T510 buzzing high pitch fan noise

Hi all,

I notice a high pitch buzz mostly from the fan area on my T510. It's especially pronounce when it's on battery. It's not very loud, but certainly noticeable. Given its high pitch, it can be quite annoying in a quiet room.

May I know if anyone has the same thing with his/her T510? Thanks!

 

This may be the so-called "CPU whine" issue that was present in at least a couple forumers' Thinkpads. I believe you can resolve the issue through disabling certain power states, although it's definitely not an ideal solution.

 

What do you mean by disabling certain power states? And may I know why this solution is not ideal?

Would you mind pointing me to some of the discussions about this matter as well?

Thanks so much!

 

Here are a few threads (Google is your friend ):
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=312457
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=170252
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=165029
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=440835

The power states that some people have been disabling to fix the issue (whether placebo effect or not) are used by the CPU to reduce power consumption, so disabling them could result in higher power draw.

However, it's not actually a CPU issue, I believe, I think it's more to do with the capacitors - in any case, there hasn't been a single resolution that has fixed everyone's "CPU whine" problems, so you'll have to try your luck.

 

I have a T410 which also has this high-pitched fan. I knew that this was an issue going into it (it is mentioned on the NBR review, actually). Honestly, to me, it is not that bad.

On the T410 it is most certainly the fan; I can put my ear up to it and hear it coming from it.

But yes, it seems that the high-pitch noise is a product of some new fan design. I have to say though, the computer and CPU stay cool, and even at 100% load on all physical and logical cores, the high-pitch noise does not get that much worse than when it kicks in. Though it kicks in at very strange times on Linux. Sometimes the computer will be at 35C and it will kick in, while it's been in the low 40's and not been on. Granted I think this is because the Linux kernel does not communicate well with the thinkpad acpi, or something like this...

How redundant of a post...

 

Thank you both. I am reading up on that. Seems disabling CPU deeper sleep makes it quieter in my case, but does not go away.

I can't say if it's CPU or fan noise per se. First, if it's CPU, when AC is on, the fan is more aggressive and can cover up the CPU buzz; thus, it may appear that the supposed buzz does not occur on AC. Though, when I unplug, the buzz is clearly more noticeable - so it's most probably not fan when I'm on battery. Wondering if there are two kinds of noises.

With previous experiences, is it something that I'd better call Lenovo to take care of, or for a replacement?

 

While you could always try, I doubt Lenovo will do all that much for you. It's more of an Intel chipset issue (assuming it's the CPU whine) then it is a Lenovo design issue.