t42p noisy fan and harddisk

[hupsing]

hello everybody,

i got my new t42p yesterday (2373-MHG) and i am disappointed
about the noise of the hardrive and the cooling fan.
the harddrive has a constant deep grumbling sound (like white noise),
even when there is no read/write activity. the noise of the read/write activity is ok. the hard drive is HTS548080 (80gb, 5400rpm).

is this drive known as a noisy drive?
i compared it to a HTS726060 (60gb, 7200rpm!!!) which was much
more quietly.
what about the speed of the drives, where can i get sth. like a comparison?

the next thing is the cooling fan. my sister has a R51 (2888-47G) which is
amazingly quiet (the fan just starts when there is heavy harddrive or cd-rom access). perfect for concentrated work.
but the fan of the t42p is starting over and over again even the machine
is running idle.

what can i do? is my thinkpad a real lemon?
i read something about an update from IBM for the
"Embedded Controller Program" because some systems
had problems with the fan. but i think this is fixed in the latest
thinkpads.

can anybody help? maybe there are some tricks.
thanx
hupsing

[lophiomys]

Could you record the sound of your
T42p and possibly also one of your sisters R51
and publish it?

some hints which could alleviate your noise problem:
install latest bios and ECP V3.03.
switch of all unnecessary processor load, respective processes and services
set CPU speed to automatic
underclock your GPU with ATI Tool

and please let IBM Thinkpad Support know, that
you care about noise emission.

see also
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=1343
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=4163
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=4502
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=334

IBM Healthy computing on noise emission:
http://www.pc.ibm.com/ww/healthycomputing/vdt18.html