noisy, noisy x61s

X60/X61 series specific matters only.
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pau
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noisy, noisy x61s

#1 Post by pau » Thu Aug 30, 2007 11:18 am

Hi,

I started a couple of threads in the T40/60 and X40 series and now I have a lenovo x61s... everything is fine BUT for one thing: the laptop is terribly noisy. The fan _never_ stops.

This is independent of the OS. I am running OpenBSD with ACPI support but under linux (fedora, debian, ubuntu etc) it was as noisy as it is under Obsd

I didn't give Vista a chance because when I booted it for the very first time I got a... blue screen :) hahaha... and I cannot do anything with windows. I immediately removed it.

Is this a "feature" of the x61s to be improved in some sense?

I tried to update the bios but I have a USB DVD device and when I booted from the CD with the bios ISO I could not update; it was listed as wrong device or something like that. I just had a typical DOS tree and I chose IBMBIO.EXE (or similar) but it didn't upgrade anything...

Compared to the X31 the X61s is a torture in terms of noise... X31 was SILENT...

any hint?

Pau
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itzcoolz
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#2 Post by itzcoolz » Thu Aug 30, 2007 3:00 pm

hmm.. that sounds strange to me. a close friend of mine has an x61s and i haven't noticed it as being particularly noisy.

i'm going over to check it out again tonight. is it just the sound of a fan? no clicks or other noises?
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pau
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#3 Post by pau » Thu Aug 30, 2007 3:23 pm

It's just the fan...

I have the feeling that I've done something stupid...

Where's the bios located?

Is it on the first 1MB of the disc?

If so, I am fXXXXd, because I deleted the whole disc... but then... how can I boot now? and I _see_ the bios and can enter it, but not upgrade it...

gosh...
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mazzer
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#4 Post by mazzer » Thu Aug 30, 2007 3:31 pm

This is independent of the OS.
This is not a problem in Windows XP or Vista. Fan control works. This is either a problem with the distros you used and their implementation of ACPI or with your specific ThinkPad. Are you allowing any throttling down of the CPU? With the CPU under heavy load at top speed it needs to run the fan. It should not run at top speed constantly, though.

The BIOS is not on the hard disk, it is on a chip on the motherboard. if it would not allow you to upgrade the BIOS it either doesn't need updating or you have an incompatible version.
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pau
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#5 Post by pau » Thu Aug 30, 2007 3:39 pm

Pfew... thanks...

mmmh... I don't understand anything... I know that ACPI is under development for openbsd, but I thought it was fully implemented in linux and still the fans are spinning all the time...

It wasn't the case of x31; it was silent

Well, then let me ask you please, how noisy/silent is your x61s under windows?

It's always the same old story... one should buy one of these laptops and then put it into a drawer and wait some six months until they're fully supported by unix...
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ryengineer
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#6 Post by ryengineer » Thu Aug 30, 2007 9:33 pm

Sir, X61/s is certainly not noisy, atleast the versions I saw.

Please run Thinkvantage System Update to download the latest and critical updates including BIOS or update them manually.

You can also ask lenovo for exchange or send it out / take in person for repair services.

Good Luck!
"I've come a long, long way," she said, "and I will go as far,
With the man who takes me from my horse, and leads me to a bar."
The man who took her off her steed, and stood her to a beer,
Were a bleary-eyed Surveyor and a DRUNKEN ENGINEER.
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stylinexpat
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#7 Post by stylinexpat » Thu Aug 30, 2007 9:52 pm

Best thing to do is to just buy a new SSD and stick that one in there. No more fan and heat issues then :D Probably also knock another40-50% off boot times :D
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mazzer
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#8 Post by mazzer » Thu Aug 30, 2007 9:53 pm

pau wrote:Well, then let me ask you please, how noisy/silent is your x61s under windows?
My X61s under WinXP is virtually silent. In almost all cases lower than the ambient noise in the room. The occasionally whine from the disk drive or if you are really taxing it, the soft rush of the fan hitting high RPM. I am, however, using adaptive CPU throttling.
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pau
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#9 Post by pau » Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:33 am

mmmh... seemingly I have bad luck...

It's not very noisy, but I can _hear_ the fan and it's spinning all the time

In the case of the x31, this was not the case. It was as working on a laptop switched off

ryengineer, you say that I should upgrade my bios. I tried, I downloaded the 7nuj04uc.iso BIOS update bootable CD and booted from it but it would not update the bios. I got a DOS directory list from which I tried to manually run IBMBIOS.EXE but nothing happened. Otherwise, please explain me step by step how do you do it.

mazzer, did you update your bios or was it always silent?

I think this is a core duo thing...
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ryengineer
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#10 Post by ryengineer » Fri Aug 31, 2007 2:04 am

Sir, I would recommend you print out this and this documents and read them very carefully.

Please also make a note of this thing:
The CD-R/CD-RW disc for the BIOS update does not support any optical disc drives connected through USB devices, PC Cards, CardBus cards. It only supports CD-RW, CD-RW/DVD Combo and DVD Multi drives for the ThinkPad Ultrabay.
I truly hope you have created Product Recovery Disks / kept the Hidden Service Partition intact before removing your Windows Vista preloaded image.
"I've come a long, long way," she said, "and I will go as far,
With the man who takes me from my horse, and leads me to a bar."
The man who took her off her steed, and stood her to a beer,
Were a bleary-eyed Surveyor and a DRUNKEN ENGINEER.
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pau
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#11 Post by pau » Fri Aug 31, 2007 2:28 am

Dearest ryengineer,

thanks a lot for your answer.

Mmmhhh... no, I fully cleaned the laptop, no windooze here, it's a matter of taste... On the other hand, now my hard disc is of more than 150GB :)

I think I can borrow a docking station... Do you know whether the x41 docking station will be compatible with the x61s?

I love being called Sir, by the way...
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ryengineer
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#12 Post by ryengineer » Fri Aug 31, 2007 2:43 am

pau wrote:snip.......I think I can borrow a docking station... Do you know whether the x41 docking station will be compatible with the x61s?.......snip
No, sir.

You would need an UltraBase X6 Docking Station.

Good Luck!
"I've come a long, long way," she said, "and I will go as far,
With the man who takes me from my horse, and leads me to a bar."
The man who took her off her steed, and stood her to a beer,
Were a bleary-eyed Surveyor and a DRUNKEN ENGINEER.
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pau
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#13 Post by pau » Fri Aug 31, 2007 4:20 am

argh!

Ok, I have a very naive question...

Does any owner of an x61s with docking station who is reading and being aware of my tragedy live in Berlin, so that we can shortly meet to upgrade my bios?

Cheers,

Pau
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pau
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#14 Post by pau » Fri Aug 31, 2007 5:59 am

no need... somebody here in the institute had one and now I upgraded... v 1.06 here now :)
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pau
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#15 Post by pau » Fri Aug 31, 2007 1:00 pm

and I can tell the difference... the fan is kicking in from time to time but in no way like before, when it was spinning all the time...

but it can be improved, I am sure...
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spune
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#16 Post by spune » Fri Aug 31, 2007 2:22 pm

pau wrote:argh!

Ok, I have a very naive question...

Does any owner of an x61s with docking station who is reading and being aware of my tragedy live in Berlin, so that we can shortly meet to upgrade my bios?

Cheers,

Pau
What OS do you have installed? As long as it's not XP x64 or Vista x64, you should be able to upgrade the BIOS within Windows.
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pau
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#17 Post by pau » Sat Sep 01, 2007 1:45 am

I use The Truth, OpenBSD :lol:

and there's no way I can upgrade the bios from the OS but, as I said, I managed to do it with a docking station

thanks to all for your help


Pau
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spune
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#18 Post by spune » Sat Sep 01, 2007 1:56 am

pau wrote:I use The Truth, OpenBSD :lol:

and there's no way I can upgrade the bios from the OS but, as I said, I managed to do it with a docking station

thanks to all for your help


Pau
Cool, I'm glad you figured it out.

May I ask why you run OpenBSD on a laptop?
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pau
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#19 Post by pau » Sat Sep 01, 2007 2:05 am

May I ask why you run OpenBSD on a laptop?
Of course you can...

Do you want the short or the long answer?

The short answer is: Because it's the best OS around

The long answer is: http://www.aei.mpg.de/~pau/linux_bsd.html

As you can see/read, it's not that I have not thought about it in detail :roll:

That page was written for a FJS but it applies also to the x61s...

And windows is totally out of question in my case (it's a combination of ethics, security, robustness and also of job reasons)
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