T410s fan noise

[miketoro]

Due to the displayport/HDMI/audio issues I posted about last week, I picked up a T410s in the outlet. It has a Core i5 and the Quadro 3100M graphics compared to the Core Due on Intel graphics of my T400s. The same Intel SSD is in both machines. To things have jumped out at me, one of which is REALLY annoying.

1 - The keyboard tolerance is MUCH loser on the T410s than the T400s. I like this feel better, but wonder if it will make it less reliant over time.

2 - The fan noise is KILLING me. It's coming from the vent just behind the USB port on the left-hand side. Whereas the T400s was silent, even after hours of computing, from the moment I turn on the T410s the fan is running. For someone who works alone, in silence (no music, TV, etc.), most of the day, it's totally maddening ...

Like anything, I'm sure I'll get used to it, but still I'm wondering if other T410s owners have noticed this? Is it due to the Core i5? Perhaps there's an issue with this refurb Outlet machine? Is there anything I can do about it?

Thanks for everything.

Mike

p.s. I failed to mention that the screen color and brightness on this T410s FAR outshines the T400s panel. The whites and blacks look better and it's much brighter.

[Colonel O'Neill]

Differences in key tolerance might just be a different manufacturer of keyboard with different standards. For sure, with the T400/T61/T60/etc keyboards, the NMB's and Chicony's were distinctly different from the ALPS (at least in my experience).

Could the fan noise be caused by the graphics card being stuck in discrete? AFAIK, T410s's either had manually switchable graphics or Optimus graphics. TPFC should help in the meantime, though.

Out of curiosity, could you post side-by-side pictures of the T400s and T410s screens?

[vēer]

Fan on my T410 is really annoying, it kicks in few minutes after boot and keeps on running at 3500-3700 rpm's all the time which produces high pitched noise, really loud and annoying!

Ive tried TPFancontrol and it seems that BIOS is set to launch fans at 3500-3700rpms when integrated GPU/Chipset temperature reaches 40 degrees, which happens as soon as laptop is being turned on.

Ive tried TPF on my previous R400 to see how loud its fan will get running at the same speeds as my T410 is running and R400 fan while audible was more acceptable due to nature of sound produced by the fan - much lower frequencies.
However, at the same time, it rarely hit temperatures as high to kick the fan in yet it was never audible on my R400 except for when I forced it to run at the same fan speed as T410 on load.
T410 on the other hand has either fan off, running at 1900rpm which is still inaudible or next step blasting 3.5-3.7k rpms.
I guess its Lenovo's way of keeping machines with Core i CPUs cool enough because they do get hot compared to Core 2 Duo.
I think simple BIOS update could fix fan problem when it runs all the time at max and keeps GPU around 40-45 degrees while CPU is some 7-10 degrees cooler.

I wouldnt mind fan running up to 2500-2700 RPM's, it seems that such rotational speed doesnt generate intrusive high pitched noise, while everything around 3000 and above gets really annoying.

[miketoro]

Probably not very helpful ... I'm not the best photographer and this room doesn't get much light ...


https://picasaweb.google.com/1174942711 ... directlink

[Colonel O'Neill]

You could always define a custom fan profile that keeps it at ~2000RPM until 60C, and then have it ramp up after that.

AFAICT, I can't see much of a difference between the pictures. It is rather difficult to accurately capture screens with a camera though.

[vēer]

There are only fixed fan speed positions available for T410:
"ThinkPad T410i (fan levels RPM: 0 = off, 1 = ~1950, 2 = ~3575, 3-4 = ~3700, 5-6 = ~3825, 7 = ~4525; full-speed/disengaged = ~5450; only Linux-tested with tpfc0.5) "

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_control_fan_speed

Seems to be the same with Windows, at least thats how it works for me, not sure if its possible to modify fan speed to ones own desire.
Letting it spin at 1950 all the time makes sense only when not doing anything besides some really light work like browsing internet or idling, if doing some little bit more intensive the CPU/GPU temperatures will rise and 1950 rpm wont be able to handle it for a long time without temperatures going up steadily.
Fan speed below 3000 rpm's would be nice, but there isnt such speed on T410 TPFcontrol.
Not sure if one can make his own speeds?

[miketoro]

Seems to be the same with Windows, at least thats how it works for me, not sure if its possible to modify fan speed to ones own desire.
Letting it spin at 1950 all the time makes sense only when not doing anything besides some really light work like browsing internet or idling, if doing some little bit more intensive the CPU/GPU temperatures will rise and 1950 rpm wont be able to handle it for a long time without temperatures going up steadily.
Fan speed below 3000 rpm's would be nice, but there isnt such speed on T410 TPFcontrol.
Not sure if one can make his own speeds?

If you do play with it, please report back. I don't feel like I know enough about it myself to start messing with temperature ...

[Colonel O'Neill]

You can try the fan profile found on the Ultra T410 thread here:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 71#p574371

[vēer]

Those fan speed settings are useless if your T410's fan is loud, its only good for keeping laptops CPU/GPU temps within reasonable limits, but theres nothing extraordinary, ie, no new fan speeds, only those that TPFC allows for :/

[Colonel O'Neill]

Unfortunately not directly. Just out of curiosity, does setting Power Manager to passive cooling open up new fan modes? I know for a fact that my fan speeds at each TPFC setting have varied a bit (shifts by ~500RPM) over the months of having a T400, so there may be some sort of setting and/or BIOS patches that have altered fan speeds.

[miketoro]

There's an option to "reduce noise dynamically" in Power Manager, but my experience is it doesn't do much.

Honestly, every day I like this computer less and less ... What a mistake, going from the T400s to the T410s ...

Yesterday I dealt with this issue, so now I have the NVIDIA graphics turned off in bios, which is preventing the crashes, but wait a second, why'd I upgrade again? Oh yeah, for better graphics ...

I've also noticed that the CoreDuo T400s out performs this i5 while rendering video in Adobe Premiere or Adobe Media Encoder. If anyone knows why this is, I'm all ears. With the T400s I could render video, put it in the background and use Thunderbird or Firefox. With this Core i5 T410s any and all programs are sluggish to the point of uselessness while rendering video. This has been a major productivity hit.

The fan noise was just the tip of the iceberg.

I take the full responsibility for all this. I liked my T400s, but wanted D++ to HDMI with audio for my new TV. Without much thought I jumped to the T410s thinking it was like going from 2008 Chevy to a 2010. No big deal, right? Wrong. Thankfully the outlet (this is a refurb) has a 21 day return policy.

Big, big disappointment.

[racc]

I was very surprised by the fan noise of T410s too. My computer is a i5-M520 with integrated graphics.

Especially when on AC power I would rate the machine more distractingly noisy than my T60 14", X60s and X41. Maybe even W500. T43p 14" was clearly worst though, but it really was terrible.

Even with all power saving options (maximum power save graphics, passive cooling, "reduce noise dynamically", adaptive CPU clock, etc) on from BIOS and Windows the fan of T410s does not ever turn off or even use the slowest speed. This is without any real CPU load (except 1-5% from some Windows services and task monitor itself). Ambient temperature is usually near 20°C (68°F).

The only time I noticed fan running slightly slower(/more silent) was when computer was idling with screen off, but it instantly increased RPM when I simply pressed shift key and woke it! All the time fan RPM is rather high and the sound is definitely more annoying than in W500. Fan is here more noisier than HDD. Bottom of the computer is not even warm nor the exiting air noticeably. Air flow also feels weak considering the noise level.

I have never seen another T410s so I have no idea what is normal fan noise here, but based on several reviews and my previous Thinkpads I definitely expected something very different. Running on battery it is less noisy.

I am not sure what to do. Is the fan faulty, is the thing missing thermal compound, is this normal, should I contact Lenovo..? Has anyone had success curing the problem, nor even had the problem with an integrated graphics model?

So far T410s has been somewhat of a disappointment also to me. Compared to T60 (with X25-M SSD and CoreDuo 2.3GHz) this T410s (with a HDD and i5-M520) is:
-Noisier
-Wide screen display lacks vertical resolution. I didn't really expect it to be this bad nuisance in practice.
-In practice much slower (because it lacks a SSD)
-Opening display is slightly inconvenient because the operating mechanism is located in computer body, not in the display frame
-Relocated Insert key is annoying. To my fingers the older small Delete was very good
-Battery life hardly matches T60 even with small battery, T60 also has option for 9-cell which provides awesome
+A bit smaller in depth and thickness, lighter (though not really much if comparing to T60 with normal battery, SSD and without optical drive)
+Much better speakers, I was truly amazed (!)
+Bright display, though still poor viewing angles and contrast
+Looks great, very nice looking display frame, feels very nice and sturdy
+/-The presence of a faster CPU I've NOT noticed in any situation.
+/-Strange keyboard feel compared to my other Thinkpads. Feels more difficult to write though I've not benchmarked.
Not surprises to me, but still maybe worth of mentioning:
-It is wider.
-I can't use my external audio interface because of dropped CardBus slot support.
-1.8" HDD slot prevents me swapping in my X25-M SSD, and proper SSD availability locally(/in Finland) is still poor.