Compaq v2000z FAN help

Just got this notebook a few days ago and really like it (besides a few issues listed in a previous thread)

One thing I'm curious about is the fan on here. It seems to kick in VERY often (like when I'm scrolling a lot on a webpage), opening up web browsers, explorer browsers, windows media player, etc (not all at the same time).

It doesnt turn on and stay on for a while, it'll run a few seconds and turn off and then turn back on after I do something (like mentioned above) again. It's also not very loud (thank god)

1. is this normal?
2. any ways to fix this?
3. any ways to fix this without undervolting?

thx for taking time to read my post ^^

oh also i have my power scheme on portable/laptop and the video card tuned down to 32mb

 

I've heard almost every user of this notebook complain about the fan noise. The Turion ML in this notebook produces considerably more heat and takes power power than the Pentium M processors. I don't think theres too much you can do aside from undervolting.

 

1. This is normal for the model, but abnormal generally speaking for a lappy.

2. In the "v2000z tempreature" thread in this forum, I posted a good deal for a cooler in compusa, you still have one day left to jump on this deal. I know this is not always convenient solution, but it is very effective (basically the cooler shuts off my v2000z fan)

3. see above

 

I'm glad it's normal but I'm dissapointed that the fan would turn on this easily. Normally I would get the notebook cooler but my primary concern is if the fan goes on during classes (where I would NOT bring a cooler). Someone another thread I started told me the fan wouldn't go on during web browsing (even after 3 hours), so I was wondering how he managed that.

I'm starting now to consider undervolting. How much will it help my dilema? I have the ML-30 cpu. I heard that undervolting only shows significant heat and power reduction on high loads (ruling out web browsing =x).

 

Undervolting will help, I don't know by how much though.

 

Okay here I am. Yes , in my lappie it does not turn fan while browsing when room temp is around 70F.

Here it is why: ( By Order of priority)
1. First thing I use RMClock and set the speed to Minimal.
Why this? In normal mode, even when you are browsing processor keeps jumping between 800 and 1600Mhz very frequently. What this minimal mode does is, it will increase the threshold time before jumping to next step. So it will switch to next step if it detects continuous real load.

I was also surprized, that it can recognize benchmarks vs actual load. Like if you are running prime95 it does not switch to next step in minimal mode, but when I did video encoding infact it went all the to max speed. (All this my observation on my machine, based on my settings) Please check the UNDERVOLT thread.

2. I have ML-37 processor, advantage is even if steps up to next level(1600MHz) it only consumes 24.2watts, where as ML-28/ML-30 use 32watts power at that speed.

3. Undervolting does help, but at the base stepping(800MHz) you hardly reduce any wattage or heat( Probably 1 watt to 1.5watt and actual wattage is only 7.9watts). But when it jumps to next step, it consumes around 4 times( 32 watts). So It helps a lot when it steps up to next level like 1600MHz. ( You could be reducing as much as 10+ watts based on your CPU undervolt capability) check this thread for approx calculations:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=27429

4. I use intermediate stepping, like I have 4x,6x,8x,9x,10x for ML-37. 6x is a intermediate stepping I am using so, it runs at 1200Mhz. Most of the times, when you need more processing power during something browsing, 1.5time current speed is would be good enough.

5. I know many webpages, use as much 90-100% cpu as long as they are in view(Even my P4 3.06 desktop). Not problem with browser, but rather poor flash programs.

BTW, one more tip, when you scroll down in webpages, use page down and page up keys rather than arrow keys. I think this has something to do with how windows try to render page.
If I use arrow key, CPU usage keeps spiking when I scroll up or down. CPU usage does not go up when I use Page UP and Page DOwn in the same webpage.

When the room is warm, it does turn on fan more often, like for me in the office during a warm day(prob 75F inside), fan ran twice in 1 hour.( Yes Twice). But as I told you I use minimum always.

Anyways, please let us know if it helps at all. Best of luck.

 

Thanks so much Chinna, Woah that is super helpful!

I downloaded RightMark CPU Clock Utility (RM Clock?) but have no clue on how to set it to "minimal" as you discribed above. Can you be a little more detailed?


edit

an additional question: do I need to change the windows xp power scheme or anything?

 

Alright I found minimal (hehe). Do these settings look "stable" and relate to what you mentioned above?

-Should any of the misc options below be checked?

-Should I add more p-state stuff or change the current that I played around with?

-Should Windows XP powerscheme still remain on "portable/laptop"?

-what other things should i change with RMclock?

After configuring RMClock like the above image, the fan still turns on basically as much as it used to: "maybe" a little bit less~


On a side note, do you think having more and faster memory would make the fan turn on less? my rationalization here is that the computer won't work so hard to perform simple processes thus lowering the need for the system to get hotter and have the fan on?

 

I am glad you figured it out.

For the Windows Power Scheme I choosed always On and selected Monitor turn off at 20 min and HDD turn off at 20 min. This way it does not interfere with CPU speed, but still continue to save power by turning off monitor and HDD.

In RM CPU clock I select Maximum Battery Saving level in battery mode.( In those drop downs).

-Should any of the misc options below be checked?
I do not think you need any of those settings. If you experiment and find something exciting, pls let us know

-Should I add more p-state stuff or change the current that I played around with?

Ans: I suggest to add one setting at 6x(1200MHz). But make sure at each setting at the selected voltage it is stable. I see 8x at 1.150v, is it stable at that voltage? If it is then you got one pretty good UNDERVOLT for ML-28/30 and your estimated wattage would be around 20-21 watts instead of 32 watts, which is substantial saving( More than 10 watts!! )

Based on settings you currently have you may be able get stable 6x at 1.075v. ( 16-17 watts).

How to test intermediate step? Remove all other P-states other than the one you want to test and apply. Then run Prime95 for maximum heat and power for atleast 6 hours( leave it running during night). If it gives any errors, up the voltage by 0.025v and test again.( I suggest leave some room, like if you are just stable at 1.050, but unstable at 1.025, may be leave room by setting at final voltage at 1.075).

-Should Windows XP powerscheme still remain on "portable/laptop"?
No, Always on is good. See above

-what other things should i change with RMclock?
If you have'nt, select Run Automatically on startup, run minimized options in general tab.

Anyways, please let us know how helpful these settings in your situation.

Best of luck.

 

Thx sounds good- I think I'm gonna leave it at 4x with 0.950, 6x at 1.075, and 8x and 1.200 >> i read from the RM forum that a guy with my save laptop and cpu have it work well at .950 and 1.150 and that's why i had those settings- to be on a safe side so I dont have to stress test it, I'll keep it at these settings.

-I dont' see a Maximum Battery Saving mode on any of the drop down menus. Is it under Battery Profile? Should I put that at Maximal instead of minimal? I was under the impression that minimal uses the least amount of power?

-Should any settings be changed under the "advanced" tab?

 

I think with wrong terminology I might have mislead you.
Select Battery Profile to Minimal,
Battery Mode to Power Saving Level 4( or what ever max you have).

For AC probably you could go with same if you want to keep minimum heat.

See the attached image for idea.

 

Sounds good!- i think im all set with RMClock- i'll keep this thread updated if any changes are made (stability issues, etc). I'm sure all this stuff helped save battery life, but am not sure if the fan turns on less or not because it still seems very similar to the past (maybe setting the above posted settings might help a bit). The fan turns on everytime the CPU hits 54 to 55 degrees C and will run until it cools down to 50 degrees.

oh and could u also help me with this posted earlier

On a side note, do you think having more and faster memory would make the fan turn on less? my rationalization here is that the computer won't work so hard to perform simple processes thus lowering the need for the system to get hotter and have the fan on?

thanks a lot for ur time and help

 

More memory means that Windows won't be hitting virtual memory (swapping out to the HD) so often, which is a good thing all around and can help keep your HD cooler. I upgraded my zv5000z to 2GB RAM (Crucial PC2700) and turned off virtual memory. Every little bit helps. If you have 1GB RAM you might get away with turning off virtual memory but programs tend to react badly to running out of memory.

So, more memory might be a marginal help with cooling, especially if the HD is located near the CPU. Undervolting should have a much greater effect.

 

About the fan, that right it fan starts at 55C and stops at 50C. Typically it takes anywhere between 15 seconds to 30 seconds based load to cool the proc down to 50. And fan is pretty quite. BTW All these laptop cooler even the quitest ones I saw were much more noisy than this CPU fan.

What I observed is, ambient temp really makes lot of difference. Unfortunately you can not control it all the times.

About the memory, I think more cache would help somewhat ( like ML-30 1MB cache is better than ML-28 512KB). Memory would also may help, I think it's contribution to CPU load/heat not considerable. But I am pretty sure it helps with HDD temps.

One more question I have is what are all programs running on you lappie by default? That too helps to reduce heat. I unstalled every dam thing HP installed, all the many automatic stuff in XP also. After a fresh restart, my laptop takes only 120MB of memory when I am not working on any software.

BTW Norton stuff the HP installed is very bad(Keep accessing the HDD and keeps processing something mysterious in the background), I installed AVG which is much lighter and free too.


Anyways let us know your results.

 

I formatted this thing and popped in XP pro on the first day I got it =)

I agree, ambient temperatures probably make more difference then anything else I can do but I just got the feeling that if I can tune this down 3-5 more degrees, the fan will only turn on when I'm playing video games, encoding, or using photoshop in "room temperature" enviornments (75-80 degrees F). =)

i guess i'll keep working on it!

 

Ok, so I woke up this morning after having the notebook turned off all night. So after the CPU had a significant time to cool down, the computer lasted 45 minutes of web surfing before the fan needed to turn on. I really don't know how this compares to everyone elses though or to how it'd be if I hadn't made all the adjustments with RMClock =) --

this of course is great but I use my laptop a lot, and can't be turning it off and letting it cool down every hour so that I can go a while without the fan since after the 45 minute mark, the CPU will hover between 48-55 degree's quite quickly and the fan will turn on every 5-10 mins or so =(

 

In fact the Antec cooler I was mentioning, when set to low, has magnitude lower noise than the v2000z fan's (which happen to be the loudest , not just frequent, among my laptops), this low setting is already put the V2000z tempreature to constant 33-41 degree (without it, 55 degree). The cooler noise is not only lower, but also in lower frequency and less disturbing, in fact almost unaware. The cooler uses power draw from the USB port. So it does shorten battery life though (someone claims making the 130 minutes battery last for 118 minutes)

 

hmmm would putting arctic silver on the CPU be going overboard? =)

 

That Antec cooler is great. I keep it on high and just leave my battery out.

 

Actually it's a good idea... if you're technically adept enough and don't mind voiding your warranty. We've had some overheating zv5000 series machines that HP messed up the thermal compound application on that were fixed this way. Buy some Arctic Clean too and hunt down some lint-free cloth. If you're going to go through the trouble to do that though you might as well swap in a Turion MT while you're at it. Newegg and eWiz have them in stock. The service guide is here. MT's aren't officially supported but they should work, worst case you'll have to use RightMark or CrystalCPUID to do power management as I had to do when I swapped a Mobile-class Athlon 64 into my zv5000z.

 

normally i would be all for it, but i havn't even had this notebook for a week yet, lol

 

Can you please tell me which Antec Notebook cooler model you are talking about? I only know of one model with two different colors. I bought one from COMPUSA as it was sale for $10 after mail in rebates. This one does not have any speed settings, only on/off. It is very loud(25.9DB) by comparison to CPU fan.

I also checked on line on Antec Website, and only found this model( different colors).

 

you guys are talking about the same one =)

 

Then no way it is silent or anywhere near as silent as V2000z CPU fan. And also it blows air down rather than blowing up, which is not good as most of the laptops now-a-day suck air from bottom and blow in the back( Which is always better than blowing in your lap). But flipping it really does works! As V2000z really rests good on Cooler feet and air blows good on to HDD compartment and CPU.

I would like to experiment by reversing the Antec Cooler fans to blow upwards, keep the only left fan blowing( as CPU and HDD are on only on left side).

BTW anyone experimented opening this cooler( where the screws are to open the case) I doubt those are under glued feet, but not sure.

 

Your cooler is the old model dated back to 2003 (I was suprised it is still circulating on the market if you get this recently), the revised model has no on/off, but hi/lo, the wind is not blowing from top 2 bottom (that will be a problem if you put it on your lap that blocks the airflow), but from top 2 sides (front and right), the fans are no longer use ball bearing. You might consider making an exchange at compusa.

Look at the pic from the bottom: http://tinypic.com/eg8iuq.jpg

 

you guys both bought it on using the same deal at compusa though =x -- bleh

 

My bad luck, I got 2003 model. And look like Antec did not updated their web site. It has same specs as mine( Ball bearing fans and same DB ratings). I will try to exchange it if they have any new models.

Still I think Air should blow up and only left fan is good enough for this LAPTOP. That way instead of 2 watts it will consume 1 watt and less noise too.

 

BTW I got it replaced with new model Antec Cooler from COMPUSA. It is definitely quite, but at the cost of lot of air flow. It uses centrifugal blowers instead axial fans as in previous version.

Specs for old model:
• Power consumption: 2 watts
• Fans: 2 x 70mm
• Fan speed: 2500RPM (average)
• Airflow: 31.6 CFM
• Acoustic noise: 25.9 dBA

Specs for new model:
• Power consumption: 1.55W/2.25W
• Fans: 2 x 80mm
• Fan speed: 1350/1800 RPM (average)
• Airflow: 8.5/13 CFM
• Acoustic noise: 23/27 dBA

If you see the specs, CFM is not even half of what old model is, and even at the highest setting. Not only that the DBA rating is more at high speed setting than old model(But I doubt if it is any louder than old model at high setting).

Now, thing is we can reverse the airflow to blow up by changing the direction of the fans in old model. In new model, we can not as it uses blowers. Specific to this V2000/DV1000/DV4000 series( infact most of the todays laptops) take air from bottom and blow back or sides. So the cooler should not suck air from the laptop bottom(which is against the CPU fan flow), rather it should push the air so that cooling is effective.

Now I am not sure, if new model is any good. Now I can not reverse the fan flow. I wish there is a hybrid model which is like old model but has fan speed control like new model.

 

Is that something a problem theoretically or practically? The cooler reduces tempreture around 8- 19 celsisus degrees among my laptop, depending on how a particular lappy CPU tempreture rises above ambience's. No coincidence, the 19 degree reduction one applies to the v2000z as it is otherwise the hottest (compare with my other 2 lappies, both are from DELL).
That means the airflow is already very effective even in low setting. admittedly could be more effective if blow upward.

The cooler fan blowing direction does flow against the CPU's. Supposedly detrimal to the CPU fan effectiveness. However, with the cooler on, the CPU fan never (for Dells) or rarely (for V2000Z, only if it is under full load video rendering for a extended period of time) need to turn on. To me, tt is a NULL issue in reality.


You claims your lappy, w/o cooler, the fan turn on much less frequenly (no turn on during 3 hours browing) than my one (turns on in 20 minutes), I think your scenario cannot be worse than mine.

 

I cannot take part in the cooler conversation but just to mention that when browsing, the fan on my L2000 does not turn on. Before undervolting it did quite often, so I was really amazed what undervolting can do.

 

I concur with you about the cooler after 8 hours of use. Though cooler flow is against the CPU Fan, most of the time CPU fan does not need to work, so Antec cooler keeps pulling some air thru the heatsink reducing the CPU temp. It not only reduced the CPU temp by almost 10C when browing(instead of 48-50C with cooler on it is around 38-40C) it also reduced the HDD temp by atleast 5C which is good.

Its effectiveness may not be good when CPU fan has to work because of full load, which is pulling air in opposite direction.

Actually in my case CPU fan hardly(if ever) turns on when browsing/editing without cooler also, unless surrounding are very hot. But HDD temps dropped more than 5-6C(from 45C 39C) with Antec Cooler. So cooler palm rest area

I am still thinking, how about I disconnect right side fan, which may not be very useful in the case of V2000z. That way I reduce some more noise, reduce power consumption. Also is that blue led really required!?It is very briight epscially night time.

So, Finally it is a keeper( not bad at all for $10 after rebate).

Note: One other thing I observed(may be wrong) if cooler fan is not running, but you keep the laptop on the cooler, then CPU temps are little more(may be around 2-3C ) than when it is on lap.

 

Great to know it is effective.

It seems the cooler has some potential, as my ML-30 normally run at 55-58 degree, with the cooler, it set the temp to 37-39, around the same as you. (last night was bit cold, so it stay at 31-35 for me, I'm in Bay area, california).


When I do CPU intensive work for long (such as video rendering and registry cleaning), my CPU fan may still kick off, yes, the blow is weaker . Fortunately for me, when it runs, it typicall run just 2 to 8 seconds (and with the help of the cooler) to make the temp down to sub 46 degree and the CPU fan stops. I have no idea why so fast to drag from 57 to 46 in such short time.

The cooler has 3 years warranty, kind of long, so I may not open it.

 

hp notebook fan are pretty loud. can't you change the settings in BIOS?