T4x fan noise: some findings

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Christoph · #1 Post by **Christoph** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 8:12 pm

Hi alltogether,

it's a shame. I am a Thinkpad user for 4 yeard now and I found this forum just two weeks ago. I really appreciate this chance to meet the thinkpad community and a want to say hello to everybody.

The reason why I was looking for Thinkpad related pages was the ridiculously noisy fan of my new T41. I used to own a T21 the last four years which was absolutely silent after I changed the 6GB travelstart to a 20GB Toshiba with liquid bearing. Most of the time the fan was not even running.

After reading post in this forum I got the following facts:

- the fan of quite some T4x machines is nearly constantly running on low speed
- the newest BIOS 3.14 seems to make it worse
- the fan makes a nasty stirring sound even on low speed

but there are post were T4x owner state that the don't have a fan problem at all.

It is possible that these guys work in an environment were they cannot hear the fan but I doubt that.

Here is what I found out so far:

in my T41 a short fan with FRU 91P9254 was used with a toshiba motor 5V 0,2A
The ATI grafic chip was not covered by the fan and it had not even a cooler mounted on it.

There is a fan (long M10) FRU 13R2657 with a much stronger motor (5V 0,4A) also covering the ATI chip and using 3 instead of 2 heat pipes.

I ordered this fan for 19€ (30€ with shipping and vat) and replaced the original one. This should work for all T4x models without a firewire port

I can now report that my fan problem is solved due to two things that have chaned now.

1. The new fan does not have the annoying stirring sound and is barely audible when running at low speed

2. It seems the bios is using a different cooling strategy with this fan

I am currently using Bios 3.13 and I noticed that the fan often was running with CPU temperature of 34 dergee and below. Now the fan is off even if MobileMeter shows 36 degrees and more and if the temperature raises significantly above 40 degrees the fan starts und runs out just a few seconds after CPU returns to low speed (I use adaptive mode for the CPU speed settings with battery and AC)

I do not know at this time how the BIOS realizes that a fan with a bigger motor covering both chips (CPU and ATI grafics) is used. It might be a different rotating speed (which the bios is monitoring), the higher power consumption or a contact on the board. But I can state that the fan management has significantly changed (to the better) after replacing the built in fan with the long M10 version using the very same BIOS (3.13).

I plan to upgrade to 3.14 in the next days and I will keep you informed how the system is reacting.

This gets me to the conclusion that T4x owners stating that their machines are quite silent already have the better fan installed (probably T41p or T42p) but this is just a guess.

I hope that this information helps to resolve the fan issue.

Chris

Merlyn_3D · #2 Post by **Merlyn_3D** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 8:30 pm

Glad you got it working. I recently noticed my T30 started to make some fan noise, a little dusting took care of it though. I'm amazed at how silent these things run, like a well oiled machine.

#3 Post by **jdhurst** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 8:41 pm

Christoph wrote:Hi alltogether,
<snip>
After reading post in this forum I got the following facts:

- the fan of quite some T4x machines is nearly constantly running on low speed
- the newest BIOS 3.14 seems to make it worse
- the fan makes a nasty stirring sound even on low speed

but there are post were T4x owner state that the don't have a fan problem at all.

It is possible that these guys work in an environment were they cannot hear the fan but I doubt that.
<anip>
Chris

My fan runs all the time - most of the time at low speed. It does not and never did make a nasty stirring sound. I am using BIOS 3.14 on my T41 and it is now 15 months old and has been long and constantly used over that time frame. I have a sense that with 3.14 I get the occasional "whirh" for a second or two once in a while, but not even to bother or being annoying. I do not work in noisy environments all the time (and in fact sometimes late at night when it is very quiet).

None of this is to say that others don't have problems, just that I don't. I have my old T30 at a client site, and it is noisier by a long shot (because it runs hotter and the fan runs on high much more). And I see my old T23 at a friend's place and it is no quieter than my T41.

According to your description (thank you) I have the short fan.
... JD Hurst

wdso · #4 Post by **wdso** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 9:03 pm

If you ask me, just don't bother to get a Thinkpad T4* equipped with a short fan (all xga models).

I'm considering give IBM a final try and get a T4* with long fan. I just hope the long fan really is the solution as stated by many.

PS: I returned two T4* with short fan.

dfumento · #5 Post by **dfumento** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 9:36 pm

Which T42s come with the long fans?

#6 Post by **K. Eng** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:25 pm

I've got the short fan in my T40, and it makes an annoying tick sound every 15-20 seconds or so.

Here is a small chart:

- = 1 second of constant regular fan noise
^ = small pulse of sound that sounds like acceleration.

Here is a visual depiction of the sound:

--------------------^--------------------^ etc

This is a great improvement over what it used to be:

-----^-----^-----^-----^ etc

but still irritating in a very quiet environment. Fortunately, I work in environments with a good deal of background noise from other computers or air conditioning, so I do not hear the tick sound much, but I am tempted to see if the long fan eliminates the ^ pulse noise completely.

beeblebrox · #7 Post by **beeblebrox** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 3:58 am

As far as I know. only the very first T4x models had the short fan.
I got mine replaced by IBM.

There is no short fan in the parts list anymore, but replaced by long fans. The short ones died out.

Good to see, that evolution continues in the Thinkpad lines

Christoph · #8 Post by **Christoph** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 6:06 am

Thanks to all repliers. I learned that the early T4x models with XGA Graphics have the short fan.

An additional finding is that the graphics chip ATI Radeon 7500 works nearly out of spec without fan and cooler (This was what I found in my T41 after removing the keyboard)

When starting ATITool (you may get it here http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=725 )
and opening the 3D view I experienced a stuttering display even when I was on High performing mode where the rotating cube jerked around after a couple of seconds.

I am pretty sure now that the chip was quickly overheating when used in 3D mode and the chip-internal overheating prevention kicked in.
Now with the long fan the cube rotates constantly and smooth.
This is probably also the explanation for the radical different fan management of the bios after I changed the fan to the long version. I assume that the BIOS is able to get a temperature reading from the ATI chip and considers this information within the fan management.

James314 · #9 Post by **James314** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 7:34 am

oh well poor me then (see my specs bellow, i have 7500)

I must say that my fan was working very well before the recent bios update. I use adaptive mode and i could barely hear a sound out of my tp. However, enter the new bios update and pow!! - whirring and the fan kicks in at temps of 36! Its a joke, i understand that some people will think im imagining it as theirs is fine etc, but please understand that i work in very quiet environments like libraries and so i notice the smallest changes. I just dont understand why IBMS's bios updates are so crap! Why screw up a perfectly good fan management system....lets hope the next update sorts this problem out once and for all. As for the short fan/long fan stuff, if i have the short fan then it dissproves the above theories: like i said my 'short fan' tp was silent before the update and so it is more of a software issue.

James.

JD24 · #10 Post by **JD24** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 9:33 am

Hmm strange, i have a M3G with the short fan built in.
According to MobileMeter the fan kicks in at a temperature
of 42 degree celsius. The fan is quite most of the time.

JD

erozsolt · #11 Post by **erozsolt** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:17 pm

James314 wrote:oh well poor me then (see my specs bellow, i have 7500) I must say that my fan was working very well before the recent bios update. I use adaptive mode and i could barely hear a sound out of my tp. However, enter the new bios update and pow!! - whirring and the fan kicks in at temps of 36! Its a joke, i understand that some people will think im imagining it as theirs is fine etc, but please understand that i work in very quiet environments like libraries and so i notice the smallest changes. I just dont understand why IBMS's bios updates are so crap! Why screw up a perfectly good fan management system....lets hope the next update sorts this problem out once and for all. As for the short fan/long fan stuff, if i have the short fan then it dissproves the above theories: like i said my 'short fan' tp was silent before the update and so it is more of a software issue.

James.

What was the quietest BIOS you used? I am really suffering from this fan problem because I thought I buy an IBM Thinkpad T for quiet and comfortable computing and I still don't feel like I wished. My other problem is my Hitachi 5k60 hard drive causing too much noise even if idle, but I know I can change it to a slower one.

I still don't know what causes the "fan always on" problem, but from my experience:
- The common phenomenon for everybody suffering from this problem: fan is switching on at 34-36 degC and doesn't want to turn itself off for 10+ minutes. After it is off (not usual), it turns back on in 1-3 minutes.
- I think it is a BIOS bug, because this phenomenon is strongly depending on the BIOS version we use.
- What causes the problem is somehow connected to AC/DC mode, because this problem only appears when connected to AC.
- It could be the ATI video chip, because: it is depended on AC/DC mode (PowerPlay feature), and some people have solved the problem after changing the heatsink from CPU-only to CPU-and-GPU cooling version (aka short vs. long heatsinks), but not everybody suffer from this problem using short heatsinks (confused...).
- It could be the wifi card as K. Eng thought in his topic, but very strange that it appears with both miniPCI and PCMCIA cards because they are at different places.

In summary I think that it is not the CPU temperature sensor which causes the fan to run continuosly, but other sensor/sensors which are only visible for the BIOS/Embedded Controller Program

I don't know any 100% fix yet but I think if we mention it to IBM support we might have a chance to have this fixed in the newer BIOS-es.

meditate2001 · #12 Post by **meditate2001** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 8:59 pm

thanks chris for all that ! to the question which t4x has which fan i think the place to read is the thinkpad hardware maintainance pdf. unfortunatly my one t42 2373-fvu is not listed there...any1 knows why is that, or what fan does this machine uses ???
tnx...

meditate2001 · #13 Post by **meditate2001** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 9:15 pm

oh my mistake i just saw that the fvu has already the long fan in, BUT i still have the problem that the fan is going all the time....

@chris: now we have the same fans, yours is not running all the time, right ? or just very silently ?

James314 · #14 Post by **James314** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 12:39 pm

erozsolt wrote:
James314 wrote:oh well poor me then (see my specs bellow, i have 7500) I must say that my fan was working very well before the recent bios update. I use adaptive mode and i could barely hear a sound out of my tp. However, enter the new bios update and pow!! - whirring and the fan kicks in at temps of 36! Its a joke, i understand that some people will think im imagining it as theirs is fine etc, but please understand that i work in very quiet environments like libraries and so i notice the smallest changes. I just dont understand why IBMS's bios updates are so crap! Why screw up a perfectly good fan management system....lets hope the next update sorts this problem out once and for all. As for the short fan/long fan stuff, if i have the short fan then it dissproves the above theories: like i said my 'short fan' tp was silent before the update and so it is more of a software issue.

James.

What was the quietest BIOS you used? I am really suffering from this fan problem because I thought I buy an IBM Thinkpad T for quiet and comfortable computing and I still don't feel like I wished. My other problem is my Hitachi 5k60 hard drive causing too much noise even if idle, but I know I can change it to a slower one.

I still don't know what causes the "fan always on" problem, but from my experience:
- The common phenomenon for everybody suffering from this problem: fan is switching on at 34-36 degC and doesn't want to turn itself off for 10+ minutes. After it is off (not usual), it turns back on in 1-3 minutes.
- I think it is a BIOS bug, because this phenomenon is strongly depending on the BIOS version we use.
- What causes the problem is somehow connected to AC/DC mode, because this problem only appears when connected to AC.
- It could be the ATI video chip, because: it is depended on AC/DC mode (PowerPlay feature), and some people have solved the problem after changing the heatsink from CPU-only to CPU-and-GPU cooling version (aka short vs. long heatsinks), but not everybody suffer from this problem using short heatsinks (confused...).
- It could be the wifi card as K. Eng thought in his topic, but very strange that it appears with both miniPCI and PCMCIA cards because they are at different places.

In summary I think that it is not the CPU temperature sensor which causes the fan to run continuosly, but other sensor/sensors which are only visible for the BIOS/Embedded Controller Program

I don't know any 100% fix yet but I think if we mention it to IBM support we might have a chance to have this fixed in the newer BIOS-es.

I totally agree with you, this is a bios problem for sure. We should all contact IBM with regards to this. I pray the next update solves this issue.

James.

vpn-user · #15 Post by **vpn-user** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 2:22 pm

Guys, just give up!

This FAN problem is well known (even IBM knows about it!) for over one year now and IBM did not care about it. Their "fix" was the 5 seconds FAN howling and now they think they solved the problem. They did. But not the _real_ problem: The continously running FAN.

IBM simply does not really care about it because there are no articles in well known magazines which blame IBM for their FAN management

.

Don' t waste you energy any more!

#16 Post by **K. Eng** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 2:36 pm

No

I like to tinker with things and I am 99% sure that it's the WiFi card that is causing the fan to continuously run by generating heat and triggering a thermal sensor. When I'm not using WiFi the fan does shut off.

vpn-user wrote:Guys, just give up!
...
Don' t waste you energy any more!

vpn-user · #17 Post by **vpn-user** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 3:09 pm

Believe me, IBM _does not_ care! look at this:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 56504.html

It became a feature! Unbelievable, but true

treker · #18 Post by **treker** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 3:23 pm

I don't think it is the wifi for my T42. It runs around 45-47C when I'm surfing with wifi in room with temp in the high 70s Farhenheit. Fan turns on around 44C - VERY quiet. I have turned wifi off and done spreadsheet/wp/freecell and the temps remain the same as when I was surfing.

Fan remains super quiet but ON thru about 55C. Above that the fan increases slightly in speed but still inaudible unless your ear is pressed to left side air vent. Even playing an intense video game and temps rise to 68C, the fan is quiet. The ONLY time I ever hear the fan is boot up when it spins up to high speed for a second or two and then shuts OFF. My T42 is one month old. Best laptop I have ever owned.

erozsolt · #19 Post by **erozsolt** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 7:06 pm

treker wrote:I don't think it is the wifi for my T42. It runs around 45-47C when I'm surfing with wifi in room with temp in the high 70s Farhenheit. Fan turns on around 44C - VERY quiet. I have turned wifi off and done spreadsheet/wp/freecell and the temps remain the same as when I was surfing.

Fan remains super quiet but ON thru about 55C. Above that the fan increases slightly in speed but still inaudible unless your ear is pressed to left side air vent. Even playing an intense video game and temps rise to 68C, the fan is quiet. The ONLY time I ever hear the fan is boot up when it spins up to high speed for a second or two and then shuts OFF. My T42 is one month old. Best laptop I have ever owned.

It is not the CPU temperature sensor, where we have the problem! The fan speed adjustment is depending on more than one factor, not just on CPU temperature! For me, the low speed trigger is 44 degC too, so there is no problem! There is a system or case temperature sensor, invisible for mobmeter and _there_ is the problem. IBM just needs to use a higher value for temperature target point lot something like 35 degC, but 40 or 45 degC.

The problem is with fan running at medium speed constantly when the processor is under 44 degC (like 36).

For me, disabling wifi _does_ help and using Omega drivers for ATI PowerPlay AC mode _does_ help!

vpn-user · #20 Post by **vpn-user** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 7:24 pm

Omega drivers are not an option since they make OpenGL applications crash on my mobility FireGL T2. There is a problem with this driver.

James314 · #21 Post by **James314** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 11:30 am

a few pointers:

a) I do not use wifi at the moment as i rely on dial-up and so this has nothing to do with my fan running.
b) as i said before, things were perfect before the recent update

therefore, all these issues like the wifi card, short or long fan and case temperature are deffinately not the issues. As another poster said, this is a bios problem, one that IBM now recongnise and so the only solution is for them to step up and sort it out.

James.

beeblebrox · #22 Post by **beeblebrox** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 2:16 pm

James314 wrote:a few pointers:

a) I do not use wifi at the moment as i rely on dial-up and so this has nothing to do with my fan running.
b) as i said before, things were perfect before the recent update

therefore, all these issues like the wifi card, short or long fan and case temperature are deffinately not the issues. As another poster said, this is a bios problem, one that IBM now recongnise and so the only solution is for them to step up and sort it out.

James.

No, James you are wrong.
I have followed the fan problems thread for a few months, did some experiments, even including ice spray to test my theory.

The very first models of the T40 series had the short fan. Those are gone, replaced by the new silent models.
I use a T40p with the long fan and the newest BIOS 3.14 (I think). The fan never runs. It always starts about 2 minutes after turning on the Wifi card (underneath the touchpad), always! The Wifi card gets really hot. I clocked down the Radeon by 50%.
I never have the fan running, never!
Since I am close to the Wland router, I just popped in a WLAN Pcmcia card, when at home. Even then the fan never runs.

You have two options to keep a tight system running, without fan (like the hot T2x series ro the crappy Sony Vaios which got severe failures subsequently due to termal permanent stress) or with fan constantly keeping the system cool thus prolonging life.
I would prefer the fan.
Using an external PCMCIA card I obtain a cool and silent system.

James314 · #23 Post by **James314** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 7:20 pm

No, i am right. Its simple, my system was perfect until the recent update and so the bios is deffinately a problem. What i was trying to say was that Wifi, short/long fan etc are 'variable' problems which is why some people think these issues affect them and some dont; where as the bios update has proven to be a 'constant' problem as a lot of people now have new problems with their fans - if people do not have an issue with the update, then good luck to them, but my case represents the dominant findings at the moment im sure.

Like i said, i dont run wifi and i dont have the long fan and all was sweet - how would you explain that one away??? I understand that fans are important, and i deffinately understand how Vaios have issues (my bro has one - silly little machines!) but bad software that makes the fan kick in at 38 degrees is just inexcusable.

James.

Tan Mann · #24 Post by **Tan Mann** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 11:13 pm

Man,

This issue of the fan has got me stymied...

I have purchased and sold some 45 T4x in the last 18 months. Prior to shipment to the client, I was privy to about 1 week of playtime with each of them.

I have NEVER had the issues with the fan blowing an inordinate amount... WITH ONE EXECPTION.

That is my own T42, a 2379DXU, the fan is on all the time when the PC is on AC. Almost never on Battery. My setting is adaptive. The reason when my fan is on with the AC, is simply this, I run a distributed Processing client called World Cumminity Grid Agent(see http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/). It is paused when the TP is on battery, it resumes when the TP is back on AC.

This is a long-winded way of asking people affected with the constantly running fan, can you check to see what your CPU utilization is in the Task Manager? I am curious to see if there is any correlation to the fan running and the CPU utilization.

Thanks.

dvorak · #25 Post by **dvorak** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 6:07 am

Definitely related to the power source, I'm browsing currently at 40 degrees, AC and fan ON, a minute after I go to DC, fan stops, same temperature.
Plug it in on AC and the fan's on again.

I actually don't find it annoying, the HDD is always making more noise when it spins than the fan, which makes the fan inaudible.

beeblebrox · #26 Post by **beeblebrox** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 5:56 pm

No James, you are wrong.
I made a few tests, with temperature, Ice spray and settings. I have the newest BIOS and Power management updates.

People complain about low CPU temperature when the fan sets in.
They forget that there are a lot of other temp sensors, that are monitored by BIOS and can not be read by Windows software.

The heat comes from the GPU and the Wifi.
If you are in battery mode, the GPU powers down (check your powerplay settings and clock speed). In AC it runs on full speed.

I put the notebook on some cold gel, the fan never started.
I heated the GPU with a benchmark program, fan sets in. Put ice spray on the GPU. Fan stops. The CPU is never affected, but stays at some 40-50°C(!), not concerned by the fan.

There is only one heat pipe, but 3 heat sources. That's the problem with the T4x series. So: clock down your GPU, turn off Wifi and test AC.

erozsolt · #27 Post by **erozsolt** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 5:17 pm

Hey guys, please don't argue with each other, both of you are true:

The problematic _heat_ comes from different sources (GPU, Wifi), and _not_ from the CPU. This part is normal, it is doesn't affected by BIOS or something, so there is no bug/problem.

The noise comes from the fan, which is controlled by the BIOS. The problem is that the target temperature for temperature.sensor.x (something like case temp), is too low when using newer BIOSes.

So, we have to lower the heat or higher the target temperature level to make the fan silent.

Since there is no official solution for this problem, the best we can do is to use former BIOS. Do you have any idea what is the latest _quiet_ BIOS? James, have you remembered what have you used before update?

Leon · #28 Post by **Leon** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 5:50 pm

Thanks erozsolt, for your informed answer (and your diplomacy).

Welcome to our Forum. Please add Location and other pertinent information to your profile. Not required, but appreciated,

Resor · #29 Post by **Resor** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 2:36 pm

I'm currently using

Embedded Controller Program version 3.02 and
BIOS Version 3.06f.

Mobile Meter says CPU temp is about 40°C, no fan running.
After I swithed to the never version 3.03 (advertised as "Reduced Fan noise in some models") the fan was always running, even at 35°C.

For normal work, surfing, etc. the fan is not running, the only noise is coming from the HDD.

Greetings

Michael

nikemen · #30 Post by **nikemen** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 2:51 pm

is that on AC or batter?

T4x fan noise: some findings

T4x fan noise: some findings

Re: T4x fan noise: some findings

Just some more findings

Last silent T41p BIOS

power or battery?

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