Difference between revisions of "Talk:Problem with fan noise"

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Word on the 'net is that 85 degrees is the max operating temp for most of the Intel chips.  I've seen some high 70's all the time (just put it on carpet for awhile and play some quake3 :).  I wouldn't let your processor get much higher than 85...
 
Word on the 'net is that 85 degrees is the max operating temp for most of the Intel chips.  I've seen some high 70's all the time (just put it on carpet for awhile and play some quake3 :).  I wouldn't let your processor get much higher than 85...
 +
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 +
"Word on the net" is usually synonym to bullshit.  The datasheets are available for download at Intel's site, go read them.  For the P4, 80C is the absolute maximum limit, and in the newer Pentiums, the chip itself will MCE and enable clock modulation if you try to make it exceed 80C.  I didn't read the new Pentium-M's datasheet yet.
  
 +
Letting the machine run hot is not a good idea, anyway. It shortens its lifespan considerably, especially the harddrive's. Don't play games with this.
 
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Older versions of xorg (i.e. 6.7.0) don't seem to be able to use the DynamicClocks option although it's set in the xorg.conf. Search the log to find out if it's really used.
 
Older versions of xorg (i.e. 6.7.0) don't seem to be able to use the DynamicClocks option although it's set in the xorg.conf. Search the log to find out if it's really used.
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Same fan problem here on the X41. Once it starts it won't stop (unless it is _very_ cold outside). Undervolting the CPU doesn't help - still the same problem.
 
Same fan problem here on the X41. Once it starts it won't stop (unless it is _very_ cold outside). Undervolting the CPU doesn't help - still the same problem.
 +
 +
 +
On my machine this seems to be related to the third temperature in /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal. The fan will be started whenever this value climbs to 46 degrees. It won't be stopped once the value drops to 45, of course. But if you detach/attach AC supply, this somehow resets the control logic and the fan will stop if the value is <=45. Unfortunately, it will quickly increase to 46, and the fan will start again.
 +
 +
The threshold temperature for stopping the fan seems to be 41 degrees, but the fan running at its default speed of ~4500 will only keep it around 44-46.
 +
 +
It would be quite interesting to know where that sensor No. 3 is located on the X41.
 +
 +
--[[User:Robert-qfh|Robert-qfh]] 20:11, 02 Mar 2006 (CET)
  
 
== Fan speed control? ==
 
== Fan speed control? ==
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--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 14:36, 7 Dec 2005 (CET)
 
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 14:36, 7 Dec 2005 (CET)
 
----
 
----
 +
It's just barely visible without the fan assembly removed.  Here is a [http://hcs.harvard.edu/~gsmenden/t43pfan.JPG picture of the area].  The fan assembly connector is the white 3 prong connector almost obscured by the PCMCIA doors, female end visible on the removed fan assembly.  I can give you a closeup if it will be useful, but it is a pretty standard connector.  The long grey wire in the photo is for the microphone input.  Surprisingly, there is a lot of room in that local area (see the notch in the fan assembly), clearly enough for an extension with resistor.  Of course, the need is kind of obviated by the software fan speed control now.
 +
--[[User:gsmenden|gsmenden]] 22:53, 1 Jun 2006 (EST)
  
 
== Further discussion ==
 
== Further discussion ==
Line 207: Line 221:
 
== Secret sensor and the cause of fan always on ==
 
== Secret sensor and the cause of fan always on ==
  
On my {{T43}}, ecdump offsets 0xC0-0xC2 seem to include 3 more temperature sensors that are not seen in {{path|/proc/acpi/ibm/thermal}}:
+
This discussion was moved to [[Talk:Thermal sensors]].
# cat /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal; 
 
temperatures:  44 41 33 42 33 -128 30 -128
 
# perl -ne 'm/^EC 0xc0: .(..) .(..) .(..) / or next; print hex($1)." ".hex($2)." ".hex($3)."\n"' < /proc/acpi/ibm/ecdump
 
40 48 43
 
 
 
Note the "48" entry (EC offset 0xC1). Something's pretty hot even at full full speed (level 7, 4700RPM). This sensor increases very quickly when the system starts (in fact, faster than anything else when the CPU is undervolted and [[fglrx]] is in maximum powersaving).
 
 
 
Now, note this: the fan kicks up from low speed to medium speed whenever this sensor reaches 46 degrees, even if no other sensor changes; and this seems to usually be the first trigger encountered. Moreover, this sensor hovers around 47-48 degrees even on an idle machine. Taken together, '''this fully explains the "fan always on" behavior: a previously-unnoticed sensor that's always hot.'''
 
 
 
Any idea what this sensor is? It seems correlated with WiFi: there's a 2deg difference when I toggle {{path|/sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/*/rf_kill}} (without ever being associated so this shouldn't affect anything else), and heavy WiFi data transfer increases temperature by several more degrees. This suggests the sensor is located in or close to the mini-PCI slot (i.e., under the touchpad). That region is indeed often hot to the touch. But why would the mini-PCI slot get so hot? Could it be the southbridge, which sits under the mini-PCI slot with no heatsink and poor ventilation? Can anyone correlate this sensor other specific activity, or with blocking of specific ventilation holes, or with cooling of specific components? If it's the mini-PCI slot? The operating temperature of the Intel 2200BG is [ftp://download.intel.com/network/connectivity/resources/doc_library/tech_brief/2200bg_prodbrief.pdf 0-80 deg].
 
 
 
Caveat: this is my experience with a {{T43}} after [[Pentium M undervolting and underclocking|undervolting]] the CPU and activating [[How to make use of Graphics Chips Power Management features|maximal GPU powersaving using fglrx]]. It could be that for other people, other components are the first to trigger. But either way, those are 3 temperature sensors we didn't know of and they're used by the Embedded Controller's algorithm.
 
  
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 16:20, 20 Nov 2005 (CET)
+
== X21 overacceleration problem ==
----
 
  
At the moment I am experimenting with controlling the fan on Windows XP with a self written tool on a {{T43}} (Model 2668 97G).  Having found the information about the secret sensors here I built these into the program and it seems that after starting my cooled (placed outside) {{T43}} the 0xC1 sensor indeed rises fastest but also cools down quite quicky especially if also the CPU is cool. I have seen it hotter than the CPU but not much cooler, so probably it is a small chip connected to the colling element of the CPU.
+
On my X21 2662-66U, the fan runs all the time. That's not an issue, because of how hot my laptop runs.
  
The values at 0xC0 and 0xC2 also seem to show temperature values here, while 0xC4 is always at 128.
+
However, at load, it runs really hot. I can hear the fan attempt to accelerate past the maximum speed, click three times, and drop back down to the max. It's not the same as the pulsing problem, yet similar.
  
First experiments indicate that as long as all the temperature value are below 43°C the Thinkpad comes up with no fan and stays that way. (The fan control register at EC offset 0x2F set to 0x80, see the bottom of the [[patch for controlling fan speed]] page for a description of this register). If 43°C are reached on the 0xC1 sensor, the fan kicks in with low speed while 43°C on the CPU do not activate the fan. With regard to the CPU the kick-in seems to be around 48°C.
+
New fan, ordered direct from IBM, due to my old fan running WAY too hot, even underclocked. As it is, I'm running underclocked because 95 C at full load is just NOT my cup of tea. 40 C idle temps at 500MHz, around 60 at 700MHz. 70 C load at 500, 95 C load at 700.
  
Once the fan is on, it goes off again if all the seonsors drop to the area of 38°C or lower (the value may not be precise).  But it hardly happens on it's own, for tests I placed it outside in cold weather.
+
== Startup noise ==
  
On [http://forum.thinkpads.com/ forums.thinkpad.com] is a ([http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=14580http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=14580 discussion]) from users who experimented with physically cooling the North- and Southbridge without success. In a different thread there a user claimed that he worked with a couple of Thinkpads and silenced them by turning off unused devices, WLAN being among them.
+
My T43 accelerates the fan to very high speed twice during startup: immediately after power-on, and during the bootloader prompt (i.e., after the BIOS but before Linux loads). This is independent of the unit's temperature, and is loud enough to cause some ugly stares when sitting in a lecture. Is this a universal phenomenon, worth mentioning in the article page?
  
With the XP WLAN device disabled the temperature on 0xC1 stays around 41°C here even if there is heavy activity on the CPU. It rises as soon as the WLAN device is enabled but hardly goes any hotter than 44°C. But I also could not make it go hot at all running on battery.  And the heat reading there somehow more or less follows the value of the CPU.
+
Potential solutions: the first fan acceleration can't be fixed by anything but an EC firmware update. For the second acceleration (after BIOS), a workaround can be implemented by adding basic fan control code (i.e., a few accesses to I/O ports 0x62 and 0x66 as explained in the [[Patch_for_controlling_fan_speed#Hardware_specs|fan control specs]] and Linux's {{path|drivers/acpi/ec.c}}) to the bootloader. GRUB 2 has a module infrastructure that should make this pretty easy, and other boot loaders can also be patched.
  
Bottom line on my {{T43}} (2668 97G): Fan kicks in for CPU around 48°C or 0xC1 at 43°C and then never goes off again unless you use external cooling.  0xC1 sensor could to be related to WLAN (I'm not really sure about it) and/or is probably placed near the CPU.  It could also have something to do with running the machine no AC rather than battery.
+
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 20:36, 27 Dec 2005 (CET)
 
 
-- Shimdoax - 2005-11-27
 
 
----
 
----
  
Shimdoax, you said "''I have seen it hotter than the CPU but not much cooler, so probably it is a small chip connected to the colling element of the CPU''", but also "''the temperature on 0xC1 stays around 41°C here even if there is heavy activity on the CPU''". It follows that your CPU is never much hotter than 41°C, which I find unlikely... Anyway, on my T43, sensor 0cC1 is correlated with the CPU but very slightly; it is more correlated with the GPU, but not very much either.
+
== Leftover bits ==
  
I suspect that sensor 0xC1 sits on the system board under the touchpad, since this is consistent with all of the following:
+
The following data didn't belong where it was posted, and was deleted when the containing section swre moved to [[How to control fan speed]]:
* In idle with wireless off, sensor 0xC1 has roughly the same temperature as the GPU (which is adjacent on the system board, under the spacebar and TrackPoint buttons).
 
* Correlation with the WLAN card activity (which is sandwiched between the system board and the touchpad).
 
* Quick warm-up (the southbridge is also on the system board under the touchpad, and has no heat spreader).
 
* Negligible effect of fan speed on 0xC1 temperature (the touchpad area is cramped and lacks decent ventilation, hence has negligible air flow).
 
* When I place a 12cm-by-12cm pad of thick thermally isolating material (a folded fleece blanket...) under the touchpad, 0xC1 temperature consistently rises by 2-3 degrees (and cools back when I remove the pad); other sensors seem unaffected.
 
  
If this is indeed the case, it's hard to see what can be done (other than using a fan control script with an increased threshold for this sensor). It looks like IBM/Lenovo counted on this area being passively cooled through the bottom of the case - see how the bottom of the laptop is designed to allow air flow under the front quarter? However, once the desk under the laptop has warmed up (or if air flow is blocked, as when the laptop is sitting on the top of a lap), things just cook up. The [http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=14580http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=14580 mods] which  thermally connet the southbridge to the GPU cooling assembly might improve things a bit, but on my system sensor 0xC1 isn't much hotter than the GPU anyway. Maybe ventilation can be improved by letting in more air through the speaker grills on the front - does anyone know what things looks like, under the very front of the palmrest? This won't solve "fan always on" since it will help only when the fan is on, but it may let the fan run at a lower speed.
+
* On my T41 (gentoo-sources-2.6.11.11 ) I noticed that after unloading the fan module the fan noise stopped. With the module loaded the fan was working even at very low cpu temperatures, without the module it's ok so far.
  
BTW, Shimdoax, how are you monitoring/controlling the EC under Windows?
+
* On a 770X the fan can be fully controlled through ACPI. Thermal Zone THM5 (possibly the battery/charging circuit, it's definitely warmer when using 5v PCMCIA cards and AC) triggers it to turn on and not ever off by design. Can be solved by a custom DSDT, which also makes use of the variable-speed features of the fan (will release this once I've finished tweaking and testing it).
  
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 18:22, 27 Nov 2005 (CET)
+
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 20:48, 20 January 2006 (CET)
 
----
 
----
  
Thinker,
+
== Embedded controller firmware disassembly ==
 
 
I currently don't know where to read the GPU temp from, so I can't say much about it (I'm running XP and have not found drivers or tools that would display the GPU).
 
 
 
However, regarding my experiments: I had the machine on my desk earlier today (when I wrote the post) on AC with WLAN connection to the office network and "Max. Battery Life" Scheme.  I had taken it from the trunk of the car (it's quite cold outside, around freezing).  During the whole experiments the CPU hardly went higher than 46°C, most of the time it was around 39°C to 43°C.  I wasn't very systematic in these tests, these were just first observations.
 
 
 
However, I think I can confirm that the 43°C on the C1 triggers the fan on my machine here.  48°C to 50°C on the CPU also triggers the fan on.  Then I put the laptop outside the window twice.  Temperatures dropped quite quickly and around MAX(CPU, 0xC1) of 38°C the fan turned itself off.
 
 
 
Further tests on the WLAN revealed mixed results about correlation.  If the CPU goes up the C1 also goes up, even if WLAN is disabled.  On the other hand I had cases where WLAN (big folder copy) made the C1 rise ahead of the CPU.  The way I tested it, mostly the C1 triggered the fan before the CPU did.  This at least explains why CPU undervolting/clocking doesn't help much.
 
 
 
But I think you're right.  Without custom scripts I guess it will be hard to keep the C1 below 43°C.  This value may even be intentional by IBM.  If it is really near the palmrest, higher values may cause burns (I once read about a guy who actually burnt his balls [no joke!] by working with a laptop which had a 42°C - 45°C battery temp. in his lap for an hour or two).  So they may think that fan noise is preferrable to bad publicity.
 
  
Hence I'm not counting on IBM.  Instead I'm currently writing a custom fan control program for XP, that's how I read the EC there.  I'll post a first version [http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=17715 here] later today. Maybe some folks from the hardware modding thread will help to locate the sensors with some cooling spray.
+
[http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=20958 This thread] points to, and discusses, a commented (partial) disassembly of the embedded controller. Following this lead, it may be possible to patch the firmware (perhaps transiently) to change the fan level selection algorithm and/or the RPMs.
  
-- Shimodax - 2005-11-27
+
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 07:10, 24 February 2006 (CET)
 
----
 
----
  
Shimodax,
+
== R50e with CELERON M: fan for life ==
  
Great to see work on a Windows solution, especially from Emtec! (Alas, I let my ZOC registration expire when I switched to Linux). Will you be releasing the source code?
+
I am such a loser. I bought a R50e with CELERON M CPU, and thus will
 +
never get longer than 90 seconds of peace before the next 62 to 54
 +
degree fan cycle. --jidanni
  
If the 0xC1 sensor is near the southbridge then it will be affected by CPU activity both because of related southbridge activity and by thermal conductance via the motherboard; but I've seen 0xC1 at 47deg and CPU at 59deg (after a long burn-in), so they can't be too close. About the palmrest, IBM actually brags about low palm rest temperature in some of their marketing publication. But ironically the hottest and worst-cooled area of the laptop (where I suspect 0xC1 sits) is in the bottom center right under the touchpad - which tends to coincide with certain anatomical regions... BTW, GPU temp is EC offset 0x7B; there a partial list inside my new fan control script at [[Talk:ACPI_fan_control_script]] (I'll move it to the article page soon).
+
== FAN Problem with T42 ==
  
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 23:20, 27 Nov 2005 (CET)
+
Hello I have got a T42 and implemented on my gentoo System with a 2.6.15 kernel the fan script. My problem is that I don't know which values I have to set in the fan-control script. My fan ist loudless for only about 5 minutes than the cpu temperature arrives about 50 degree. Another problem ist the combination with the "conservative" govenour. If I use a Software which raises cpu load the script seems to raise up the fan to the maximum for about 2 seconds and then calm it down. This not fine for office work. Do you have some ideas? Another problem is my /proc/acpi/processor/CPU0/throttling, because it never switches the states!
----
+
Any help? Thanks for answers
  
+LOL+ I wouldn't have expected that anybody would know me :-)
+
state count:             8
 +
active state:            T0
 +
states:
 +
  *T0:                  00%
 +
    T1:                  12%
 +
    T2:                  25%
 +
    T3:                  37%
 +
    T4:                  50%
 +
    T5:                  62%
 +
    T6:                  75%
 +
    T7:                  87%
  
Yes, I'll release source code soon.  I took quite some pain in writing this tool without our proprietary classes and libs in order to be able to release the source (or at least maintain a basic Open Source version).  I'll see if SourceForge accepts the project (applied on Saturday), otherwise I'll have find another place.
+
== Mowing the lawn ==
 +
For the past two days, my thinkpad fan suddenly turned extremely loud - it really sounds like when we'd put playing cards on the spokes of our bikes as kids to make them sound like motorbikesIt's loud enough that I can't take my laptop to the library, and extremely annoying.
  
Thanks for the info about the GPU ...  
+
We have a new onsite thinkpad repair place here at Harvard, and I took the laptop to them.  Unfortunately, the guys wanted me to sign something that said, "If we can't find anything wrong with your computer on hardware diagnostics, then you will pay $45 for a diagnostic fee."  I repeatedly told them that any hardware diagnostic scan will show that the system is normal; I think it is a bad bearing or some sort of obstruction of the fan.  However, then they switched, "if we find it is within operating decibels for the laptop."  Alas, I asked them if they actually have a microphone they hold to the machine, and they really wouldn't answer.  We fired up the machine, but their office in the basement of our science center was so loud that it was hard to hear the clanging noise, which really gets going after a few minutes...
  
Markus
+
Alas, I elected to drop ship the machine to Lenovo / IBM because I felt these guys wouldn't repair / replace the fan.  Alternatively, I am thinking of ordering the FRU and just doing it myself, it's around $40, and possibly doing some thermal mods as described in various linked threads.
  
-- Shimodax - 23:42 (CET) - 2005-11-27
+
Thinker, did you ever figure out a way to hardwire the fan to constant rpm perchance?
----
+
--[[User:gsmenden|gsmenden]] 18:24, 29 May 2006 (EST)
  
For the record: the new [http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?p=111974 "Shimodax fan control tool : sharing values"] topic at the thinkpads.com forums tracks some other users' experience with their sensor. So far the only new observation is that sensor 0x7A (3rd) is probably in the vicinity of the the CPU or northbridge.
+
Update - I received the fan assembly (FRU 26R9074, retail $37.50 USD) and replaced it without any problem. There are a couple places where one could definitely go wrong / damage the laptop, but warnings are pretty clearly outlined in the Hardware Maintenance Manual. All done, for less than the diagnostic fee. You'll need some heatsink grease - I'll put pictures online of the process if I ever get a chance.
  
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 12:53, 28 Nov 2005 (CET)
+
I did not bother with any thermal "mods" - I believe that heat transfer is not the problem regarding the fan always on, as described elsewhere in this wiki and fixed (at least partially) by Thinker et al's script.
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Just now I see the C2 higher than C1 and rest of the system for the first timeOnly difference I can think of is the fact that the battery is loading.  I hooked it on with 6% left about 30 minutes ago.  Usage was mainly web broswing (firefox, maybe a webpage with animated gif ads)C2 triggered the fan at 50°C two times.
+
No wires were contacting my old fan, nor was it excessively dirtyFlicking it to spin with my finger makes the same rattling sound - I think the axis just came off or one of the bearings was badNow my laptop is whisper-quiet.
  
CPU 42°C (0x78)
+
Do NOT get the IBM "Screwdriver kit" for $34.  I thought it would be a nice toolset with case, but it is a cheapo set of screwdrivers in a cheapo plastic case, literally available online for $5.95 (the EXACT SAME model!).  Go to Fry's, get some nice tools, and then head to your local pub for 6 more screwdrivers with the money you saved.  Needless to say, I will return this.
APS 41°C (0x79)
+
--[[User:gsmenden|gsmenden]] 22:09, 01 Jun 2006 (EST)
X7A 34°C (0x7A)
 
GPU 44°C (0x7B)
 
BAT 40°C (0x7C)
 
BAT 31°C (0x7E)
 
XC0 40°C (0xC0)
 
XC1 46°C (0xC1)
 
XC2 48°C (0xC2)
 
  
-- Shimodax 00:17 CET - 2005-11-30
+
== Upgrading BIOS didn't help ==
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Upon further casual observation I would like to offer the theory that the C2 sensor is indeed related to battery loading and may be located rear/left (under the Esc/F1) on a T43. See: page 2 on [http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?p=111974 "Shimodax fan control tool : sharing values"]
+
Hi, I'm a (regretful) ThinkPad T42 user. I wanted to say that I reinstalled Windows just for the purpose of upgrading the BIOS and firmware, on the advice of this article, and it didn't make a difference at all. The fan is still noisy. It was very disappointing, especially since I had to go through a lot of hoops to get the Windows restore disks from IBM - for some reason they were not included with the laptop. After giving up on that, I found that the tp-fancontrol script helps a bit, but it can't always keep the fan from pulsing. I will check back here periodically for better solutions. Thanks. [[User:FrederikEaton|FrederikEaton]] 01:47, 28 July 2006 (CEST)
  
-- Shimodax 13:27 CET - 2005-12-01
 
 
----
 
----
  
I happen to have a photo of that area from the last time I opened my T43, and indeed it looks like there's some power circuitry there:
+
Can you describe the pulsing beavior with tp-fancontrol in more detail? Note that it ''will'' pulse for a few seconds when changing levels and every 5 minutes, to re-calibrate the fan speed.  
 
 
[[Image:T43-2686-DGU-CDC.jpg|500px|T43 CDC]]
 
 
 
Those two "150 A47L" are just above the ventilation grill. Any idea what they could be?
 
  
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 20:11, 1 Dec 2005 (CET)
+
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 02:50, 28 July 2006 (CEST)
 
----
 
----
  
Don't know ... they could look like power stabilizing transistors, but I have very little knowledge of electronic (especially of SMD circuits) so that's just wild guessing.
+
== Thinkpad T41p: Fan too slow! ==
  
Hoever, the system is currently loading battery again and I played with the fan. The C2 does react to the fan quite slowly and when I forced the fan off it rose no higher than 55°C.  Also from touching the bottom of the laptop, I'd say the hottest part of that area is between the grill and the latch for the DRAM expansion (probably below the thing in the center of your photo).
+
Most people complain about too loud fans, I have the opposite problem. My fan speed seems to be capped at 3100rpm. When I do long, heavy work (like compiling, or compressing large files), my CPU even reaches the 89°C and emergency-throttles down to 600MHz.  
  
-- Shimodax 01:53 CET - 2005-12-02
+
I was using powernowd (with userspace governor) for a long time, now I am using ondemand governor, no change. My fan knows only "off" and "2900-3100rpm". Could this be a BIOS thing?
  
----
+
I even tried to force the fan to different speeds (with ''# echo 0x2F 0x07 > /proc/acpi/ibm/ecdump (maximum speed)''), but it does not care. Any Ideas?
  
Makes perfect sense. So 0xC2 sits under the CDC and monitors the power circuitry (not just battery charging, since it also heats up slightly above its environment without a battery). Then XC2->PWR, I guess. Two more to go: 0x7A and 0xC0 (both are nice and cool here).
+
Thanks, --[[User:MartinEmrich|MartinEmrich]] 19:56, 21 August 2006 (CEST)
  
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 03:35, 2 Dec 2005 (CET)
+
'''Update''': I just installed a new fan assembly to replace the really dirty old one. This new one goes faster again, looks like the problem is solved... --[[User:MartinEmrich|MartinEmrich]] 23:52, 25 September 2006 (CEST)
----
 
  
I'll then rename it in my tool with the next release.  Btw, do you have any idea what the APS might be on other models?
+
== Correct BIOS settings? ==
  
-- Shimodax 14:07 CET - 2005-12-03
+
[[User:Piccobello|Piccobello]]: I don't know if that is related, but when fiddling around with BIOS
----
+
settings on my {{X31}}, I noticed that my fan would be ok if I set:
 +
config>power>IntelSpeedstepTechnology to disabled, or,
 +
if enabled, config>power>IntelSpeedstepTechnology>Power modes
 +
both to Automatic. (Note that the kernel takes care of scaling
 +
anyway, so you can safely leave disabled. I don't know if that is
 +
safe with Windows as well).
  
It's easy to check if 0x79 is the HDAPS accelerometer or not: read the HDAPS temperature directly and compare. For getting the HDAPS temperature you can follow the Linux hdaps.c driver, or just reboot to Linux and look at {{path|/sys/bus/platform/drivers/hdaps/hdaps/temp1}} (and at {{path|/proc/acpi/ibm/thermal}} for the first 8 EC sensors). On my T43, the 0x79 always matches the HDAPS sensor (usually identical but sometimes 1 degree off, probably due to a different sampling time). BTW, my [[ACPI_fan_control_script#Variable_speed_control_scripts|ACPI fan control script]] monitors both, just in case.
+
If I instead set both power modes to Maximum Performance,
 +
the fan would be always on, at very high speed, even though
 +
my CPU would be at about 30 celsius.. at some point it would
 +
start blowing out cold air..  
 +
The notebook would also feel cold, except for the area of the bottom
 +
under the trackpad, so this could also be related to [[Talk:Thermal Sensors#Secret sensor and the cause of fan always on|this issue]]. In the {{X31}}, this
 +
is where the additional RAM module lays.
  
Speaking of which, the table at the top of that script reflects all knowledge gleaned from the forum.tinkpads.com discussion. Feel free to update it (maybe we should move it to a separate and more spacious page?).
+
So make sure your config>power>IntelSpeedstepTechnology
 +
is disabled in the bios.
 +
You can leave both config>power>Power modes to Max Perf.
  
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 15:03, 3 Dec 2005 (CET)
+
You can play with your BIOS menu [http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=ibm&lndocid=TPAD-SIMS here].
----
 
  
For another view of the 0xC2 area, including a peek under the CDC card, see IBM/Lenovo's [http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-51451 CDC removal movie]. There seems to be nothing very exciting visible on the upper side on the motherboard (but judging by the plastic buldge in the bottom of the case, there's probably some circuitry on the underside).
+
== IBM 51 fan always-on : depends from the OS ==
  
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 16:39, 3 Dec 2005 (CET)
+
Hi there,
----
 
I just had the idea that 0xC0 could be the Northbridge chip. See [http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?p=111974 "Shimodax fan control tool : sharing values"]
 
  
-- Shimodax 23:15 CET - 2005-12-05
+
I have an IBM R51. Prior to installing Fedora Core 4 I had no problems with the fan, i.e. in Win XP it would turn on and off with no apparent nuisance. With Fedora 4, once it reached a certain temperature (i.e. after a certain period of time, doing the same things), the fan goes on and never off again, although cold air was coming out. In a ML someone suggestesd to try openSUSE since they'd be "IBM friendly" and indeed: the 10.0 RC at that time made no trouble: the fan would go on and off according to real needs. Unfortunately, I did upgrade to the latest openSUSE version, only to find the problem repeating again.
----
 
 
 
Yes, 0xC0 is very much correlated with CPU temperature. But if it's the northbrighe then it's surpsigingly cool, since northbridges usually run pretty hot, and the 815PM has a small surface area and no cooling assembly whatsoever, see here:
 
 
 
[[Image:ThinkPad-T43-under-keyboard-left.jpg|500px|T43 systemboard]] (click to enlarge)
 
 
 
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 00:45, 5 Dec 2005 (CET)
 
----
 
Mmmh, I guess I'll remove the keyboard and play with some cooling spray. It seems that a good part of the inside area can be reached through the opening of the keyboard.
 
 
 
-- Shimodax 23:15 CET - 2005-12-05
 
 
 
-----
 
Just in case - these [http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-50233 instructions and movies] are pretty useful. It looks like the palmrest should be easy to remove too, but I didn't try that.
 
  
Keep us posted :-)
+
I'm writing this because, in my case, I have the problem only with Linux - instead of what is written on the article side. Maybe it depends on some module?
  
And please take plenty of photos! You never know what you'll want to look up later (as with those 0xC2 power chips above).
+
~Pasquale
  
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 17:34, 6 Dec 2005 (CET)
+
On linux using the new thinkpad_acpi ( integrated in recent kernels;) with :
----
+
in  /etc/modprobe.conf :
Someone on a [http://thinkpad-forum.de/forum/viewtopic.php?p=29286#29286 German forum] reported that he saw pictures on an U.S. forum where someone said he located the 0xC1 with cooling spray. Seems indeed to be below the left of the touchpad on the mainboard (pictures on the forum article linked above)
 
  
-- Shimodax 22:50 CET - 2005-12-06
+
options thinkpad_acpi fan_control=1 experimental=1
----
 
Interesting. That's a T40, right? Similar layout but different cooling assembly. Anyway, the T40 didn't have HDAPS, but on the T43 the HDAPS accelerometer chip is just 1 or 2 centimeters down from the location of the chip marked here. And on the T43, sensor 0xC1 and direct HDAPS reads give very different results. So maybe they moved 0xC1 away on the T43? Or, maybe the temperatures read through by HDAPS driver actually come from a separate sensor located elsewhere (unlikely but possible).
 
  
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 01:05, 7 Dec 2005 (CET)
+
Everything is great now, I just have to set the fan speed at boot :
----
 
Yep, that was a T40.  Well, I purchased a can of cooling spray today.  First results without opening the machine indicate 0xC2 is near the grill below the Esc-F3 keys.  The currently still unknown 0x7A cools down if I spray into the PCMCIA slot (also makes sense to place a sensor there, I'd say it is on the mainboard below the slots).
 
  
Probably will open the case tonight or tomorrow. I guess for precise results I'll need to remove the bezel and the fan ... quite an adventure ;-).  Will keep you posted of further results.
+
  echo 'level 3' > /proc/acpi/ibm/fan
  
-- Shimodax 2005-12-07
+
There are also some kind of automating for this but i prefer to control the fan myself.
----
+
˜neofutur
  
Speaking of the PCMCIA port - I noticed that under heavy CPU load with the fan on, if I insert a PC Card into the slot then the CPU and 0x79 (HDAPS) temperature quickly go up a couple of degrees. This happens even if the PC Card is turned off or not inserted all the way in (no electric contact). Probably blocked airflow.
+
== Fan always-on after bios update from 2.17 to 2.22 (Z61m) ==
  
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 20:08, 7 Dec 2005 (CET)
+
After updating the bios from 2.17 to 2.22, I now have the "fan is always-on" problem with a Z61m :-(.
----
+
If I do a AC plug/unplug cycle the fan operation gets back to normal.
I opened the thing today and played around a bit.  Here's my assesment of where the sensors are:
 
[http://img363.imageshack.us/img363/545/pc080805custom22ef.jpg Image] (dunno how to upload an image here, feel free to add it to thinkwiki directly).
 
 
 
C1 is most likely the Southbridge chip itself, APS and BUS are the small highlighted chips or very near them.  PWR did not react much to the spray, but does react to spraying throught the grill on the bottom of the case, so it's probably on the underside.
 
 
 
-- Shimodax 2005-12-08
 
 
 
[[Image:T43-thermal-sensors.jpg|ThinkPad T43 thermal sensors|700px]] (click to enlarge)
 
 
 
----
 
 
 
Shimodax,
 
 
 
Beautiful, beautiful work! Got everything back in working order, I hope, including those pesky screwcap stickers?
 
 
 
This confirms our information/guesses about CPU,GPU,BAT,BAT2,PWR and Southbridge, and solves the mystery of 0x7A (PCMCIA) and 0xCA (Northbridge-RAM bus). A few notes:
 
 
 
* 0x89 is a surprise - it is quite far from the HDAPS acceleromater chip (search for "accelerometer" [ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/39t2393.pdf here]), even though it gives the same temperatures as when reading the accelerometer's IO ports. But this explains why 0x89 quickly gets hotter under load when the PCMCIA port is blocked.
 
* The mapping is indeed different from the R52 one that people keep citing because of the ibm-acpi documentation - the 2nd and 3rd sensors are ''not'' HDD and Mini-PCI.
 
* Some of the chips are a quite distant from the hot components they presumably monitor. Most significantly, when some usage causes the Northbridge to heat up rapidly, by the time sensor 0xC0 says 55 degrees the Northbridge core is probably above 60.
 
 
 
Shimodoax, it would be great if you could upload more (unprocessed) photos, either to the Wiki (using the "Upload file" button on the left navigation bar) or by links. Deserves its own Wikipage, I think. It will save a lot of people the need to open their laptop too... For example, in regard to a discussion from yesterday further up the page - got a clear photo of the fan power connector, by any chance?
 
 
 
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 18:38, 8 Dec 2005 (CET)
 
----
 
 
 
See [[Thermal sensors]].
 
 
 
--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 19:48, 8 Dec 2005 (CET)
 
----
 
Just for the record: I did not test the two BAT locations, these were taken from your previous description.  Regarding the other locations, I'm quite sure about them but not 100% definite.  I would not treat them as bullet proof fact until someone else confirms the experiment.
 
  
The whole procedure went quite smoothly.  I just found that there were three screws missing in my machine but luckily I had ordered a thinkpad screw kit on Ebay a few days ago.  Also, on my model I did not need the stickers, all screws were without one.  Just mone minor mishap happened when I stuck one of the #2 screws in the wrong hole (there is an empty hole that looks like a screw hole about 4mm from the intended location) and had a hard time getting the screw out.
+
Update: After switching completely off and booting again it seems to work again.
  
I still have no idea how to upload stuff here, maybe becaue I don't have an account here.  I do have a couple more pictures, also larger ones, although they are not too great photography.  I'll upload them to the thinkpad forum via imageshack and you can grab them and put them here.
+
(But it seems the bios upgrade had another side-effect: if the wlan driver (ipw3945) is loaded much less time is spent in C3 state now:
 +
C2: ~50% and C3: ~40% with the new BIOS and it was around 5% and 90% using the old one AFAIR - could somebody confirm this?)
  
Btw, I think you mean 0x79, not 0x89
+
== X31: hard drive management settings causing always on problem ==
  
-- Shimodax -- 2005-12-08
+
Hello everyone. This is my first wiki contribution, so please bear with me ;-)
 +
There is not much information about the always on problem in the main article so I thought I should share what I just observed:
 +
I have an Hitachi hard drive and used one of their tools to enable power and acoustic management. This tool was on a dos boot disk and when I enabled acoustic management in this environment the fan would turn on and stay on, even when booting into windows afterward.
 +
I left acoustic and power management enabled and reverted the bios settings to default (by pressing F9 in bios) which got rid of the error.

Latest revision as of 00:46, 3 March 2009

Problem with fan noise on R51 1829 L7G (ATI M9)

On my R51 the fan is behaving like this:

  • > 45C -> fan on;
  • < 38C -> fan off.

By using cpufreq + laptop_mode + Xorg DynamicClocks + WiFi power management, I get the fan stopped time to time, but only for 3 minutes time (transition from 38 C -> 45 C). The cooling down cycle is taking 20 minutes in the best case.

I knew about the 'ibm_acpi experimental=1' trick, but in my opinion this is not very useful since nobody can guarantee that a temperature greater then 45 C will not damage the laptop and in the same time the transition time is very short (the laptop gets hot fast without fan).

Thinkpad T42 Radeon Mobility M7

When Xorg is running, the fan is always on and pretty loud ! Setting DynamicClocks does not help

it's clear that the GPU is the problem on the thinkpad :

after 10minutes with the fan off temperatures: 44 47 33 52 32 -128 24 -128

1: CPU 2: Mini PCI Module 3: HDD 4: GPU 5: Battery 6: N/A 7: Battery 8: N/A

Controlling the fan speed would be really cool !

What is the maximum temperature not to cross ?


Word on the 'net is that 85 degrees is the max operating temp for most of the Intel chips. I've seen some high 70's all the time (just put it on carpet for awhile and play some quake3 :). I wouldn't let your processor get much higher than 85...


"Word on the net" is usually synonym to bullshit. The datasheets are available for download at Intel's site, go read them. For the P4, 80C is the absolute maximum limit, and in the newer Pentiums, the chip itself will MCE and enable clock modulation if you try to make it exceed 80C. I didn't read the new Pentium-M's datasheet yet.

Letting the machine run hot is not a good idea, anyway. It shortens its lifespan considerably, especially the harddrive's. Don't play games with this.


Older versions of xorg (i.e. 6.7.0) don't seem to be able to use the DynamicClocks option although it's set in the xorg.conf. Search the log to find out if it's really used.

Thinkpad R32 with Radeon Mobility M6

Updating xorg-x11 from 6.7.0 to 6.8.2 and using Speedstep (with the ondemand module in this case) helped cooling the system down significantly:

  • before updating the CPU was ~62 C in idle state, and got very near the critical temperature (72 C) during heavy load - I even got some freezes because of the heat ;)
  • after the update the CPU is ~54 C in idle state, and still gets to about 68 C while under heavy load

The second sensor (which may be the GPU) is somehow fixed to 50 C (maybe a bug?)

The fan on the R32 is behaving like this:

  • > 61 -> fan in state 2 (quite noisy)
  • < 55 -> fan in state 1 (less noisy :) )

But I remember using my old SuSE distribution with kernel 2.4.16, apm and some old x11 version the fan actually stopped completely from time to time.

Concerning the maximum temperature of the CPU, I found that the critical temperature on the R32 for the CPU sensor is 72 C (using # cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THM0/trip_points )

Fan Control script: more safe version

ibm_acpi works well on my R50 and R51. But to rely on it completely, I modified the script in two ways:

1. It catches verious signals and turns the fan on before it quits

2. It turns off the fan under very strict conditions, leaving it on when unexpected errors occur.

Here is my script:

#!/bin/sh

# july 2005 Erik Groeneveld, erik@cq2.nl
# More conservatiev and saver version
# It make sure the fan is on in case of errors
# and only turns it off when all temps are ok.

IBM_ACPI=/proc/acpi/ibm
THERMOMETER=$IBM_ACPI/thermal
FAN=$IBM_ACPI/fan
MAXTRIPPOINT=65
MINTRIPPOINT=60
TRIPPOINT=$MINTRIPPOINT

echo fancontrol: Thermometer: $THERMOMETER, Fan: $FAN
echo fancontrol: Current `cat $THERMOMETER`
echo fancontrol: Controlling temperatures between $MINTRIPPOINT and $MAXTRIPPOINT degrees.

# Make sure the fan is turned on when the script crashes or is killed
trap "echo enable > $FAN; exit 0" HUP KILL INT ABRT STOP QUIT SEGV TERM

while [ 1 ];
do
       command=enable
       temperatures=`sed s/temperatures:// < $THERMOMETER`
       result=
       for temp in $temperatures
       do
               test $temp -le $TRIPPOINT && result=$result.Ok
       done
       if [ "$result" = ".Ok.Ok.Ok.Ok.Ok.Ok.Ok.Ok" ]; then
               command=disable
               TRIPPOINT=$MAXTRIPPOINT
       else
               command=enable
               TRIPPOINT=$MINTRIPPOINT
       fi
       echo $command > $FAN
       # Temperature ramps up quickly, so pick this not too large:
       sleep 5
done

I added this script to the other ones. Don't wander about my talk edits, i didn't realize i was on the talk page. Wyrfel 01:48, 13 Aug 2005 (CEST)


X41

Same fan problem here on the X41. Once it starts it won't stop (unless it is _very_ cold outside). Undervolting the CPU doesn't help - still the same problem.


On my machine this seems to be related to the third temperature in /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal. The fan will be started whenever this value climbs to 46 degrees. It won't be stopped once the value drops to 45, of course. But if you detach/attach AC supply, this somehow resets the control logic and the fan will stop if the value is <=45. Unfortunately, it will quickly increase to 46, and the fan will start again.

The threshold temperature for stopping the fan seems to be 41 degrees, but the fan running at its default speed of ~4500 will only keep it around 44-46.

It would be quite interesting to know where that sensor No. 3 is located on the X41.

--Robert-qfh 20:11, 02 Mar 2006 (CET)

Fan speed control?

Only the X31 and X40 have an ACPI method for controlling the FAN speed (this is why ibm_acpi provides this functionality just for these models).

What will happen if we take the "FANS" method from the X40 DSDT, paste it into a iasl-disassembled DSDT of (say) a T43, recompile it and tell the kernel to use the patched DSDT? ibm_acpi will present the functionality, but it may or may not work.

--Thinker 16:16, 28 Sep 2005 (CEST)

Any risk of damaging the hardware when doing this? E.g. what does occur if the system overheats - will the CPU be destroyed are does it automatically switch of? As I've just bought a new X41 I don't want to take any stupid risks - but otherwise I'd say let's try it out.

--gst Thu Sep 29 18:14:13 CEST 2005

I think Intel CPUs have some built-in thermal protection, but I'd hate to test it. And of course, any fiddling with the hardware at this level might damage it. That said, when the CPU is mostly idle it keeps a reasonable temperature even when the fan is disabled, so as long as you keep an eye on both the CPU usage meter and /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal, things should be pretty safe temperature-wise. For extra safety you can force the CPU to its lowest speed via /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq. --Thinker 18:33, 29 Sep 2005 (CEST)



Anybody tried to slow down the fan and have it running at ~1000-1500rpm? That would make it almost silent and you could have it always running (like Apple does on Macs).

--Micampe 12:56, 7 Dec 2005 (CET)


Goot question. The embedded controller interface we have discovered allows only for setting a fan level between 0 and 7, not the actual RPM. And IBM has been ramping up the RPM assignment of each fan level (look at the model-specific data there), so that on the T43, even the lowest accessible level is at a pretty fast 3300RPM. The following might provide a way around this, if the hardware is capable of generating lower speeds:

  • Patch the embedded controller firmware. You will need the information in this post and the following one, a lot of patience, and an active warranty.
  • Find out how the embedded controller is setting the speed (maybe by disassembling it as above, but at least you don't need to load patched firmware). Maybe the EC is changing the speed by instructing another component over an interface (SMBus?) that can also be accessed directly by the CPU. In this case, maybe you can put the embedded controller in disengaged mode and control that component directly.

Then, there's the soldering-iron approach. Assuming the fan uses the standard wiring and that its speed determined by the provided voltage, you can make all speeds somewhat slower simply by putting a resistor in series with the fan. You can do that by splicing one of the wires or, to avoid voiding your warranty, just build an extension cable like this:

           fan cable             extension     
    #------- Vfan --------#>  >#---~~R~~---#>   >#SYSTEM
 FAN#------- SENSE -------#>  >#-----------#>   >#BOARD
    #------- GND ---------#>  >#-----------#>   >#CONNECTOR

Use an appropriate resistor R, and make sure it doesn't get too hot (if it does, attach it to the fan's cooling assembly). Worked nicely for me a few years ago on some desktop motherboard. If you're into that kind of stuff, you can also use fancier electronics instead of the resistor to avoid the (minor) power waste.

It would be useful to have some pictures of the fan cable connector so we can get a matching pair (it's above the rear right corner of the PCMCIA slot, under the palmrest but maybe visible with just the keyboard removed).

--Thinker 14:36, 7 Dec 2005 (CET)


It's just barely visible without the fan assembly removed. Here is a picture of the area. The fan assembly connector is the white 3 prong connector almost obscured by the PCMCIA doors, female end visible on the removed fan assembly. I can give you a closeup if it will be useful, but it is a pretty standard connector. The long grey wire in the photo is for the microphone input. Surprisingly, there is a lot of room in that local area (see the notch in the fan assembly), clearly enough for an extension with resistor. Of course, the need is kind of obviated by the software fan speed control now. --gsmenden 22:53, 1 Jun 2006 (EST)

Further discussion

I've just found a very interesting thread regarding the same issue on HP notebooks. IMO it provides many insight information about heat/fan problems in general, the URL is: http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=853249 Especially the posts by the HP engineer "Andy Fisher" are very interesting. IBM should be able to provide the same BIOS fix as HP did (maybe I should have bought an HP notebook instead of a Thinkpad?).

I've also contacted IBM/Lenovo support via the website about the fan issue. Maybe it helps when others do this as well (especially people who bought larger quantities) so that this issue is taken serious by Lenovo. Is there already any official response to this problem?

--gst Thu Sep 29 19:40:34 CEST 2005


Two of the changes mentioned by the HP engineer make perfect sense here: raise the low trip points and make speed transition gradual. Oh, and get rid of the annoying beat pattern (a brief speed pulse every few seconds) it sometimes gets into!

But from our perspective, what would probably be best is to do the whole thing in software, providing the flexibility for personal preferences and smart decisions. The hardware would only enforce emergency override or throttle/shutdown for extreme temperatures. Then we could do cute things like having a software daemon lower the thresholds in a noisy environment (as judged using the built-in microphone) or when the laptop is on the user's lap (as judged by the built-in accelometers).

--Thinker 18:47, 30 Sep 2005 (CEST)

I noticed that on my T43 the fan is usually in one of two modes, low speed (around 3300 RPM, triggered around CPU=47deg) and medium speed (around 4100 RPM, can't figure out the trip condition). The former is nearly inaudible, but the latter is quite noticable in the absense of strong background noises.

Now, the problem is that once it has tripped into medium speed, it usually never comes back to low speed until the next reboot. So once it happens, to quiet things down I can only run one of the fan-disabling scripts given here. But with a disabled fan the T43 is not thermally stable, so it will spend its time moving back and forth between the hysteresis thresholds, i.e., toggling between 4100 RPM and 0 RPM every few minutes. This is quite silly and annoying, when staying at low speed would be both more stable and more quiet.

I hope someone will find a way to control the fan speed, or at least to reset the embedded controller's hysteresis state.

--Thinker 10:29, 6 Oct 2005 (CEST)

When you do changes to e.g. the Energy Schema in Windows or you eject the Thinkpad of the Docking Station it seems that the controllers state is rest. At least on the X41 the fan does stop until it reaches the threshold to start some minutes later. So it should be doable. --85.124.171.70

That's good. But just like a bunch of other functions (e.g., controlling the battery charge threshold), it probably uses low-level undocumented proprietary interfaces which are very hard to figure out without the help of IBM/Lenovo, who are in denial about the whole thing. --Thinker 01:40, 16 Oct 2005 (CEST)


Works fine with APM instead of ACPI?

On my X41 the fan starts after about 10 minutes of use and doesn't stop (until it is rather cold in my room - and even then it runs most of the time ;) A friend of mine who has a X41 too (though another model) and who does use NetBSD and APM doesn't experience this problem. He claims that the fan only comes up if the system is not idle. So either it is colder in his room, the X41 model which he has doesn't have this flaw or APM does use different tresholds than ACPI.

  • Then why not just try the acpi=off kernel parameter and see what happens? --Thinker 18:14, 30 Sep 2005 (CEST)

I currently don't have physical access to the X41. Will try in a few days.

Rewiring the fan?

Since IBM/Lenovo shows no intention of fixing their embedded controller firmware or releasing its specs, how about getting the embedded controller out of the loop? I'd be happy as a clam if my fan was hard-wired to work at a constant 3000RPM, with temperatures kept at bay in software through CPU frequenty control.

Assuming the fan has the standard 3-wire connector, we can probaby keep the sensor and ground wires untouched, and rewire the positive wire to some nearby current source of appropriate voltage (through a resistor, for fine-tuning). The trick would be to find an easily tappable source that can handle an extra 2W and has the appropriate voltage (i.e., just slightly higher than what the fan needs to rotate at that RPM, so we don't waste too much energy in the resistor). Any idea what are the typical fan voltages and what would be an appropriate hookup point?

--Thinker 01:59, 16 Oct 2005 (CEST)


Secret sensor and the cause of fan always on

This discussion was moved to Talk:Thermal sensors.

X21 overacceleration problem

On my X21 2662-66U, the fan runs all the time. That's not an issue, because of how hot my laptop runs.

However, at load, it runs really hot. I can hear the fan attempt to accelerate past the maximum speed, click three times, and drop back down to the max. It's not the same as the pulsing problem, yet similar.

New fan, ordered direct from IBM, due to my old fan running WAY too hot, even underclocked. As it is, I'm running underclocked because 95 C at full load is just NOT my cup of tea. 40 C idle temps at 500MHz, around 60 at 700MHz. 70 C load at 500, 95 C load at 700.

Startup noise

My T43 accelerates the fan to very high speed twice during startup: immediately after power-on, and during the bootloader prompt (i.e., after the BIOS but before Linux loads). This is independent of the unit's temperature, and is loud enough to cause some ugly stares when sitting in a lecture. Is this a universal phenomenon, worth mentioning in the article page?

Potential solutions: the first fan acceleration can't be fixed by anything but an EC firmware update. For the second acceleration (after BIOS), a workaround can be implemented by adding basic fan control code (i.e., a few accesses to I/O ports 0x62 and 0x66 as explained in the fan control specs and Linux's drivers/acpi/ec.c) to the bootloader. GRUB 2 has a module infrastructure that should make this pretty easy, and other boot loaders can also be patched.

--Thinker 20:36, 27 Dec 2005 (CET)


Leftover bits

The following data didn't belong where it was posted, and was deleted when the containing section swre moved to How to control fan speed:

  • On my T41 (gentoo-sources-2.6.11.11 ) I noticed that after unloading the fan module the fan noise stopped. With the module loaded the fan was working even at very low cpu temperatures, without the module it's ok so far.
  • On a 770X the fan can be fully controlled through ACPI. Thermal Zone THM5 (possibly the battery/charging circuit, it's definitely warmer when using 5v PCMCIA cards and AC) triggers it to turn on and not ever off by design. Can be solved by a custom DSDT, which also makes use of the variable-speed features of the fan (will release this once I've finished tweaking and testing it).

--Thinker 20:48, 20 January 2006 (CET)


Embedded controller firmware disassembly

This thread points to, and discusses, a commented (partial) disassembly of the embedded controller. Following this lead, it may be possible to patch the firmware (perhaps transiently) to change the fan level selection algorithm and/or the RPMs.

--Thinker 07:10, 24 February 2006 (CET)


R50e with CELERON M: fan for life

I am such a loser. I bought a R50e with CELERON M CPU, and thus will never get longer than 90 seconds of peace before the next 62 to 54 degree fan cycle. --jidanni

FAN Problem with T42

Hello I have got a T42 and implemented on my gentoo System with a 2.6.15 kernel the fan script. My problem is that I don't know which values I have to set in the fan-control script. My fan ist loudless for only about 5 minutes than the cpu temperature arrives about 50 degree. Another problem ist the combination with the "conservative" govenour. If I use a Software which raises cpu load the script seems to raise up the fan to the maximum for about 2 seconds and then calm it down. This not fine for office work. Do you have some ideas? Another problem is my /proc/acpi/processor/CPU0/throttling, because it never switches the states! Any help? Thanks for answers

state count: 8 active state: T0 states:

  *T0:                  00%
   T1:                  12%
   T2:                  25%
   T3:                  37%
   T4:                  50%
   T5:                  62%
   T6:                  75%
   T7:                  87%

Mowing the lawn

For the past two days, my thinkpad fan suddenly turned extremely loud - it really sounds like when we'd put playing cards on the spokes of our bikes as kids to make them sound like motorbikes. It's loud enough that I can't take my laptop to the library, and extremely annoying.

We have a new onsite thinkpad repair place here at Harvard, and I took the laptop to them. Unfortunately, the guys wanted me to sign something that said, "If we can't find anything wrong with your computer on hardware diagnostics, then you will pay $45 for a diagnostic fee." I repeatedly told them that any hardware diagnostic scan will show that the system is normal; I think it is a bad bearing or some sort of obstruction of the fan. However, then they switched, "if we find it is within operating decibels for the laptop." Alas, I asked them if they actually have a microphone they hold to the machine, and they really wouldn't answer. We fired up the machine, but their office in the basement of our science center was so loud that it was hard to hear the clanging noise, which really gets going after a few minutes...

Alas, I elected to drop ship the machine to Lenovo / IBM because I felt these guys wouldn't repair / replace the fan. Alternatively, I am thinking of ordering the FRU and just doing it myself, it's around $40, and possibly doing some thermal mods as described in various linked threads.

Thinker, did you ever figure out a way to hardwire the fan to constant rpm perchance? --gsmenden 18:24, 29 May 2006 (EST)

Update - I received the fan assembly (FRU 26R9074, retail $37.50 USD) and replaced it without any problem. There are a couple places where one could definitely go wrong / damage the laptop, but warnings are pretty clearly outlined in the Hardware Maintenance Manual. All done, for less than the diagnostic fee. You'll need some heatsink grease - I'll put pictures online of the process if I ever get a chance.

I did not bother with any thermal "mods" - I believe that heat transfer is not the problem regarding the fan always on, as described elsewhere in this wiki and fixed (at least partially) by Thinker et al's script.

No wires were contacting my old fan, nor was it excessively dirty. Flicking it to spin with my finger makes the same rattling sound - I think the axis just came off or one of the bearings was bad. Now my laptop is whisper-quiet.

Do NOT get the IBM "Screwdriver kit" for $34. I thought it would be a nice toolset with case, but it is a cheapo set of screwdrivers in a cheapo plastic case, literally available online for $5.95 (the EXACT SAME model!). Go to Fry's, get some nice tools, and then head to your local pub for 6 more screwdrivers with the money you saved. Needless to say, I will return this. --gsmenden 22:09, 01 Jun 2006 (EST)

Upgrading BIOS didn't help

Hi, I'm a (regretful) ThinkPad T42 user. I wanted to say that I reinstalled Windows just for the purpose of upgrading the BIOS and firmware, on the advice of this article, and it didn't make a difference at all. The fan is still noisy. It was very disappointing, especially since I had to go through a lot of hoops to get the Windows restore disks from IBM - for some reason they were not included with the laptop. After giving up on that, I found that the tp-fancontrol script helps a bit, but it can't always keep the fan from pulsing. I will check back here periodically for better solutions. Thanks. FrederikEaton 01:47, 28 July 2006 (CEST)


Can you describe the pulsing beavior with tp-fancontrol in more detail? Note that it will pulse for a few seconds when changing levels and every 5 minutes, to re-calibrate the fan speed.

--Thinker 02:50, 28 July 2006 (CEST)


Thinkpad T41p: Fan too slow!

Most people complain about too loud fans, I have the opposite problem. My fan speed seems to be capped at 3100rpm. When I do long, heavy work (like compiling, or compressing large files), my CPU even reaches the 89°C and emergency-throttles down to 600MHz.

I was using powernowd (with userspace governor) for a long time, now I am using ondemand governor, no change. My fan knows only "off" and "2900-3100rpm". Could this be a BIOS thing?

I even tried to force the fan to different speeds (with # echo 0x2F 0x07 > /proc/acpi/ibm/ecdump (maximum speed)), but it does not care. Any Ideas?

Thanks, --MartinEmrich 19:56, 21 August 2006 (CEST)

Update: I just installed a new fan assembly to replace the really dirty old one. This new one goes faster again, looks like the problem is solved... --MartinEmrich 23:52, 25 September 2006 (CEST)

Correct BIOS settings?

Piccobello: I don't know if that is related, but when fiddling around with BIOS settings on my X31, I noticed that my fan would be ok if I set: config>power>IntelSpeedstepTechnology to disabled, or, if enabled, config>power>IntelSpeedstepTechnology>Power modes both to Automatic. (Note that the kernel takes care of scaling anyway, so you can safely leave disabled. I don't know if that is safe with Windows as well).

If I instead set both power modes to Maximum Performance, the fan would be always on, at very high speed, even though my CPU would be at about 30 celsius.. at some point it would start blowing out cold air.. The notebook would also feel cold, except for the area of the bottom under the trackpad, so this could also be related to this issue. In the X31, this is where the additional RAM module lays.

So make sure your config>power>IntelSpeedstepTechnology is disabled in the bios. You can leave both config>power>Power modes to Max Perf.

You can play with your BIOS menu here.

IBM 51 fan always-on : depends from the OS

Hi there,

I have an IBM R51. Prior to installing Fedora Core 4 I had no problems with the fan, i.e. in Win XP it would turn on and off with no apparent nuisance. With Fedora 4, once it reached a certain temperature (i.e. after a certain period of time, doing the same things), the fan goes on and never off again, although cold air was coming out. In a ML someone suggestesd to try openSUSE since they'd be "IBM friendly" and indeed: the 10.0 RC at that time made no trouble: the fan would go on and off according to real needs. Unfortunately, I did upgrade to the latest openSUSE version, only to find the problem repeating again.

I'm writing this because, in my case, I have the problem only with Linux - instead of what is written on the article side. Maybe it depends on some module?

~Pasquale

On linux using the new thinkpad_acpi ( integrated in recent kernels;) with : in /etc/modprobe.conf :

options thinkpad_acpi fan_control=1 experimental=1

Everything is great now, I just have to set the fan speed at boot :

echo 'level 3' > /proc/acpi/ibm/fan

There are also some kind of automating for this but i prefer to control the fan myself. ˜neofutur

Fan always-on after bios update from 2.17 to 2.22 (Z61m)

After updating the bios from 2.17 to 2.22, I now have the "fan is always-on" problem with a Z61m :-(. If I do a AC plug/unplug cycle the fan operation gets back to normal.

Update: After switching completely off and booting again it seems to work again.

(But it seems the bios upgrade had another side-effect: if the wlan driver (ipw3945) is loaded much less time is spent in C3 state now: C2: ~50% and C3: ~40% with the new BIOS and it was around 5% and 90% using the old one AFAIR - could somebody confirm this?)

X31: hard drive management settings causing always on problem

Hello everyone. This is my first wiki contribution, so please bear with me ;-) There is not much information about the always on problem in the main article so I thought I should share what I just observed: I have an Hitachi hard drive and used one of their tools to enable power and acoustic management. This tool was on a dos boot disk and when I enabled acoustic management in this environment the fan would turn on and stay on, even when booting into windows afterward. I left acoustic and power management enabled and reverted the bios settings to default (by pressing F9 in bios) which got rid of the error.