Fan speed control @ HP EliteBook 2530p

Hi there!

Today I got my HP EliteBook 2530p in "FU432EA" configuration. It was important for me to have an optical drive, so i chose the configuration with the 120 GB 1,8" HDD.

The 2530p looks great so far and performs pretty well... If there weren't the extremely annoying noises coming from the notebook.

The HDD with its 5400 rpm (it's a Samsung HS122JF, very slow btw, not really faster than 4200 rpm drives) makes a clearly audible, very high frequency noise and turns on/off every 30-60 seconds resulting in clicking sounds. I can live with that for the moment, because I'll upgrade to some SSD in the near future.

But the second annoyance is the fan inside the laptop. Even when idling in windows with temps below 50 °C the fan turns on every few moments. Unfortunately I haven't been able to control the system fan or even read the actual speed. I tried Notebook Hardware Control, SpeedFan and HWMon, but neither of them reported me anything about the fan. I tried undervolting the CPU with RMClock (which doesn't really support the new Penryn CPUs) and got a few degrees less, but this wasn't enough to keep the fan quiet. In the BIOS there are no options regarding the fan, only some "keep fan always running on AC power", which I disabled.

So is there any software out there that could fix this? There must be a way to control the fan over ACPI or something... Any help with this would be highly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

Try I8kfanGUI, maybe that'll work.

 

Nope, no success.
I8kfanGUI shows only the CPU temp, but no fan speed and I can't change anything. But thanks for the idea.

Is there a way to find out if the fan is software-controllable in general? Perhaps the thermal zones are fixed in the BIOS some way and there's just no way to alter those values. This would be a reason for me to send the laptop right back to HP, because it's really way too expensive for being THAT loud...

 

Are you sure you're not hearing the infamous Core 2 Duo CPU whine?

 

Yeah, I'm 100% sure. When I'm stressing the CPU the fan gets even louder, I think there are 4 or 5 different speed stages. When the CPU is on heavy load it gets hot and requires more cooling, I know that this is normal...

But that's not the point. I just want this thing to be quiet while idling or performing simple tasks like chatting or surfing, when the CPU usage is below 20% on low frequency. When I transcode videos or play some game then I'm okay with it to get loud. But when I'm sitting in the library to study, for example, the notebook just can't be that noisy.

The CPU whine is also there, but it is very quiet and almost not to hear in comparison to fan and hdd. If I get those quiet somehow this could be my next problem...

 

Try putting vista in power saver mode. Even when mines plugged in the fan seems to run less often on my dv6500t on powersaver mode. I really don't notice much of a performance drop and the average temps are lower.

 

Yeah, I can do that, just give me some time. =)

That was one of the first things I've done, of course. The temps are a little lower than with HP optimized profile, but still not low enough to keep the fan quiet.

 

You might try a different bios.. which generally controls the fan management. In my case, the new nvidia driver drastically changed my fan for the worse.. go figure. Usually its the bios that controls fan management.

Sounds like you have way too much going on for a new notebook.. I strongly advise sending back for refund and starting over. Use your first 30 days to get as they say " a good one".

 

Nvidia has had issues with overheating GPUs that has caused display problems so I bet your driver drastically increase fan speed to reduce the possibility of overheating. The FU432EA config of his/her 2530p does not contain "discrete graphics" like your notebook, meaning the fan going berserk is most probably not a GPU related issue, but with the CPU.

I'd say to try to get an exchange to see if the second 2530p has the same issue. HP is known to poorly install heatsinks and thermal paste in some cases causing a new notebook to overheat, not to mention most HP notebooks have very poor thermal management designs in the first place. 50 degrees seems a bit hot for a low voltage processor as I have a P8600 Duo Core that stays at around the 40 degrees range while idling at a room temperature of around 25 degrees celcius.

Concerning your HDD, have you checked the power management settings so that HDD power saving features are turned off? A 5400rpm drive should not make a lot of noise; I have a 7200rpm drive in my 8530p and its really quiet. Also, clicking is never a good sign for HDD, since the drive is mechanical, clicking usually indicates that something moving inside is hitting against another object.

 

@nando4

Here are the benchmarks. I also tested the drive with HD Tune, because Atto doesn't check the access time, which is as far as I know more important for a system drive than just the transfer rates.

But which BIOS Version to use and where to get it? The HP download sites only have the two latest updates. And those didn't fix any issues related to the fan. I like the idea of a tool to access the fan speed control directly from windows much more... please someone tell me that there is such a nice little piece of software out there.

I don't know if an exchange of the notebook would solve my problems. There are a few reviews of it out there and most of them mention that the fan is not very quiet. I just didn't imagine that it would bother me that much, perhaps I'm more sensible to noise than I thought.

Well, I'm not sure which temperature the CPU actually has. Programs that read the values directly from the CPU report other temperatures than programs that read the values from ACPI. HWMonitor shows both, you can see in the picture below that there's a huge difference. The screenshot shows the temps while idling, the fan switches on/off every minute an the temps change only between 2-4°.

Yes, I've set the HDD turn off option to 20 minutes when on AC power. But I can hear that it turns off after a few moments when there is no activity. I think I could look for some tool where you can change the HDD-internal settings like acoustic management etc. and see if that works, but as I said before, the hard drive is not my concern, because this problem will solve itself once I buy a SSD.

 

To modify the fan control there are a few optional ways. One is to use Notebook Hardware Control software and custom acpi files.

The other is to use custom dsdt files for Linux/Windows. Have a look here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4626084#post4626084

I think HP may have been ultra conservative with the fan kicking in to keep the CPU cool. Though I have been advised that the heatsink in at least a 2510p is a thin piece of aluminium and the heat pad is of poor quality. Would be worthwhile applying Arctic Silver b/w them before modifying the fan settings.. or at least review the datasheet on the CPU to see acceptable operating temperature. Also good to use RMClock to underclock the cpu as well.

Oh.. and if you do obtain the dsdt aml file, could you link on here? I would be curious to see if I can spot any differences with a 2510p one. Specifically relating to the IDE controller.

 

Just purchased a 2530p for a client, and I must say, it is driving me mad. The HDD spins up and down constantly. To the point it affects performance. It also spins down during the BIOS HDD Test, to the point that it seems it wont finish it. Surely this is not normal? Im surprised the OP isnt kicking up about this more, even though he has said it will be replaced with an SSD. Can anyone shed any more light on this HDD issue?

 

hdparm for windows gives precision control over many of the drives internal parameters.

 

I used that tool to set the standby time to 5 minutes. Made no difference. As soon as HDD activity stops the hdd goes into standby. Can happen 5-6 per min!!

Has to be faulty surely.

 

There are some Hitachi drive tools available to probe the drive with. Perhaps give them a go? Seems Toshiba doesn't provide anything equivalent.

 

I have an ULV 1.2Ghz 2530p and I had a noisy fan. The fan was stuck always on and very loud. I contacted HP and a tech replaced the mainboard but that didn't fix. Then the fan was next inline but the tech screwed up my 2530p. So I got a brand new 2530p with the exact same SKU and everything is fine. I guess you should ask for a fan replacement.
I've seen the on-site tech remove the heatsink. They use thermal paste on the cpu but on the northbridge there is a thermal pad :-(

 

Off topic, but anyone here have a 2510p/2530p 4-cell or 9-cell they could do without and looking to sell. The prices on eBay and varying resellers are just exorbitant. I have a 6-cell I wouldn't mind trading. Apparently you can't receive PM's (or at least I don't think) so E-Mail and maybe we can work something out.