what is causing the conflicts. You should change the program you use to monitor the temps or just use TP FCU on its own. NHC + TP FCU hit a snag in that they cause conflicts when you try to run them together at the same time.

As far as I know, TP FCU is fully compatible with the new Core Duos as it only relies on the fact that you have a Thinkpad that is using a Hitachi/Renesas H8S EC, proper BIOS revision, and have the WinIO driver...pretty easy requirements. It has little to do with the actual processor architecture of the CPU. So it should run fine on everything from a P-M to a Core Duo/Solo.

You're not an idiot by the way.

amsbestbuy · #3 Post by **amsbestbuy** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 6:04 pm

Hi Christopher,

Thanks very much for the reply.

Actually I always used NHC with tpfancontrol with my Z60T and didn't run into any issues. I had read about problems running both programs, but I didn't experience the problem so I just kept them both running. Actually, now that I think about it, tpfancontrol would crash once in a while, but not frequently enough to really be a problem.

However, I thought this may be an issue with the Z61T so I uninstalled NHC and ran tpfancontol by itself, but it didn't help.

What happens is that when I launch tpfancontrol, it starts up fine and shows the normal icon in the tray. When I change to Smart Mode it 'beeps' continuously for about 20 seconds, crashes and then stops running. (I have uninstalled and reinstalled it with no help). I restart it and then select "Show Program" while these 'beeps' are occuring to monitor the program. What I see is that it takes a bunch of readings, then crashes. When I launch tpfancontrol and then leave in Bios Mode and Show Program, it will not let me select either Smart Mode or Manual with the normal 'radio buttons'; I can only so to Smart Mode by right clickint the tpfancontrol icon in the tray and then selecting Smart Mode. (At that point, it does the continuous beeps, then crashes).

I just thought that this meant an incompatibility with duo core processors; is anyone else running tpfancontrol successfully on a Z61T?

Thanks again!

christopher_wolf · #4 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 6:36 pm

It has been used, successfully, on the T60s last I checked and it seems to work fine on the X60.

Do you have an error log of all the errors that it spits out when it core dumps?

The only thing that *might* be able to do that is that there is an unaccounted for temperature sensor somewhere that TP FCU isn't handling well at alll; but that is nigh impossible as it runs fine on all the T4X and X4X even though various models have less or different temperature sensors than the T43 (which TP FCU was primarily designed for).

amsbestbuy · #5 Post by **amsbestbuy** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 7:45 pm

When I place TP into Smart Mode and then Show Program, it repeats the following lines approx. 15 times, then crashes:

(date: time) Fan: 0x80 /Highest: 44C (44 33 39 n/a 27 32 25 31 32 36 40 n/a)
(date: time) Smart: Set fan control to 0X02, Result: CMD IGNORED (PASSIVE MODE)

I'm not all that technically oriented so although I understand the words above, I really don't know how to interpret them.

Does this mean anything to you?

Thanks,
Scott

christopher_wolf · #6 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 8:13 pm

Hmmm, sure that is Smart control mode 0x02 and not 0x04? That seems to be a little off from what I checked it against.

Passive mode is a state where the TP FCU can't, or won't, actively change the registers for the EC to tell the fan to spool up/down to a certain RPM. So something is preventing it from doing that.

Can you manually set the fan RPM within the [0,7] range via TP FCU? If so, that would eliminate one independent variable and help us narrow it down further.

amsbestbuy · #7 Post by **amsbestbuy** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 8:26 pm

Yes, it does read Smart control mode 0X02.

It won't let me switch to manual mode; the radio button is there but it won't let me select it.

amsbestbuy · #8 Post by **amsbestbuy** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 8:14 am

Does anyone know how to reach the developer of tpfancontrol to see if he has any insight on my problem with running the application on a Z61T? If so, do you think he might be willing to help even though the original purpose was to get it running on a T43?

Thanks!

amsbestbuy · #9 Post by **amsbestbuy** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 5:09 pm

The problem has been solved; tpfancontrol does work on my Z61T.

I had forgotten to do the most basic thing in configuring the software after installation; setting it to active=1 in the configuration file (oops!).

It works absolutely perfect; the fan rarely runs at all based on my setup and the average temp is 41 degrees (C).

I just thought I would post this in case anyone else with this laptop wanted to know.

Z61T Duo Core-TPFanControl-Any Chance of an Update?

Z61T Duo Core-TPFanControl-Any Chance of an Update?

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