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    Fan on Mx17r2 keeps spinning up and down

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by phas3d, Feb 16, 2011.

  1. phas3d

    phas3d Notebook Guru

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    Sorry in advance if this has been addressed elsewhere. I'm having an issue with my refurb r2. During normal use I can hear the fan speed up a little and then slow down. It does this over and over and over. Unless I open a cpu intensive app (which then the fan really kicks in and spins up and stays that way) the fan keeps spinning up and slowing down.

    All I have open is a browser and email and the fan does this. Is this normal? Anyway to control the fan speed?
     
    phas3d, Feb 16, 2011
    #1
  2. murkr

    murkr Notebook Consultant

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    i had similar problems, i had a peice of paper in between my CPU and heatsync though im sure thats not the same prob as you, but it just started happening right away but my fans kept going on high then on low when i open programs. when your just on your desktop doing nothing does it still happen?
     
    murkr, Feb 16, 2011
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  3. katalin_2003

    katalin_2003 NBR Spectre Super Moderator

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    Don't use a 3rd party application to control the fans just yet.
    Check your temperatures with a freeware software like Hwinfo32(if you want post a picture here),if they are higher than normal then you should probably start by changing the thermal paste on the components(CPU/GPU etc).
    If you have warrenty just give Dell a call if you don't feel comfortable opening your system up.
     
    katalin_2003, Feb 17, 2011
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  4. debaucher

    debaucher Notebook Deity

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    Sounds to me like your idling right at the fan start/stop temperature.
    Use HWinfo32 to check your temps and post a screen shot (my guess is that you are idling around 55C)

    Once you post your temps we can figure out if a fan cleaning would help or??

    D.
     
    debaucher, Feb 17, 2011
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  5. Belien

    Belien Notebook Geek

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    Sounds like the known issue that myself and others noticed on the R1. By any chance, you're running with hybrid graphics enabled and in power save (running on the integrated gpu), are you (only 1 'boomerang' in the nvidia notification icon?) ? In that case, the fans will (erratically) behave like this. I think it's a bug somewhere (bios/). Workaround: either disable hyrbid in bios (fans don't run at all) or run on hybrid graphics fn-F7. Shame though it does this, otherwise switch between integrated/hybrid would be very easy to use. Now I don't because of the wear on the already 'fragile' gpu fans
     
    Belien, Feb 18, 2011
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  6. paul5015

    paul5015 Notebook Guru

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    Perhaps you have a service using the CPU a little. Have a look in Taskmanager to see what's running.

    I've had the Font cache service fail to start, cpu runs 12-15% and the fans run on/off as you describe.

    If your machine was running fine before, it's likely something simple like this.

    Regards,

    Paul.
     
    paul5015, Feb 18, 2011
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  7. Tazalanche

    Tazalanche Notebook Consultant

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    Tazalanche, Apr 27, 2011
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