Vostro Noise

On my vostro 1400, the fan (on the left hand side) comes on full whack for about 5 minutes, every 3-4 minutes - even when no applications are running. NHC reads the CPU temp as between 27-31c. I received this machine only last month, so it cannot be dust or anything.

Do others with Vostro 1400 have the left-hand side fan (almost) constantly on, even when no applications are running?

Thanks

 

27c is a low temperature ... that's good. Dell has the BIOS programmed so the fan comes on at a lower temperature and keeps the CPU cooler.

 

So is it pretty noisy? Even when my fan is on, I can hardly tell. But no, my fan doesn't come on full blast randomly. Does your CPU usage spike?

 

It doesnt spike. CPU usage is, right now, fluctuating between 0-8% with word and internet explorer running, which is standard i think.

The fan is noticeably louder than the laptops around me in the library. The area to the left of the touchpad is warm too. Im sure this is not normal, under SUCH light use. I'm thinking there might be a problem with the heatsink, or the power-management etc. Might the T8100 (2.10ghz) processor be an issue?

I posted yesterday about the hard drive (Western digital, 160g), to no response. It is constantly being accessed (light blinks every 2 seconds, sounds like someone's hoovering inside there, the little bursts of activity [not the dreaded 'clicks']every 2-3 seconds) by something, despite my having turned off everything that might be causing this - indexing, system restore, going through task manager and closing processes writing to the HD. Doing the latter does seem to do something - about 20 seconds the HD spinning down in idle, but then when spoolsv.exe writes to HD (according to task manager), the thing HD starts up again with the usual strange activity. Repeat ad nauseum minute.

My Vostro 1400 is anything but the cool and quiet machine i read about in reviews!

 

do this, run diagnostics by pressing F12 at post, when you get a menu choose symptom tree and choose the option that says, abnormal noises or something similar, and call dell, they will replace any part thats noisy

 

Thanks, i'll try that and seen what happens. Could anyone else out there relate their own experience with the Vostro 1400 fan noise /frequency?

 

PvD, tried this out, but diagnostics provides no menu and no symptom tree. It is a pre-set run through the whole system - and no problems are found. I think the problem may be the Western Digital hard drive not spinning down, which is stopping the machine from going into idle, which means heat quickly builds up. The Vostro's idle noise output SHOULD be next-to-nothing - is that what other Vostro owners have found?

 

PvD, found the symptom tree in diagnostics - had to run a full memory test to get to it. No abnormal sounds reported. Tested all the fans and the hard-drive - no problems reported.

cheers for the advise anyhow, i didnt know this 'symptom tree' thing even existed!