Penryn whine fix for ThinkPad T61?

My only complaint about my T61 that I've had for the last six months is the famous "Penryn whine". When the laptop was on battery mode, I would hear a noticeable buzzing coming from the rear-left corner by the fan. I think it was related to the CPU cooling system, because the only solution I could come up with was to disable CPU power management in the BIOS, which would drain the battery life, but keep my sanity by not having to listen to a loud buzz. Still, having 1 hour of battery isn't very useful.

Well, with this latest BIOS, I get much better battery times, and the whine is practically gone. I still hear a very, very faint noise, but it is not nearly as bad as it used to be.

The latest BIOS release, 2.24-1.08, posted today, solves the problem! Here's the changelog for all the details. The entry is:

Version 7LETC3WW (2.23-1.08)
* (Fix) Buzzing sound around the fan with battery.

I'd be interested in hearing if this solves (or at least helps mitigate) anyone else's "Penryn whine" problem.

For those interested, I've got the T8300 CPU (see signature for details).

 

My understanding was that this issue affected all CPUs on the T61 going into deep sleep state, not only Perynns ( so T7x00 series too ) so it was not related to the cooling solution. I think I'll flash my bios see what happens.

 

On the Lenovo site it says it was released on 2008/08/25 or am I missing something ?

Can I check my BIOS version without having to enter the BIOS ?

 

I guess you are lazy as I am )

 

Yes, if you have PC Doctor (came with my T400).
There must be other utilities that do this, as well

 

Yeah, you can run CPU-Z and check one of the tabs. It'll show what BIOS version you're running.
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

 

About the date of the release, that thew me for a loop too. But, I saw that the date of the BIOS file was in August, but the "Last Modified" date of the BIOS release page with the download shows the date as Oct. 27, 2008. I've been checking every few weeks hoping for a fix to the problem, so that's how I found out that it was updated.

 

thanks i've used couple of times this app, but never was a priority..

anyway, mine shows: 2.21 and 07/01/2008 as date, but system update doesn't show any updates..

 

Try doing the new BIOS update guys!

 

I used System Update in ThinkVantage. It installed the new BIOS and so far so good. Before when I was running on the battery the fan would come on now and then and would be very audible. Now I can't hear it at all. If I put my ear down to the top-left area I can hear it but it's still very silent. Much better than before. Also the whine seems to have dissapeared. I haven't heard or noticed it after the BIOS update.

 

Great to hear that it worked for you too. I'm surprised that this hasn't gotten more attention yet. Maybe the loud buzzing hasn't happened to many others.

 

I never noticed a buzz with the old BIOS... I usually don't run on battery. But I updated to the latest BIOS anyway and things are still fine.

I don't recommend updating through the Thinkvantage system update. I think too many things are possible to go wrong. I always update the BIOS by burning the ISO image to a CD and booting to that CD. Seems much safer. Also when I burn (using Img burn), I use the slowest speed and always verify the burn.

 

the BIOS upgrade hasn't helped. stuck to setting the bios to disable cpu power management method

 

I still hear that buzz sound with AC off.