What are normal Asus probe values??

I'm having the same problem that lots of people seem to be having with a fan that is very noisy. But I don't know whether it's abnormally noisy/on more than it should be, or if this is just the way it is. I'm not even sure what temperature the fan should be coming on at, or whether my CPU speed should be varying depending on what I'm doing. I've never had a laptop before, so some of this might be normal. But it's quite loud, especially in a quiet room, and gets on my nerves loads.

I have a new (1 month) M5N (M5623N-MH), with Windows XP-home, sp2. When I use the Asus live update, it says that 'the environment does not need updating'. (however I think there are still various upgrades on the support site, which I'm not sure I need to download or not).

I don't remember whether it was noisy in the beginning as I was too busy setting everything up, but in the past week or so at least, the fan seems to be really noisy all the time, and is getting quite irritating.

I don't notice any switching on or off or anything - the sound is pretty much the same from the moment I switch the computer on, a constant loud hum.

Asus probe says that the temp is about 30C when first switched on, and the fan is at 1300 rpm, and then is goes up to between 45 and 53 degrees. The fan goes between 1300/1600, then switches to 2600 every now and again, and then back to 1600, but it seems equally noisy in all these situations. I have never seen it below 1200, or not going at all. These values are for when I am doing absolutely nothing, except running the probes.

It does this whether I have it plugged into the mains, or whether I am using it on battery power.

I have it normally set on the Power4Gear that came installed. I have switched it to not go into sleep/hibernation (as this seemed to mess up wireless), but otherwise have left the power4gear settings alone. On mains power, I can switch between the top two settings with the button on the keyboard. I have run cpu-z, and it gives me core speed values of 1600Mhz in the top setting, and 600Mhz in the second settings. In both cases, the Asus probe gives CPU use as 100%.

When I use the batteries, I have the second through the fourth power settings available. In the second setting (supposed to be the same as the second setting when using mains power?) it gives core speed values of alternating between 600/1200MHz,and Asus probe gives CPU use as 100%. On the third setting, the values are 600Mhz, and CPU use is 100%. On the lowest setting, the value is still 600Mhz, but the CPU use is down to 62.5%.

I have also tried going to the control panel and checking the 'power management' setting. There is a drop-down list of various power management settings, including the power4gear. But as far as I can tell, these just seem to vary things like how soon the screen/hard disks etc turn off, and nothing to do much with the fan. But I tried them all anyway, and then all seem to be identical - the fan is basically on at this medium setting (between 1600-2600) all the time, with only occasionally higher or lower. And the same degree of noise on regardless.

So, is there something wrong with it? Is this the noise that just normal fan use makes? Should the fan be on all the time like this, even at those temperatures? Should the CPU use be varying more than that, especially when I'm not using any applications or doing anything at all? Are those temperatures normal?

Help much appreciated!

 

From my understanding the M5N fan is always on, ie it can't be turned off. As for ASUS probe, I wouldn't take its readings to seriously, it is often wrong. Cpu-z is much more accurate for cpu speeds, so believe that. As for power4gear, it sounds like it is running fine, that is there should be a number of different profiles you can cycle thru, eg High performance, DVD movie, Game, battery saving etc etc. These presets will alter cpu behaviour and screen brightness amongst other things. Most notible is that on High/Max performance in a/c mode your cpu should be at full speed "1600Mhz" all the time. This will create alot of heat and thus require the fan to speed up.
While on battery and in other a/c modes, the different power setting will have dynamic switching, that is the cpu will cycle up or down depending on usage, thus saving power/heat. The different modes will cut the top speed out at a different level. My best suggestion is that if your doing general office/email to use battery saving as this will produce the least amount of heat and thus should reduce fan noise.
However, as you may have already seen in this forum many M5N owners are in a similar boat as your are..ie annoyed by fan noise, as far as I know no "fix" has yet been found. Althought you could try updating the bios to the latest, it may help.
a



ASUS M6Ne 15.4" WSXGA 1.7 PM ATI9700 80Gb HDD 1Gb RAM

 

Your readings on the M5n are perfectly normal...

That may not be the answer you want but it is, at least for now. The current Bios which was just updated about a week ago (212) does not change the fan's behavior.

According to Asus, the fan *does* turn off...at 20C or cooler, which is pretty much impossible--though I have tested it and it does turn off at that temp.

Running the Asus power program or SpeedSwitch XP will have no effect on the fan's performance either. It does run a bit quiter on a battery and so you may consider getting the larger battery, other than that there is not much you can do other than return it.

It was also reported that earlier Bios's for the M5n did have the fan turn on and off but they changed it later on. The upshot is that the M5n is the coolest (temp) 12" lappy that I've run, the downside is in quiet environments it's fairly noisy.

I suggest writing to Asus and complaining. I did and maybe if enough do they may offer some sort of control for the fan in the next Bios update. Hope this helps...

(PS do a forum search for M5n and fan and you'll come up with more threads on this very issue)

 

Thanks for the advice. Glad to know there's nothing wrong, at least. I was reading through the various threads about this, and I thought people were saying that there were times that it went on and off, but they were just complaining about it getting 'stuck' on on. Whereas mine never seems to go off. But maybe that is normal.

But clearly I am totally clueless on this Power4Gear thing. The only place I see it mentioned is in the control panel, power management setting, and I can choose to have Power4Gear or various other choices like 'desktop', 'laptop', 'always on', etc., and for each choice, I can alter things like how soon it goes to sleep. Nothing about games or DVD or anything like that. So possibly I have it set on 'high performance' all the time, without realising it! The only thing I thought I could change is with the button on the top left on the keyboard, which changes it from the 'airplane' to 'car' to 'tractor' or whatever that vehicle is, to 'walker'. Is there more to the Power4Gear than this?? Do I have to choose various settings? Does it vary automatically depending on how much I'm doing?

And so, my CPU speed, when plugged in, should really be at 1600 ALL THE TIME? It sounded from other posts like this should be varying depending on what I was doing. But it doesn't. It's always at 1600, with 100% use, even when I have not even touched it for a couple of hours and it's just sitting on the floor. (I don't have it going to sleep when it's plugged in for wireless issues). I thought it should somehow be using less power doing nothing then when I'm using lots of applications.

The only time the CPU speed varies is when I press that button, and it goes immediatley down to 600Mhz. It's still always at 100% even then, too, except on the very lowest setting. Why does it need to use so much to do nothing?? Or is this just a measure of the speed that's available? My batteries never last very long either, and I suspect this may be related...

Am I missing something here???

 

oh, by the way, I do have the larger (6 cell) battery, but it seems to be much the same whether I'm on battery power or mains.

(And do I need to download this new bios update? I've never downloaded any updates, as the 'asusliveupdate' thing always tells me 'the environment is no need to update', but there appear to be things on the site that might be newer than the ones I have. Does this live update thing only look for particular critical ones??

 

i have read lots of complaints from asus owners about this fan issue, and i am glad that i dont have any complaints about my device.
i have 1.6 dothan and 4k40 HDD. i dont like power4 gear utility and always run windows XP built in power management utility with portable/laptop settins.
unless i am doing cpu intensive work(visual studio with winamp running in the background) the fan never works
when plugged in, the fun kicks in about 51-53 c and runs 1000+ rpm and very rarely goes above 2000 rpm.

it is a good practice to update the system bios and apply updates, but i am affraid of ruining something. there is a saying " if it is not necessery to change, it is necessery not to change", so i wont update the bios for a long time

 

It seems from various posts that the M5n and its sister the S5n do behave differently when it comes to fan settings--which seems odd but a fact. (all it is is a setting in the Bios--the CPU fan threshold--"turn on fan at CPU 50C" where the M5n is "Turn on fan at CPU 20C"--this may be due to the fact that M5n has a built in CD/DVD player and is packed more tightly--runs hotter)

Robyn,I'm curious where you are getting your CPU readings from--the "100% CPU" reading in Asus probe refers, I belive to the idea that the CPU has 100% of it's sources available, not that it is currently running at 100%. If you hit Ctrl-Alt-Del it will bring up the Windows Task Manager--at the bottom of the window you should see something that says "CPU Usuage" and normal readings during "idle" periods should be between 0%-10% with some bouncing here and there (mostly background processes).

The Power4 Gear does not have to have any settings changed. When plugged in, there are 2 settings and they should affect the CPU speed though the fan "noise" may not decresase all that much. Likewise on battery putting the Power4 Gear to the "running guy" should dim the monitor and definitely lower the CPU speed versus putting it on the "car"--you see this difference reflected in the battery estimate as well as those numbers will change when you alter your Power4 Gear.

As far as the Bios update--I wouldn't worry about it as 212 did not make any significant changes that are worth it at this point--like what Kaangonel says, generally avoid doing BIOS updates since you could really screw it up (though to be honest, the Asus bios-flash program seems really good at preventing user-error--so it's not as scary as some other bios updaters).

For the batteries and the length: the M5n getts fairly poor battery life (no doubt tied to the constant running fan!!)--but did you calabrate your fan in the Bios?

To do so..hit F2 when the computer is booting and you see the Asus/Intel Centrino label--go to the Bios and go through the screens--select "Calibrate battery" (I think it's under the power settings) and just follow the directions (have the lappy plugged in for the charge part/unplug it for the discharge). (Cool side note: the Averatec series of laptops have a "calibrate battery" AND a "calibrate FAN" setting which greatly tweaks the fan to tolerable usage!! Why Asus can't do this is beyond me...but I really dug this feature on Averatec's...)

NOTE: THIS WILL TAKE A COUPLE OF HOURS! So put some time aside--all you need to do is plug it/unplug it when the screen says (what it's doing it measuring the actualy life of the battery on a full charge), this will give the most accurate readings from the Bios to Windows.

On the lowest CPU settings on battery, on the large battery I get upwards of 6 1/2 hrs of usage--but that is on the 9 cell battery, not the 6 cell (which is not available here in the U.S...at least i have not seen it yet--could you get me one? lol)

Hope this all helps. The M5n does have some downsides, which you are discovering--I went throught the same thing and was ready to pack it up and ship it back--but I got use to the fan and with my 7200 RPM HD and 1.6 centrino chip, the computer just rockets for speed and the wi-fi works so well--kinda fell in love with the laptop and decided to keep it--of course I hoping that Asus will (and they COULD) adjust the fan settings in the future--like I said, write them and let them know! [ ]

 

thanks for the explanations. I obviously misunderstood the CPU usage thing in the asus probe - I thought that's how much it was trying to use all the time, and since it was 100%, it seemed like perhaps that was why the fan was always on. But clearly if that's just how much is available, then it's not related at all. And the fan is just on all the time because it's meant to be that way.

The Power4Gear doesn't change that 100% until the very lowest setting. But cpu-z does show that it changes the 'core speed' at the lowest settings. The other settings don't seem to do a lot, espeically on mains power, which is when I use it most.

I haven't calibrated the battery; thanks for the instructions. I'll try that, and then see if I'm getting normal values. (You might be able to get a 6 cell battery shipped from the UK - they don't seem to be hard to get here! I got mine from microanvika).

I will send an email to them about this problem if it is something they can fix. Though they've ignored any other question emails I've sent them! But the noise is really annoying, espeically when I leave it plugged in when I'm trying to do other quiet work.

And it's loud enough - and/or the DVD player is quiet enough - that it's really hard to hear the DVD even when the volume is set on the highest possible setting. And that's frustrating! I like volume fairly quiet on most things, too, so I hate to think of the problems that people who need it much louder will have.

But other than half a dozen of these little niggles, I'm otherwise pretty happy with this laptop...

 

re. not being able to hear the dvd over the fan... I was adjusting the volume in the software programme, but it seemed to be adjusting the same volume controls in the task bar volume.

Is there anything else I can do to increase the volume? Or to shut the stupid fan off even just when watching DVDs? (I already have the power4gear set low). I know some systems have some special sort of extra programme for watching DVDs that doesn't involve turning windows on?

 

Thanks for all the comments on the subject of M5N fan noise. I have just sent the following note to Leon Gong at ASUS support in Taiwan. His email address is: [email protected]. Mr Gong wrote to me two days ago asking that I call ASUS support for a solution rather than sending the computer back for a refund. I complied only to be told that there was no solution. You may wish to write to him also:

Dear Leon,

I am writing another message to you regarding the fan noise on the M5N. This is a serious problem that will affect your business if it is not fixed. I suggest that you go to the following website: http://www.notebookreview.com/reviews/default.asp

Search on "m5n fan noise" and review the messages. You will note that this appears to be an international issue.

There appears to be three problems: First, the constant running of the fan; second, the noticeable varying speed of the fan; and, third, the "pitch" or "whistle" sound that the fan makes. It is this sound that bothers me the most. There is a "whine" to the fan that is very annoying.

I believe that it is important for you to commit to fix these problems quickly or word will quickly spread that ASUS support is not reliable. If you can make that commitment to me I will keep the computer with the understanding that it will be fixed in the near future.

I own my own real estate business and I use many notebooks in the business. I also know that word travels fast regarding computer reliability and support. I am sure that you know all these things too so I am hoping to confirm the importance of this issue with you.

May I count on your commitment to fixing the fan noise on the ASUS M5N notebook computer?

Sincerely,

Bob

 

Here is Mr. Gong's response to my email:

"Dear Friend :
Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service.
My name is Leon and I would be assisting you today.
I think this kind of sound can pass noise test,so it won't let people feel bad.Please don't worry about it.
If having any problems, please don't hesitate to let me know. Let's discuss this issue together.
Thank you for using ASUS products and enjoying ASUS services!"

That pretty much clarifies it for me.[ ]

 

About a month ago i sadly enough bought an asus a2d notebook and i am really dissapointed with it[V].
It seems it has the same troubles that the m5 , the fan doesnt turn of and it has the whistling fan that is extreamly high pitched and really annoing.
If i use speedfan to read the temperature sensors it seems like the sensors is totally messed up sometimes the thermal zone can be 58 and acpi 38 and the fans running , next time the thermal zone is 38 and acpi 58 and the fan runs full throttle blowing cold air.
I have been in contact with "Leon" and he told me to update the bios to the latest but it already had the latest.
What really makes me mad about this piece of crap notebook is the overview on asus
"Thermal sensors intelligently adjust fan speed and monitor system temperature to control overheating to prevent system damage or user injury when necessary, and also maintain quiet operation by minimizing air resistance."
Quiet operation yeah right.

 

I removed the fan and heat sink briefly from the M5N this morning. After further investigation, I am of the belief that my main problem (and I suspect that of others) is not the fact that the fan runs all the time but that the fan itself produces a noticeable whine that is very annoying after extended use.

I had the fan in my hand running and it was still whining, thereby eliminating a chassis related noise or vibration. This is a solvable engineering product defect that should not have passed quality control nor been placed on the market.

I would urge others to not stand for this deficiency and to write to Mr Leon Gong in China about this ([email protected]) and to call ASUS customer support (510-739-3777 ext. 5110) to voice their concern.

Bob