When are fanless notebooks coming?

I know we already have some and some netbooks, but when will they become a mainstay? I asked this question a while (years?) ago, but want to ask again. We are approaching the time when Intel brings out 22nm quad cores to mainstream notebooks, AMD has 32nm quad's with powerful graphics built in, ssd's are becoming more and more common, plus graphics cards are shrinking in size and power usage. Despite all this, we STILL have fans. I ask because my little ULV powered Acer 1830T is noisy, the fan drives me nuts and all it has is integrated graphics and an ssd.

Fanless computers, are they close?

 

Disassemble the laptop, take out the heatsink, buy a block of copper, detach the fan from the heatsink, weld the copper block to the heatsink pipe where the fan would typically be, and then report temperatures (and weights)!

I think this type of thing would almost be viable with a system running a CULV Core 2 Duo and Intel graphics.

 

That doesn't even seem to be a goal of chip makers. Unless Intel, AMD, and NVidia start making extremely low-power parts specifically for passive cooling, it's not going to happen anytime soon.

 

it's not coming soon enough. in theory we are close, but intel would rather crank up performance rather than drop power consumption so drastically.

 

I'd like to know too, I'm really waiting for a passively cooled notebook. Replace the HDD with an SSD, and you have no moving parts. Less chance of failures that way.

 

A regular sized laptop with a metal chassis and small low power CPU might be able to get away with this with a nice heatpipe going to the case from the northbridge and another one to a different part of the laptop from the CPU. Especially if maybe there were some fins on a recessed portion of the laptop or something. Although Intel adding the northbridge and graphics to the CPU package really isn't helping.

 

Lots of people turned off the fan in the EEE 1000H without problems. My wife always uses hers on her blanked/bed and basically block the fan from working and her units is still fine too.

I cant see why its important though, when I had my 1000H no matter what I never heard the fan working. So I would rather have the extra cooling than to have no fan for the sake of having no fan.

If you can hear your fan, maybe that is why you want a fanless unit? But the answer is not no fan, just a good fan and well designed unit.


I definitely seeing the sect of people preferring no fan low performance passive cooled units to higher power faster/better units that still have a fan in them.

Im waiting for a good 800x600 dual core atom netbook myself. The original 600x480 res just was a tad too small for me, and the atom single core was great but just not quite strong enough for flash and flash is half the net, so I think its not a good "netbook" until I can run most flash without issues.

 

My Acer 1830T is a bit more quite than yours I guess by your complaints.
My Acer 1810t was more quiet, the fan rarely came on.

I just got the new Macbook Air. I have been told it has a fan but I have not heard, seen or felt it.

 

I too am eagerly awaiting the day we get some real fanless notebooks. I too feel that a 14 or 15 chassis would be able to safely passively cool a ULV or even LV processor, but the manufacturers don't seem to think the same way...

 

With Mac's you won't hear the fan, until it's gets to the temperature of the surface of the sun. BUT I hear the new MBA's run pretty cool... so... hmm.

 

I doubt we will get fanless ULV CPUs in the next years though. Intel is to eager pushing performance to new levels.

As far as I know only Atom and specifically Z series are meant for fanless designs. It may stay that way.

 

Yeah, these guys just make you do everything yourself

At the very least, I'd like more TPFanControls... I don't mind running a fan at full load, but not when my CPU hits like 40C.

 

Oh the warranty claims; "Oh my laptop is overheating BUT it says it's fanless"

Plus when your palm rest is 400 million degrees, don't go crying about fanless.

 

You know, I'm pretty sure that if Penryn-3M were shrunk to 32NM or 22NM, it would be fanless in application. (SU7300/SU4100 equivalent anyway.) Penryn was already pretty cool running at 45NM.

 

Why do people on this thread want a fanless machine? Is it to reduce noise, or is it to eliminate moving parts altogether, and eliminate sources of mechanical failure?

Because if the reasoning is to reduce noise, then you could get around it by simply using quieter fans in systems... you do not need to eliminate the fan altogether, if you can manage to eliminate just the noise from the noisy fan in your particular laptop model.

 

Also sometimes it is not even the CPU that gets hot. Many times I have had notebooks where traditional spinning hard drives are like 200 million degrees heating up the palm rest. Now that can be solved with an SSD but the average consumer won't purchased an SSD for their notebook.

 

I think the best stop gap solution would be to make a heatsink that has a small chamber built in for a cooling gas, (LN2), they would then sell LN2 shots for them you could buy, like those small pellet guns that use CO2 for propulsion, instead they'd use LN2 in the small shots.

 

He explains it in the first post.

 

apple product are fanless .....

 

There aren't any fanless Macs. They just use high quality quiet fans.

 

All the points you mentioned are exactly why I would like to have a fanless system.

 

I am uploading a video of my 1830T, so you can hear how it sounds constantly. It gets louder than in the video when running stuff like antivirus scans or recording in Media Center, and quieter if I let it sit a little. Sounds basically the same in both Windows and Ubuntu.

 

My X200s is always silent. The fan spins constantly at a very low RPM, and I can only notice that when I put my hand in front of the vent.

 

Okay see right now I am in my dorm room and my roomate has the microwave on. I can't hear the fan (at least I think I can't). As soon as the microwave goes off though...

I wonder if it bothers me more than him. His computer is some big 15.4" Toshiba with a Core 2 type processor and his is silent, except for normal random short fan burts.

 

you got me puzeled what is the use of a fan in a closed case ......

 

They're terribly implemented. They push air out near the hinge just fine, but don't have good enough intakes (because a solid piece of aluminum looks much better!). They also are audible when forced to RPMs (via SMCfanControl) that actually cool the system adequately under stress.

 

yah they have fans but under normal use the are very very quiet. which I really like

 

Reminds me of the first gen Macbook Pros. They accumulate a crap ton of dust on the inside. Twin fans cool CPU and the X1600 and only exhaust is under LCD hinge.

Though a plus for fanless is no more worrying if a fan bearing goes out and your crap overheats! And less worry for dust.

 

Haha. Who worries about fan bearings anyway?

 

Where's the video?

 

Nobody, until it happens to them...

 

High quality... No. Tiny, high RPM fans that don't kick on until 70C... Yes.

They pull air in through the spaces under the keys on the keyboard, that's why lid closed operation is dangerous on a MB, or MBP.

If you really stress the hardware like under a game or something, that little fan can HARDLY cool the notebook. I have to use a notebook cooling pad to keep it under 90C. With just it's little fan, it can get well past 100C pretty quickly.

 

This is what the fan sounds like:
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Here at Pitt, wifi/ethernet is slow in the dorms so it took some time to upload.

 

Dell Adamo XPS is fanless

 

And discontinued.

 

That sounds EXACTLY like my Acer 3680. It's noisy. What is your average CPU usage? Also, you absolutely MUST wipe that LCD down, like right now..LOL.

You shut that down quick.

 

Hadn't quite meant it like that, I was just noting that the Adamo XPS had been discontinued a couple months ago. I think the thing really is, the extra designing you generally need to make a notebook fanless makes it not so much impractical for mainstream, as prohibitively expensive. This means that fanless designs will mostly be halo or relatively high-end products like the afore-mentioned Adamo XPS, or designs where it's necessary, like Toughbooks. Oh, or in the underpowered segment of netbooks and the like where you can skimp on capability to save on heat. I think in the general full-featured notebook arena, however, it's less likely.

There is, by the way, this old thread that sort of covers this topic as well.

 

Mines never gone over 86C on MW2(highest settings, no AA).

 

Mines the 9600M version. It gets HOT. Maybe I need to clean it... but it does show the new hardware is cooler. Maybe Apple is finally catching on that their flagships can double as a hotplate.

 

Be careful what you wish for.

Long long ago, someone wished for a fanless laptop, and we got the Apple MacBook Pro.

 

The case isn't closed. The vents are hidden under the screen's hinge.

 

......

so basicaly let,s cook the hinge and screen rather then think how to make a real cooling solution

 

Yeah, the 9600m Macbooks do get hot. I had one and my CPU hit 99C gaming and my GPU was in the 90C's.

 

lol. I still don't consider the iPad to be a computer.

And, yeah, I guess you could put it that way. I have a feeling that they're going to redesign it next year, though. Hopefully they'll finally put a quad in the 17-inch.

 

As of right now browsing the web, not seeing usage above 30%. Of course that changes when editing photos or using Windows Live Movie Maker to encode that video for example.

 

Why did somebody post a picture of a really big phone?

lol, seriously though... for fanless notebooks to become standard, Intel would have to stop pushing flops. We have already come to the point where we have a computing power surplus for the private user (only exceptions might be gaming/design). If Intel started selling processors PRIMARILY on their efficiency, software requirements would plateau (again,outside of gaming and design, they kinda have already), and with every new gen we could half the TDP and keep the processing power the same...

 

I've got a fanless notebook sitting on the shelf at home. I bought it nearly 9 years ago. More details here.

John

 

Are you saying the answer is Transmeta, and not Intel?

Also why is that review dated as 1900?

 

And since we know that neither Intel nor AMD will ever do that, the wait for fanless notebooks is one that's never going to end.

 

unless we get a watercooled notebook ....