F3Jp: Can the fan be disabled in AC mode?

Hi all, first post on the forum! I'm seriously considering the F3Jp, but I've heard that the cooling fan switches on as soon as it's connected to an external power source and that it's not possible to turn the fan off again without disconnecting! It's important to me that the notebook stays as quiet as possible regardless of whether the battery is charging or I'm connected to a wall outlet or not, so I'd like to know if there are BIOS or control panel settings to adjust this. At this point this is the only thing keeping me from making the purchase, so some clarifications on this will be greatly appreciated!

 

I don't know about the F3J, but for the ASUS laptops I've seen there are no BIOS controls or Windows controls for the fan thresholds and such. There is software which might be able to help you, but that's a little risky (not much updated from older types of notebooks).

Also I wouldn't recommend messing with this thing, it's dangerous for the hardware.

As to "staying as quiet as possible" in general many newer notebooks have fans which stay "always on", simply because the newer CPUs generate more heat. But while idling, the fan speed is low and it won't be disturbing for most people at least.

 

Go see one in person or visit someone who has one. I havent heard of the fan being on all the time. My A6 fan is only on when doing cpu intensive stuff, when idle its off. The A8 though i have heard the fan stays on all the time. Im sure if the F3 fan does stay on it will be pretty quiet like the above poster said.

 

You don't want the fan to be disabled in any mode... but out of the box, while on AC, Power4Gear runs the cpu at full blast, which creates more heat and the need for more fan. You can use something like NHC and allow your system to run at lower settings even while plugged in, and that'll help lower the need for the fan, but you don't want the fan to stop. Cooling your system is priority number one and if you're using the system enough to require a certain level of cooling, you certainly want it to do it's job.

 

I wasn't really looking to disable or lower the fan speed directly. Like you mention, I just want to be able to adjust the power savings settings while on AC, which in turn will presumably affect fan speed. So is NHC the best option to do this?

 

I bought an Asus F3Jp less than 3 weeks ago and I have had problems with the noise of the fan and the Power4Gear software. I have had to use the recovery partition twice due to software errors while the Quiet Office setting still stops working. I am software developer and have used other similar spec computers without the same issues with fans. I am currently returning the laptop as the noise is annoying in the University library.

 

You can use NHC to undervolt your cpu, but this has limited effect on the post-PM procs because Intel locks the lowest possible voltage at 0.95 - which isn't all that much lower than the stock voltage settings.

The easiest way to accomplish what you're talking about here is to go into the configuration screen for Power4Gear and either alter (lower) the cpu speed for the high/super performance settings, or simply change the profile you use with plugged in to Quiet Office (which runs @ 50%, more than enough for most simple tasks) -- both options will lower your cpu speed, which is what is generating all the heat in your box that the BIOS needs to crank the fan up and push out .