Thinkpad R50 distrubing fan noise / fan howling

[lophiomys]

Recently I bought a Thinkpad R50 in Germany.
TJ07RGE, Model No. 1829 7RG, Made in China.

When the fan us running, it produces a very
distrubing fan howl every 5 seconds approximatly.
Similar to a mosquito flying by
This annoying noise ontop of the normal fan noise
is clearly to be heard in quiet envriomnemts,
and is IMHO ergonomically not acceptable.

IBM Support was kind enough recognise the defect,
andto change the fan,
which had *no effect* in resolving the fan whine!
The Thinkpad came back from IBM Support with the
same fan howl every 5 seconds.


The R50 itself is a wonderful notebook,
but the disturbing fan howling is a
showstopper for the use in quiet environments.

Lophiomys

[Zeitgeist]

And what is your question?

[lophiomys]

Sorry forgott in the end to formulate the question:

Does anyone actually know, what the cause of the 5s fan howling is?

Is there a workaround to prevent the fan from howling every 5 seconds?

Regards,
Lophiomys

[n3il]

There has been much discussion regarding the "fan noise" on various machines - T4x/p and R5x/p - basically because they are built using the same mobo and mostly the same parts.

Check this page out - it may inspire you (or scare you off!)

HTH

[K. Eng]

As far as I know using the "long fan" is the only way to reduce the fan's sound surge to an imperceptible level.

The short fan on my T40 makes the surging noise, but I think it doesn't bother me because it isn't high pitched (my first AC adapter made high pitched whining noises and it drove me crazy).

[BillMorrow]

the fan noise attacks only those who can be annoyed by it..
i've been thru a BUNCH of T40 series machines including the R50p (which is my current thinkpad) and i have not heard this cycling noise..

the long fan is, apparently, the cure..

[geobel]

Lets be precise, you need: Fan assembly (long) M10: P/N
13N5347. There are two long fans but only the above one is quiet.

Gosha

[lophiomys]

When I look at
System FRU parts list - ThinkPad T40/p, T41/p, T42/p
I can't find the part number 13N5347 ?
Do I look on the wrong web page?

There the fan long M10 has the part number 13R2657 .
Anyone knowing if 13R2657 is making the same irritating noises?

I am referring to the web page:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-46474

----

[geobel]

When I look at
System FRU parts list - ThinkPad T40/p, T41/p, T42/p
I can't find the part number 13N5347 ?
Do I look on the wrong web page?

There the fan long M10 has the part number 13R2657 .
Anyone knowing if 13R2657 is making the same irritating noises?

I am referring to the web page:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-46474

----

Looks that they have changed part number for it. I checked new HMM and there is indeed no 13N5347 anymore... If you wish I can e-mail you older version of HMM where fan long M10 has p/n 13N5347. Hard to say why they have changed p/n and if the new part is quet. Try e-mail IBM Germany and request 13N5347 as they may still have it in stock. If not you perhaps have to go for 13R2657 and hope that it is the same part as 13N5347.

[lophiomys]

I've recorded the irritating fan noise of my TP R50:
MP3 Audio Sample Thinkpad R50 periodic fan noise / howl

[jon]

Nice recording of the sound I remember that really annoying me.

I'm the author of that page linked to above. I'd definately recommend swapping the fan if you can be bothered and want to take the risk. It isn't too difficult. My fan is running right now and I can't hear any surging whatsoever.

It may sound stupid to those who haven't heard it, but in my case it makes the notebook useable again. I just couldn't concentrate with that odd sound. It is frustrating that it isn't a more common problem.

Good luck. Do the swap if you can get hold of the right part.

[jon]

the fan noise attacks only those who can be annoyed by it..
i've been thru a BUNCH of T40 series machines including the R50p (which is my current thinkpad) and i have not heard this cycling noise..

the long fan is, apparently, the cure..

Congrats, but I've seen this comment from you on the old forum too and it isn't very helpful to those who have the problem! The surge is very much there for some, and it isn't a case of letting yourself be annoyed by it or not - if it is there and it bothers you, it is difficult to forget about. I found the whole thing very frustrating, especially when told by others (incl. IBM) that it isn't there and/or I should be able to just ignore it.

[lophiomys]

I've just tested Bios 3.05a 2004/05/21
on a TP R50 TJ07RGE ModelNo 1829 7RG

It does *not* remove the periodic 5 second fan noise / fan howling.

Lophiomys

[tigrr]

unfortunately I also have a R50 howling sounding thinkPad.

What amazes me is that when looking at CPU temperature (measured with hmonitor):
I turn on the laptop, which is cold (25 deg.Celsius) and run a CPU test (100% CPU load)

the fan starts after some time after CPU reaches 50 deg Celsius
(which is quite a lot imho). I shut down the CPU test.

Temperature than falls to 37 deg (100F) in a minute.
but the fan doesnt stop at all. This is wrong AND SHOULD BE FIXED either via BIOS or via fan control application like i8kfan
( http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/ -i wish there were more guys like Christian Diefer).

The "proof" for my statement is that if i stuck a piece of thin wire and stop the fan, the CPU temp in idle state (less than 10% CPU usage) stays below 42 degrees C, which means, that BIOS could do this instead of me with no harm, right?

So changing the fan is an expensive but the only workaround. Does anyone know a good connection at IBM to post an email to regarding this matter?

[tigrr]

And another thing:

If i put the laptop to standby, and turn it on again immideately, the fan shuts off.

So this is a BIOS FAULT.

p.s. would the fan will turn off if i put the r50 in the freeezer?:)

[jon]

And another thing:

If i put the laptop to standby, and turn it on again immideately, the fan shuts off.

So this is a BIOS FAULT.

p.s. would the fan will turn off if i put the r50 in the freeezer?:)

I don't think that behaviour, or what you mentioned above (fan staying on even when temp. reduces) is odd behaviour. I've had that kind of behaviour on a ThinkPad R32 and a few Gateway junk notebooks in the past.

After swapping the fan in my R50, I can say it's quieter in two ways: a) the fan noise is less audible when spinning, but b) the fan doesn't come on as much in the first place. It appeared much more responsive to cpu load than the original fan, ie. when the system is idle, the fan goes off after a reasonable time. The original fan never (ever) shut off once it came on. I don't know why this is but that's what I've observed. Maybe the new fan just does a better cooling job, but I've never looked at temps so can't say.

[tigrr]

This change is nice to hear for, but could it be also because of 100 MHz difference in CPU speeds (i have 7rg 1500MHz)

I can get a 13N5442 fan, that is ment for TP T40/p, T41/p, T42/p.
It should fit i guess. What do you think, Jon?

[jon]

Nah, I don't think 100MHz is enough of a difference to change the fan behaviour (even on max. battery mode my old fan would never shutup).

According to geobel who posted above, you need the M10 long fan, which has model #13R2657. If geobel reads this - how do you know that? I have no idea what the difference between 'Long' and 'Long M10' is, unfortunately

So you could gamble on #13N5442 or #13R2657 (M10) - anyone else installed one of these? I assume they're quiet - perhaps you can find out if they are made by Toshiba? My long fan is a Toshiba model, made in Japan.

Or, maybe you can still find the original long fan, #13N5347. I can still see it listed on the ibm Australia parts site, so I guess they have stock. Maybe you can find stock near you?

[geobel]

According to geobel who posted above, you need the M10 long fan, which has model #13R2657. If geobel reads this - how do you know that? I have no idea what the difference between 'Long' and 'Long M10' is, unfortunately

I know that simply Long fan is noisy from reading this forum (actually it was old forum that time) and I know that #13N5347 is quet from both the forum and personal experience. I cannot say for sure that #13R2657 is quet fan because it is new number that has replaced #13N5347. But if #13N5347 cannot be found anymore the only hope is for #13R2657.

Gosha

[jon]

tigrr you also asked about temperatures with hmonitor, here is what I observe when running the cpu 100% in full-speed:

8:50 Idle in adaptive mode, 39C with the fan off.
<start encoding>
8:51 Fan comes on around 42C. It is now 47C.
8:52 Now 56C. Fan in high speed mode (noticeable sound but not bad).
<stop encoding at 8:52>
8:55 38C, fan still on but low speed (very quiet!)
8:57 36C, finally the fan is off

So it takes about 5 minutes for the fan to shut off after doing something
intensive for a few minutes. I guess that is fairly good, and so much better than before.

[lophiomys]

If IBM support should ever tell you that something is below
certain noise levels, and therefore no action would be required...
---------------------------------------------------------------------

[Citation from http://www.silent.se/ ]

updated
IBM®

IBM, International Business Machines Corporation, is the world's largest information technology company. Here IBM writes on noise and healthy computing:

"..Noise can be very distracting and prevent concentrated mental work. In extreme cases, it can also result in physical disorders."

"..As workstations continue to migrate from the computer room to the quiet office, acoustical noise becomes an increasingly important concern to both users and designers alike. Acoustical noise is considered a human factor because it affects such factors as a workers comfort, job satisfaction and performance. Noise has several adverse effects on human beings. On the physiological side, these effects include hearing damage and hearing loss. On the psychological side, they include interference with speech communication, impairment of performance, and annoyance."

IBM now provides Environmental Declarations for its products. They contain noise declarations according to ISO 9296, even if this isn't that easy to understand: IBM in these documents refers to the ECMA TR/70 report, which in turn states to declare noise emissions according to ISO 9296 (or ECMA-109, on which ISO 9296 is based).

Comment: It is hoped that IBM will choose to update its environmental declarations to make it easier also for end customers to understand its noise figures as comparable to other manufacturers'.

IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States and other countries.

[ End of citation ]

[tigrr]

i got a 13N5442 fan last week, which is normaly used in T40/T41... thinkpads.

Normal installation of the fan was not succesfull because of 3 reasons:

1.) There is a firewire port in R50 7rg, which is not found in T model,
and because of that, the new cooler/fan is too big at the air exhaust slot.

2) only 1 half of GPU chip surface is covered by the cooler, additional copper plate should be used if "fan long" is to be used instead of the existing (radeon 9000m inside).

3) the new fan is approx. 4mm lower than the existing one,
so cooling isnt optimal..

It woud be good to know more temperature readouts from other sensors (GPU, RAM and so on..). Possibly, GPU temp is the problem..

[jimmykwh]

congratulations, i can assure you that the fan deffinately stop but just to be be certain please get your notebook inside see whether thinkpad get flu and sneeze or not. update me then...

[lophiomys]

First just to be sure everyone knows it:
IBM has published an Embedded Controller Programm V3.03,
which fixes the pulsating fan problem.
---
I've made some more recordings of Thinkpad fans:
http://lophiomys.gmxhome.de/Thinkpad_R5 ... Noise.html
(Sorry I missed to record the R51 with original fan and with ECP V3.03.)

And because I got tired of waiting for ECP V3.03 in the days before 29th July,
I fitted a Long Fan M10 (13R2657) into a R51 with FireWire.
http://lophiomys.gmxhome.de/R51_with_Lo ... anM10.html

Now my R51 is really silent. 13R2657 emits significantly less high frequency noise, than the original 13N5182, but it draws a little bit more energy (0.4A vs. 0.18A).

Mobile Meter temperature readings are: 69dC at 100%CPU and 40dC at normal work on AC with CPU Speed set to adaptive.

[jon]

First just to be sure everyone knows it:
IBM has published an Embedded Controller Programm V3.03,
which fixes the pulsating fan problem.

Really? I read elsewhere that it didn't seem to fix the surge, or in one person's case it just made it less frequent (I think I read that on the linux-thinkpad mailing list). Well, good news!

(Sorry I missed to record the R51 with original fan and with ECP V3.03.)

Yup, that would've been the most interesting case.

Hmmmm... considering I did the long fan swap anyway, I think I'll stick with my current BIOS for now (if it ain't broke...). Can you revert to the old BIOS/controller after updating? ie. install an older version?

It's good to know 13R2657 is quiet as well

[Honnold]

So what, ultimately, was the upshot of this? Is the design flaw in the fan system endemic to all and every single R50 series ThinkPad?

I'm a neophyte purchasing my first notebook, and I had narrowed my choice to an R51 1836 H7U, but a noise problem might be a dealbreaker.

I certainly don't want to have to modify my notebook's hardware --- that's well beyond me.

Thanks for bringing up this issue.

[jon]

So what, ultimately, was the upshot of this?

I think it is safe to say that the latest BIOS + embedded controller versions fix the problem. I tried it myself a while after making my last post, and it does seem to eliminate the surge completely (although it is difficult for me to tell since I swapped in the quiet fan anyway). Others here and elsewhere have reported this too. So I'd say go ahead and get the R51 if it fits you. If it doesn't have the latest BIOS versions installed, it's a snap to install them.

Is the design flaw in the fan system endemic to all and every single R50 series ThinkPad?

I don't see why not, but most people say they can't hear a thing (including the guy who looked at mine when I sent it back to IBM). I don't know whether they just don't know what to listen for or what. Chances are you might not hear any problem either

[Speedbird]

Well, I wouldn't recommend buying a IBM R-series. The latest BIOS + controller versions still doesn't fix the major problem that the fan keeps running forever once it gets started. Very annoying!!!

[ryan_mcneal]

I have updated the BIOS and the Embedded Controller Program too, but I can't realize any changes. The fan is still working with the same behavior it did work with before doing the upgrade. Once it has started, it never stops.

[coolsilicon]

I have updated the BIOS and the Embedded Controller Program too, but I can't realize any changes. The fan is still working with the same behavior it did work with before doing the upgrade. Once it has started, it never stops.

I've read a story about a guy who by chance found out that the PC-Card slot will work as a kind of vent. After reading this I inserted a dummy card into the slot and in fact there's some airflow. Though i didn't use a stopwatch yet i'd say this "mod" works well. The background IMO is, that if you happen to install a PC-Card, it will generate some heat. Seems that IBM managed to design the whole ting in such a way that an airflow through the slot is generated. Anyway, i didn't observe the problem of a never stopping fan before that mod, but it may stop after a shorter period of time. I also have the latest video driver / BIOS / EC-software.