Thinkpad Fan Control for Switchable Graphics

[Ryushin]

Just to let everyone know, I worked with Troubadix to get the TPFanControl program working with switchable graphics. It can be found here:
http://www.staff.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/donate.html

The program is actually much better than the BIOS fan control. You can configure it to actually run the fan at max speed once it hits a certain temperature. So like the fan control in linux, you can now run it full tilt when you're playing a game or such. The BIOS fan control maxes out at level 7 which is about 3500 rpm. There does exist a level 64 which is no throttling and it will run about 5200 rpm. It is very audible at this range, but if you are playing a game or such, you won't notice it, and it will bring the temps down from 198 Fahrenheit down to 170 when heavily pushing the video and proc. This was tested playing a very heavy duty graphics game. My TPFanControl.ini file looks like this (comments and blank lines removed):

Active=2
ProcessPriority=2
NoBallons=0
Cycle=2
NoExtSensor=0
StartMinimized=1
IconCycle=1
ShowTempIcon=1
SecWinUptime=120
SecStartDelay=60
IconLevels=120 140 160
FanBeep=0 0
MaxReadErrors= 10
Log2File=0
Log2csv=0
IgnoreSensors=no5
SensorName5=no5
ShowAll=0
Level=95 0
Level=100 1
Level=105 2
Level=115 3
Level=120 4
Level=130 5
Level=140 6
Level=150 7
Level=170 64
ManModeExit=140
IconColorFan=1
Lev64Norm=1

My file is configured for Fahrenheit because I'm in the US and we are still locked into the past here.

[Pocket Aces]

That's still rather odd. I'm sitting here in my quiet New Jersey suburban home, and computer temperatures only make sense to me in Celsius, even though I use Fahrenheit for weather.

But I would definitely recommend TPFanControl.

[troubadix]

The program is actually much better than the BIOS fan control.

But I would definitely recommend TPFanControl.

ciao, troubadix

[winslow]

Just to let everyone know, I worked with Troubadix to get the TPFanControl program working with switchable graphics. It can be found here:
http://www.staff.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/donate.html

The program is actually much better than the BIOS fan control. You can configure it to actually run the fan at max speed once it hits a certain temperature. So like the fan control in linux, you can now run it full tilt when you're playing a game or such. The BIOS fan control maxes out at level 7 which is about 3500 rpm. There does exist a level 64 which is no throttling and it will run about 5200 rpm. It is very audible at this range, but if you are playing a game or such, you won't notice it, and it will bring the temps down from 198 Fahrenheit down to 170 when heavily pushing the video and proc. This was tested playing a very heavy duty graphics game. My TPFanControl.ini file looks like this (comments and blank lines removed):


Active=2
ProcessPriority=2
NoBallons=0
Cycle=2
NoExtSensor=0
StartMinimized=1
IconCycle=1
ShowTempIcon=1
SecWinUptime=120
SecStartDelay=60
IconLevels=120 140 160
FanBeep=0 0
MaxReadErrors= 10
Log2File=0
Log2csv=0
IgnoreSensors=no5
SensorName5=no5
ShowAll=0
Level=95 0
Level=100 1
Level=105 2
Level=115 3
Level=120 4
Level=130 5
Level=140 6
Level=150 7
Level=170 64
ManModeExit=140
IconColorFan=1
Lev64Norm=1

My file is configured for Fahrenheit because I'm in the US and we are still locked into the past here.

Are these units good for gaming or should I look for one with a radeon card?

[Ryushin]

The W500 comes with both the ATI HD3650 (Actually, it's the FireGL, but it's based on the HD3650) and the Intel GM45 Integrated graphics. Under Vista you can switch between the two, which is very nice to extend your battery life when you're not playing a game.

From what I read, the HD3650 is a medium speed graphics processor. Probably because they couldn't really run a graphics processor that would get hotter than this one does. It does has 512MB of Video memory which is nice. I played the latest Need for Speed Undercover and I was able to achieve about 35-40 FPS after doing a few optimizations and running 1440x900 resolution. Running 1920x1200 resulted in 25 FPS which isn't quite fast enough when driving at 250mph.