Is a 14" significantly louder because of cooling issues?

Hi guys,

in this thread
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=61515
it is mentioned that the A8J has it's fan running about half of the time even when surfing the web or writing a document.

"Doing web/document work seems to turn the fan on every 20 seconds or so, for about 20 seconds each time."

Is this a common behavior of 14" machines?

I realy like to have a silent pc to work. On my aged travelmate 800 the fan doesn't turn up while writing text or surfing the web (flashblocker and so on activated) And if than only for a very short time every half an hour.

A friend of mine showed me his new A6JA and it's fan even switched off from time to time while playing oblivion. My fan spinns up as soon as I start any 3D application even if it is only google earth.
So this demo made me believe new notebook have become even quiter than my aged centrino pioneer.

I thought the A8J is a good idear because it is smaller than my current one and if I need higher resolutions at home i would connect it to an external TFT.
At the moment I am used to 1400x1024 and like it.
I am still worried that glossy is not that good on the road and it has to spin up the fan much more often because of speed issues.

The other notebook I have in mind is the successor of my current one. The Travelmate 8204.

A lot of people are pleased with asus build quality. I am not unhappy with my current machine but have no long run experience with other brands to compare.

The 8204 has 1600x... Resolution. I am happy with my current 1400x1050 but having a smaller resolution might be a too small. On the other hand xgl and I hope windows vista benefit from high res in the way that they use the higher dpis to display a more crisp picture without having fixed fonts unreadable small.

You see my thoughts are quite turning up and down. I don't know where to go to see those laptops in real life to judge size difference, noise and display quality.

A lot of other interessting laptops like the hps lack a dvi connector or just have it in theire 17" desktop replacements. Can you still call them a portable computer?

Or perhaps I should try to wait a little longer until the 64bit cpus are released and finally more laptops have build in dvi.

An argument for buying now is that I am currently for half a year on an intership in the usa. So I would have a price advantage buying the laptop while I am here. And if I buy it quite soon I could use it for the time I am here and can't utilize a desktop.

Sorry if that got a little long. Most of you might know how mad such a decission can drive you and sometimes you think. Just buy one of them now to have this discussion finished.

Thanks for "listening"

 

Not at all. My 14 inch Asus W3J is very very quiet. Even when gaming, with the fan on at full speed, it is very very silent. I have a 15 inch Dell Inspiron 8100 and that thing sounds like a jet is taking off each time the fan turns on. It is ridiculous. The W3J is extremely quiet, and is very cool at the same time. Hope this helps.

 

It actually is, less space, less ventulation, smaller areas for a cooling system and perhaps smaller/less fans. Of course, with a decent video card, such as the x1600 or 7600 in a 14", it makes it more obvious that at certain times, the fan will go off since it will heat up a bit.

Also, BIOS fixes as well as software such as NHC can help cool down the laptop.

 

Some notebook, the chassis r good at dissipating noise, or the manufacture could hav stuff something in the dissipate the noise. Anyway, it is very obvious that when u play oblivian, the fan will certainly turn on, oblivian is such a high GPU demanding game, it certainly heat up the whole notebook. Or U could get Samsung or Fujitsu Siemens, they hav a built in function call Silent Mode(as in ur cellphone, without the vibration function) It ll underclock ur CPU, GPU and u ll enjoy a near soundless notebook. Except for the optical drive spinning or maybe even the HDD

 

Thanks for your opinions. Of course a GPU like the 7600 or X1600 will heat up the device. I only used the example of my friend running oblivion without steady fan noise to point out what I have seen so far.
And what supprised me is the fact that the linked review says it is going to run the fan half of the time while only doing word processing or surfing the net.

I wish I could have the acer and asus here for two days to test

To see myself what display and heat controlling are like on both maschines.