Can I tell which fan I have?

I have one of these supremely noisy M5 fans, noisy to the point couldn't watch a DVD because I couldn't hear the volume over the fan noise. I couldn't use it in a classroom or any quiet place without seriously disturbing people. And it seemed to be getting worse, whining more than usual.

So I sent it in for repair, as it was still under warranty. It's back now, marginally quieter, and with less whining. Still not great but better than it was. The return slip says they replaced the fan and heatsink.

What I'd like to know is what they replaced it with - another regular M5 fan? Or perhaps they have the new z33 fans? (this is the UK, though, where I've never seen the Z33/M5A yet). I presume they couldn't have put in an S5 fan without telling me. Is there any way I can tell which fan I have now?

It's still on 100% of the time, of course, which is horribly irritating. But I'm wary about trying that speedfan thing because I don't know enough about it and don't really know what the risks are. Plus it's still under warranty. I wish ASUS would fix it so that it would only come on when needed.


(And UK customer service is pretty rubbish. Many of their 'sentences' are utterly incomprehensible, and my attempts to find out what they thought about the fan problem and what they'd done in the past and so on led to these messages that made no sense whatsoever. I had to just send it in eventually, as I could get no (readable) information at all from them by email. They don't read messages carefully either. I asked them several times to email me to let them know what they were going to do about the fan, and to find out how long it would take. Sample email: I sent my computer to you for repair last week. Please can you tell me where it is in the repair process and what they are going to do. Here is my RMA number:xxx. Sample response: Send your RMA number. So I send it again. Next response: That RMA number is from our repair department. Well, no kidding! Trying to find out more information just led to equal frustration, so I gave up and just waited until eventually it was sent back).

 

Slightly off topic, but have you tried undervolting the CPU? On my W3A this has not stopped the fan, but means that it runs on a quiet low speed for almost all the time.

John

 

Well I've used the asus Power4Gear thing so that I'm usually running on the second tier down (the car), but I'm not sure whether that really changes anything.

I don't really know enough to know what I can change safely and whether I'm risking anything by doing it. (Or how to do it, for that matter).

These threads about undervolting and changing fan speeds and stuff always come with these great warnings about not doing it if you don't know what you're doing, or to do it at your own risk, and so on, which clearly says to me to stay away from it when I don't particularly know what I'm doing!

 

So, no way to tell what I've got without opening it up? Are there different numbers or something that could be read by software that woud give me an idea? Different possible speeds??

 

You need an m5a fan or z33 fan if you are in usa. Those are the revisions and work great. Contact your local dealer or asus.

 

I get the feeling you missed a bit of my message: I am in the UK, and I have already had my fan replaced. What I want to know is what they did to it. It's still reasonably loud, though better than it was. I don't know if they replaced it with an M5A/z33 fan, or even an S5 fan, or just another normal M5 fan - in which case the option of the other fans is still open to me in the future. I wanted to know if there's some way I can tell what they replaced it with without opening the computer.

Contacting asus here has been fairly unhelpful. They certainly have denied any existence of prior knowledge of fan problems, which we know is not the case as others have complained! And they couldn't/wouldn't tell me what possible options there were for fixing it, and whether they'd even consider the solution of replacing it with one of the other models' fans. In fact, they told me nothing at all. As the laptop is under warranty, though, I have no choice but to send it to them for repair- there are no other dealers who could do it.

 

if you unscrew and remove the grilled cover on the bottom of the laptop, you can see the fan/heatsink etc. if there's a model or some sort of serial number on it, post it up cos i'm sure someone will know.
or even count the number of fins, because apparently there's a difference.
doing this won't void your warranty, just don't go removing any stickers while you're in there hehe

 

OK, I did that. There are 13 fins. I'm not sure which serial number went with the fan, but the closest sticker was 13-N9A10M060A041220A. Does tht mean anything to anyone? (I'm not clear whether those are all the letter O or the number zero).

 

Robyn - how have been?

I've been suggesting swapping the M5 fan for the S5 fan since back when people said they thought their unit was too "noisy".... from my tests it's fairly simple to change but the system still thinks it has the same fan in place but the fan has fewer blades. So the system will still run the fan at the same rpm's as stock, but the fan will push less CFM and therefore will be quieter. If you called Asus in the UK and told them you needed a replacement fan for your S5ne - say it's out of warranty and they won't bother asking for a serial number and they'll just charge you for the minimal cost of the fan and heatpipe combo piece.

 

The thing is, that's possibly what's already happened - I don't know. I sent it in, and when they (eventually) sent it back, there was just a note saying the fan and heatsink had been replaced. And it is somewhat quieter now, although still not brilliant.

So, what they might have already done was exchange the fan for the S5 version without telling me, or perhaps the M5A one.

Can you tell from the number of fins, or the serial number, which one I have? Is this new fan already an S5 one? If it is, then not much point ordering another one. Or perhaps they've put an M5A fan in - again, if that's the case, then it's not worth trying to order one of those.

But if they've just replaced it with another M5N fan, then it means there are still possibilties open to me in the future. It is quieter now compared to the way it used to be, so certainly something's worked! Still on 100% of the time, of course, but it's a slightly moderate noise level compared to what it was, which really did seem excessive. Even quieter would be good, though.

I did ask them whe I sent it in whether they could replace it with the S5 fan or the M5A one, and asked about ordering one in, but they never replied. They were pretty useless at answering any of my questions, in fact. And as far as I know, they're the only place that could replace it for me - none of the other companies here seem to have even heard of asus!!

What I wish is that I bought an S5 in the first place, now that I know about software that copies entires CDs to the hard drive. And it would have been quieter and lighter! Oh well, next time maybe.

Or that Asus would release some sort of update that allows the fan to only come on when needed. I'm not keen on playing around with that myself when it's still under warranty, or if there's risks to it.

So anyway, the new fan - it's got 13 fins. And the serial number as above. Does that sounds like an M5 fan, or an S5 one? And if it's an M5 one, is it an 'N' or an 'A'?

 

So, has anyone seen the M5 and S5 fans up close? Which one has 13 fins?

What's the difference between the M5N and M5A fans - any visible difference?

 

Robyn,

The S5 fan has 9 fins...

The number on the fan itself reads: HY45J-05SHAP001

The number on the housing reads: 411411

The number on the whole unit (Asus' P/N) reads: 13-N8X10M011 ---- ask for that and tell them you'll buy it.

 

Ok, that's a start. It looks like whatever they've replaced mine with, it's not an S5 one, at any rate! So that's good to know that option is still open to me. Thanks.

Next question. What about the new model of M5 (the z33 or M5a or whatever) - that is supposed to be quieter than the old M5 ones. Is there anything visibly different about those? It's possible they put something like that in, and perhaps that's as quiet as the S5 ones, in which case there's no point going to the effort of switching, as this new one that I've got is sort of mediumly quiet. (i.e., it would be acceptable if you only heard in once in a while. It's still fairly noisy for something on continuously. It is quite a lot better than is used to be, though).

If it's still worth switching to the S5, I might wait until my warranty expires, as I have a feeling that changing the fan might end up invalidating it if something else happens - even if they were the ones that did it! (I'm not sure whether they would do it anyway, even if I said I'd order and pay for that part separately).

 

The S5 fan is still the s5 fan... I think they might have changed the bios on the z33 because it's got the same fan.

 

The z33 has the same fan as the M5N? Interesting. I have heard reports that it's a lot quieter overall. So they've done it by changing the bios? Have they made it quieter overall, or is it just that they've made it come on only when needed??

If they can change the bios for that machine, why can't it be done for the M5N? Or have they just given up on the M5N since it's been replaced?

 

I don't know what's happened for sure, but it's the same fan........ it could have something to do with the 915 chipset, I don't know.

 

The BIOS includes rules for fan operation:- The fan operating speeds and the temperatures to trigger increase or decrease in speed. Different models could use the same fan (it makes sense to minimise the range of parts in the inventory) but this same fan could be running at different speeds in the different models. Asus Probe reports the fan speed - my W3A is currently cruising along with a quiet fan speed of 1200rpm and CPU temperature of 43C.
Therefore the determination of fan noise needs to include the fan speed.

John

 

They are not the same fan they are very different.

 

I'm looking at them......... the heatpipe design is different, but the fan itself is not. Are we not on the same page? I mean I know the difference between the how they set up the heatpipe and the piece that the fan fits into, but we're talking mainly about the blades.. the angle and amount of them... which is one of the biggest things that determines the CFM it pushes and therefore has a huge influence on how people perceive "noise"

 

Thats pretty weird. I was looking at my m5n and it is the same heatpipe as the z33 but the fan is also the same. My fan is the one out of an s5n.

 

oh wait..... no they changed the heatpipe form the S5n/ne when they built the S5a...... that's what I'm looking at. The fan on the S5a is different than was was on the S5n also....... we should just take pictures of all of them... but Roybn still wants to wait till she's out of warranty anyway which means this who thread is almost worthless.

 

Justin
the s5a fan assembly is the same as the s5n. The m5n is the same as z33. The z33 s5a s5n fans are the same but the plastic pin cups are different from the m to the s series. Its not a very easy thing to do but it is doable. I would not consider it a user upgrade. I may be wrong about the s5 fan assembly being the same but i think i am right. Dont have s5n here.

 

The fan itself has the same screw holes... at some point they extended the heatsink over to the intel graphics accelerator..... the biggest thing is the FAN blades themselves...... how many blades are on the Z33 fan you have... and how many are on the S5n? I'm staring at these two right now and they are different.

 

S5N has 9 blades
z33a has 13 blades
m5n original had 13 or more
z33 fans are equivalent to s5n fans they produce about the same decibles. M5n original was about twice as loud and very whinny

 

Well that sounds like S5 and M5 are different then, as 9 versus 13 blades certainly counts as 'different' in my book!

My new fan, whatever it is, has 13 blades. It might be another M5n original, or perhaps it's the new z33 thing, or perhaps those are the same anyway.

This discussion is still useful, even if I wait until I'm out of warranty, as at least I'll know what is available to me at the time, and what to ask for! I'm presuming that I do have to wait until I'm out of warranty, as otherwise they might refuse to fix something else, mightn't they? (I know they probably shouldn't, if it was nothing to do with the fan, but I don't trust them somehow!).

I'm more interested in how they got the z33 to be quieter if they didn't actually change the fan. If they could make it so that it only came on when it needed to, why can't they do that for the M5N?? Will there be a bios update for the M5N that would include this? I'm still wary of using speed-fan or something because I don't know what harm I could do. If they made it so the fan is on all the time, and I change it, then presumably I'm risking something (if only the warranty!). Whereas if they had an update themselves, presumably I'd be safer.

 

So, to sum up,
z33 -> 13 blades, quieter, same HS as m5n, s5n
m5n -> 13 blades, whiney, "
s5n -> 9 blades, as quiet as z33, "
s5a -> 9 blades, as quiet as z33, different HS from the rest (covers integrated graphics chip)

Is this correct? A few of these posts have me confused. I've got an m5n with stock fan/hs assembly but I put a resistor in series with the fan to bring the rpms down. I also ripped out the mesh grille in front of the exhaust. it's "quieter" than the original, but it's still whiney when ambient noise is quiet.

Intel lists the P-M Dothans as being able to go up to 100C. This is much higher than P4, PIII... I'd just as soon use speedfan and control my fan speed manually, but asus uses some better control schemes (I think it's proportional control with a over-temperature switch to kick it into full speed at around 94C bios v2.13). Speedfan only uses a bang-bang and a low-pass filter. Sorry about the controls talk... I'm an engineer. er.... enginerd? Please correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks.

EDIT:
I have 13 blades, they're straight. The inner diameter of the impeller is 3/4", and the blades are set at a 45-55 degree angle from the radial direction. Intake is 1", and impeller diameter is 1.5-1.75".

HS has two heatpipes, going from the CPU block to the fins, which are copper, very thin fins, and fine pitch (distance between fins). the fins are about 3/4" long. The CPU block covers only the CPU, and connects to the fan via a coupler piece and two rivets.

I think the noise is generated by the fan's design. Too many blades, and the intake is so small. 13 is a good number though, it's odd, so it doesn't create as many harmonics as an even number would. I suppose the intake is small because the fan is so small. The motor has to be housed inside that little guy, so they couldn't make the intake larger. perhaps if the blades were filed so they were thinner, we could get better performance. I'm done for now.

 

Hi all,

I have been following this thread since it started. Why? because I've got a "whiny" M5N. I love it - but the noise is very irritating.
Anyway - I have decided to pioneer this field - so I have ordered an S5 fan which should arrive this evening or tomorrow.
Then, I promise, I will post the result here.

But I must admit that SpeedFan and Notebook Hardware Control (NHC) are very powerful tools.

So... if you aren't as crazy as I am, then settle with this software solution.
Turning the rpm of the fan down below 30% makes the fan noise acceptable - but the temp goes to 62*C. Not good! The CPU can take it - but the system suffers.

In my experience, the noise/heat problem occurs in AC mode since the CPU is then geared for max performance thus generating more heat. Heat must be moved => more rpm from the fan => more noise!

However... since this lappie is meant for light work only, I found it a good idea to clock the CPU down to the lowest level (mine is a 1.6GHz - so 600MHz (Done in NHC)) and set the fan to 25% (done in SpeedFan) when I'm using it for light tasks (Word etc.)

As I'm writing this, WinAmp, Outlook and this explorer is open at a temp of 48*C and an inaudible fan at 25%.

In my opinion, you don't really need the 1000MHz... at least not when using light tasks like office applications.

So why did I buy the S5 fan? Because I don't want a second Tjernobyl when switching into max performance mode with no noise.

But I'll tell you how the "upgrade" went later on.

Justin... Since you are the expert par exellence in this matter, do you have any last minute words of advise?
Anyone else?

Stay... cool?
Brian

 

I started undervolting. rightmark cpu clock is awesome. my temps at max usage is 72C and at idle are 45C. I can run .7 volts for 600 mhz AND at 800 mhz. 1700mhz is 1.068v. Very nice. the ASUS board seems to be very stable at these lower voltages. my friend's dell 500m can't undervolt as much as mine, and i think it's due to the board. See what results you have.

 

Philibuster! That works like a charm on mine as well. It shaves of 4*C from 48 to 44 @ 25% rpm.
Exellent - if it doesn't need the voltage, then why feed it?

Good work.

I haven't recieved my S5 fan yet - but I hope tomorrow.
I'm really excited to tell you how it went. Hopefully, my M5N will become... perfekt?
With Phili's discovery, you've sure got something useful to work with!

Stay... cool,
Brian

 

Undervolting is great.

Can someone take pictures of the fans and heatsinks? Is the z33a fan a direct replacement for the m5n? Are the heatsink assemblies all the same between the models? How did they cope with the extra heat produced by the 533mhz bus chips? I'm feeling a bit confused on that issue. Thanks.

 

Quick question:

I've heard that the z33 upgrade isn't just a drop-in replacement of the new hs assembly. Can someone verify this? Thanks.

 

Just swap out the fan.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I just recieved my S5n fan unit and has spent the past hour installing it. "It's oh, so quiet - shhh shhh"

Beware, though. The fan unit from the S5 is not (as posted earlier on) directly "swappable" with the N5 fan unit.
You will need to take out the little fan from the housing.
This i done by taking out the screws and the lid with the fan attached comes right off.
Now it gets tricky - you need take off the fan from the lid which is a very delicate task.

Next, you need to take out the fan unit of your M5 and remove the 13-blade fan (done as described above) and install the 9-blade fan.

Then you need to change the little power wires:
If you look at the backside of your M5 (CPU away from you) the M5 fan is attached (reading top-down) Black - Yellow - Red.
The S5 comes with Red - Yellow - Red. But you easily fix this by swapping black and red on the little "wire-head".

Then you install and screw the fan unit back in place.
Switch on the Lappie and listen

Even on 100% rpm the noise from 9-blade fan is very different from the whinny 13-blade.

I'd still recommend underVolting - there is no need to give it more when it works with less. I'm not sure, but it should improve battery life as well?

One more thing: The cooling paste or tape used in my N5 was worth nothing. It was all hard and crumbled of when I cleaned it with a cotton stick. I put on some Thermal silver compund instead, after cleaning the CPU and heatsink. It should work better than the Standard Issue thermal tape.

As you can see from the picture, the S5 fan unit must be mounted in an opposite way than the N5. (it's the S5 on the right).

In conslusion, this is THE most expensive fan/heatsink mod I have EVER made. Will it pay off? I think so - it is way less noisy and combined with undervolting it can't get any better.
No more angry looks in the auditorium from other students
But rest assured that your warrenty will be void after this operation.

I hope you can use this in your quest for a quiet M5N.

Stay... cool? Erh.. wait no - Stay warm!... I'm downed by a severe cold. (but not severe enough from upgrading my M5)

Cheers,

Brian
Jarlen af Roskilde

 

Revive the dead thread
Brian,
what are your temps after this mod? I wish the stock hs was a more robust cooling solution. alas, we have to deal with undervolting and swapping fans. how "expensive" was the mod?

I've ripped out all the little mesh grilles that I could find in the path of the exhaust and intake. I think I got like .5C out of that.... undervolting bought me 20C at full load flaccing! Plus, I get longer battery life (you're right. 7 hrs on the 9-cell is pretty freaking good; first day with it, and I ran from 6:30PM-1AM).

let me know what the temps are. Thanks for the pic. That's what's been seriously lacking in this thread... pictures of the fans and heat sinks.

 

It's good to have all this info about the S5 fan, though I still don't feel that I'd be confident enough to do it myself. And I don't know how customer service would respond if I tried to get them to do it.

I'm in need of something like that, since despite sending it away and having the fan and heatsink replaced a couple of weeks ago, it has since got almost equally loud again! What's wrong with this stupid fan?! It's marginally less whiny than before, but still incredibly noisy.

I don't understand the undervolting thing enough to know what I am risking. Anyone able to explain how much of a risk it is? Invalidating the warranty? Specific instructions for the M5N(?p) ? Is this the same thing as the Speedfan solution, and if not, any instructions on that specifically for this model? I'm not brave/knowledgeable enough to experiment on my own. Is a new bios ever going to be released that fixes it, or is that not possible for some other reason?

 

Just because someone apparently wasn't paying attention...... I never said the heatpipe module was directly swappable... I said the fan was.... and as mentioned above that means you need to take the fan out of it's housing and place it in the M5 fan housing....... it's still a 5 minute job..

 

true.

The z33 has the same heat sink as the s5? or what.

 

.. no but it doesn't matter....... the fan housing is the same and that is why you can unscrew the fans themselves and swap them.

 

is the z33a heatsink a drop-in for the m5n? Or have they changed the location of the processor?

Robyn,
The undervolting is covered in another thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=15492
One addendum to this is that if you let the comp run up to some really crazy temp (~95C) then try to use prime95, it exposes your instabilities more.

For the "casual undervolter" I would just drop the volts to where you can just run prime95 for a little, then kick the volts back up about 3-4 notches. That should give you a big enough factor of safety.

One program you can use is "notebook hardware control". It's pretty slick looking, but doesn't have as many multipliers as RMclock. I'll link you.
http://cpu.rightmark.org/download.shtml <--- you want v1.8
http://www.pbus-167.com/chc.htm#anchor_download <--- download latest version AND .net framework 2 beta

 

thanks. I'll save copies of those threads and see if I can work it out. Am in invalidating the warranty, though?

Is the "notebook hardware control" the one that changes the fan speed? I thought someone had said that they didn't get that working on the M5N or that it let it get to some kind of potentially dangerous temperatures because it was so small? Or is it OK to do this, generally.

Have you done this on yours?

 

I haven't had the time to run any thorough temp tests yet.
But my fan is at 32% and barely audible - just a faint swrrr-sound. With outlook, MSN and 3 explorers open and running 600MHz @ 0,7Volt i'm looking at 40-41* (Idle)
Running PCTV (to watch tv on my laptop) it's arpund 48* with the samme settings.

Gearing up to 1600MHz @ 1,068V get's me around 48* Idle.
With PCTV running, I get around 55-58* (Still @ 32% fan rpm).

So, as you can see, the fan is quite effektive combined with stable undervolting.
To my experience, undervolting will not hurt your CPU, you just risk making your system unstable if you feed it too little voltage. But I have been running 600MHz @ 0,7V with absolutely no problems ever since Philibuster suggested it. So go with it - at least in lowest multiplier mode. When geared for best performance and heavy workload, the CPU needs a little more juice.

The S5 fan-unit cost me 650 Danish Crowns. That's about 87€ plus freight. So, it's the most expensive fan I've ever bought... but so far, it's worth it! It's like having a all new laptop: smart, sleek and noiseless.

Maybe it's a 5 min. job to Justin, but I would recommend you to take it easy an consider your moves. The smaller it is, the easier it brakes!

But thinking back, it wasen't anything to fear.

(Philibuster - remember that I also exchanged the lousy thermal tape with silver thermal compound. That should shave of some degrees!)

Robyn - like Nike's slogan: Just do it! - you won't regret it, I promise.
I know it may sound like a frightening task to open you laptop and begin fondling with the CPU and heatsink.
But as always with ASUS, it is very easy to access and you only need to unscrew 4 screws to reliease the heatsink.

Do not fear undervolting. Oposed to overclocking where you overheat the CPU because you want it to work faster that specified, undervolting is keeping the original workspeed, but atthe lowest limit of voltage that the CPU can work stable with.

I would recommend everyone to undervolt - at least the M5 owners, since it is quite stable this little lappie.
You get less heat and more battery time. Yes sir! We like!

I hope I shed some light on the situation?

Cheers,

Brian - who is now feeling much better, thank you very much

 

Try... I've got my experience and extra parts if I break them..... so you're right.. maybe 5 minutes......

Listen..... if I knew you were going to spend that much on the fan.... I would have helped you out for a 1/4 of that....... at least!

 

Wow that was a VERY expensive fan... but as long as you're happy with it... I guess that's all that matters.

 

Does the fan work on w3v?

 

Surely. But then we also would have to consider levies. As I recall, electronics from the USA are levied quite severely. So maybe you could have helped at ½ the price - fair enough.
Irritating to know after you bought it - but I guess it's the price you pay when you want it here and now.
(but trust me - I asked around, and some wanted almost 133€ ffor the unit. So this was the cheapest... in DK.

Cheers,
Brian

 

.. it's a fan that's worth $10 USD........ shipping that might be $10 USD (maybe).... I didn't save that information till after you bought it... you just never asked me.

 

Justin,
I didn't mean to insinuate that - not at all. I just didn't consider it, since I thought you would have to buy the whole fan unit complete with heatsink to get the little fan.
Since the going price for the fan unit was in that price level, I didn't consider ordering it from you in the US an option, since taxes and /&%¤#" other things would come on top.

But let my mistake serve as a (expensive) warning to others: If you want to silence your M5N - get in touch with Justin from ProPortable.

Still -- many thanx to you, Justin. Without your posts, I would still be sitting here with a whining M5.

But that is no more

Cheers,

Brian

 

Those are nice temps!

Mine idles about 44C ([email protected]), with a resistor inline with the fan motor to pull down the voltage a bit. I also used arctic silver 5 on the HS. Still loud and kinda annoying when I listen to my grados.

My friend's 500m dell with a 1.6ghz banias idles at like 26C. I'm jealous of his C/W.

Thanks for the thread guys.

 

Go for the S5 fan, Philli! You won't regret it. Even at 50% or higher, the Whrrrr sound is much more pleasent to the ear than the whining of the M5 fan.

Today at the faculty, I passed a girl at a desk with an M5 in front of her... or rather... I could hear it, before I saw it.

Such an experience makes me even happier that I made the mod to my M5.

The idle temps of our M5 are rather high compared to your that of you friend... I wonder if you could implement a better heatsink? Maybe that is the weak heat spot?
How much cooler is a Celeron M?
But I guess it's better to stick with the Centrino?

But I'm really considerering the heatsink... maybe you could customize one that is better... hmmm...

Any ideas?

Cheers,
Brian

 

This doesn't seem like something that's much up my alley. Adding another heatpipe might help, but I think we're limited by the small fin array. I suppose we just have to bend new heatpipes and have a larger fin array. Looking at it now, the fin array takes up most of the space available. Darn asus for not making the cooling solution more robust. The banias I think dissipates more watts than the dothan due to the 90nm process of dothan vs. 130nm of the banias. It's about 4 watts off the top of my head. If we were going to go with a larger heatsink, I'm not sure where it would go. we could make it stick out the vent, that would be pretty cool. right....