Inspiron 1525 Fan Issue

Hey I just got my Dell Inspiron 1525 today. I love this notebook except the fan keeps turning on every other minute. It's not loud or anything, but it just keeps turning on. Is there any way to reduce this?

Thanks in advance.

 

You have several options, really. You could get a cooling pad, try your hand at some undervolting, or see if i8kfangui works on the 1525.

The cooling pad and undervolting will hopefully keep your processor/NB/GPU temps low enough such that they never (or rarely) trigger the fan. If it works, i8kfangui can manually control your fan speeds.

The first two options are generally preferred. Force stopping your fan can be dangerous. You can check out flipfire's undervolting guide:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824

 

I also suggest Undervolting or i8kfangui. But dont stop the fans, just lower them.

And watch your temps while doing so. HWMonitor

CPU <70C
GPU <65C (should be at regular usage) or 90C while gaming.
HDD <60C

 

Thanks guys, i'll try both solutions and see what works better.

I already have a Targus Cooling Pad. This already has reduced the amount of time the fans turns on.

I still think it probably turns on about every 2 minutes.

What do you guys think is better...undervolting or i8kfangui?

 

I see that using i8kfangui voids your warranty. In that case, i'm not going to use that.

Undervolting looks confusing, is there any easier way to fix this?

 

Lol - where did you read that using I8KFanGUI voids your warranty??

 

Disclaimer:
By using this software you are changing the thermal management of your DELL notebook. This program is not supported by DELL, so any damage caused by this program is not covered by your system's warranty nor by me. YOU'RE USING THIS PROGRAM AT YOUR OWN RISK !

 

That's just the authors disclaimer. Just uninstall it if anything happens - I won't tell you if you won't

 

Yeah, if you just uninstall it, Dell won't know. But the damage can be caused by turning off fans, which wouldn't technically be covered by Dell, but not if you uninstall it. And if you watch temps, no damage will be done. But on the safe side, Undervolting is a better option I guess. No easier way that I know of. Sorry. Make sure it has proper ventiallation and stuff.

 

Thing is, a fan failure type death when the fan tests fine looks like an overclocking failure, toasted hardware. Were i dell i'd be quite suspicious.
Undervolting seems like the way to go to me.

 

So is it hard to undervolt?

 

Not if you follow The Undervolting Guide.

 

Thanks.

So am I limited to these solutions or are there any other things I could do?

 

Hmm, nothing I can think of really.

 

Yeah, I would try undervolting but I dont wanna get BSOD on a new laptop lol

 

Couple BSODs never hurt anybody

 

LOL, yeah. Just becausse you get a BSOD, doesn't really hurt the laptop. And if you follow
The guide to stability testing it, you shouldn't get any BSODs.

 

Update...

Well I haven't done undervolting yet, but it seems like it will work.

Anyone having the same problem as me can look at this link...

http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/guides/12900-guide-undervolting-your-processor.html

the guy is undervolting his inspiron 1525 and has said that it has made a big difference.

 

2nd Update...

Well ever since I got my Inspiron, I've been using it while it's plugged into the AC Adapter.

Well right now, I'm using it on battery power, and the fan hasn't turned on!
It's so nice and quiet right now, seriously, I love this thing.

Anyone know why the fan runs so much when it is plugged in? Seriously...the fan hasn't turned on and it's running so nice and smooth right now. I'm confused on why the fan only turns on when plugged in

 

The bios may turn off speedstep and other power saving measures while the laptop is on AC power. Less power consumed = less heat generated = less heat to get rid of.

You might look in your bios to see if there are any options for when speedstep and such work.


EDIT:
It's worth noting that all power used in your laptop is turned into heat, with the very small exception of the light produced by the backlight in your screen. All the rest of it turns into heat.
Charging batteries produces heat, and if the batteries are near the chip that may change how much the chip heatsink and heat tube can get rid of passively.

 

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking.

Also, when I go into bios to look for speedstep, what should I do when i find it?

 

Make sure it's turned on full time. I have no idea whether that option will be there or not though.
If it isn't you should look for what differences in OS operatiuon there are between ac and battery, every os i know of has seperate power options.

 

So on my mini9 the setting in windows for power profile makes a large difference.
Always on sets the chip voltage higher full time, where desktop lets it follow the speedstep stuff. The difference is ~4*c on the passively cooled mini9/atom.

 

So what should I change the battery settings to?

 

The dropdown boxes appear largely irrelavent to performance.
I have mine set to turn the screen off after ten minutes, sleep after 20, and hibernate after an hour. I tried shorter and i didn't like it, so now i'm trying longer wait times, seems to work decently.

It's the main dropdown box with the "profile" in it that makes the difference as far as i can tell, i haven't done a LOT of testing yet.


NOTE:
Those are my settings for a mini9, which has a 4-6 hour battery depending on usage.