T61p fans always on

Hey everyone,

My T61p has been running great... but the fan is a bit... aggressive.

Here is my temp from TPFanControl:

CPU 39°C (0x78)
APS 35°C (0x79)
PCM 31°C (0x7a)
GPU 42°C (0x7b)
BUS 38°C (0xc0)
PCI 39°C (0xc1)
PWR 38°C (0xc2)

At the temp above, the fan is running at 3K RPM. I wouldn't mind it being a tad bit hotter before it goes off with the fan.... I have the latest BIOS which is suppose to keep the fans on a bit more often too.

Anyway, I tried using TPFanControl to control my fans, it just keeps beeping at me. Any suggestions? Maybe the GPU is heating up more due to Vista?

 

You're not cleary about your OS, what softwares included in you T61p.
Remind you that you need to install Power Management to choose what kind of condition to work: Performance or Battery Max. In perfomance mode with surfing web, my T61 always is over 47oC at CPU. The fan is so quiet. It's too hot but I don't have other choice.

 

Whoops! I forgot to include those things.

I am running Vista Ultimate and have the Power Management installed from Lenovo. I am currently running a profile that uses the Adaptive CPU speed and is using Vista Aero. As far as other apps running, I don't have anything that would cause CPU to go up. I have tried the lowest setting on the CPU but the fans still is on most of the time on AC.

The fan is quiet, but my room is even more quiet.

 

That's the point, man!
Somehow you look like me. Following computer science over 10 years up to now, I always try to make all of computers working silence as possible, but I never happy with it, because my room is always quieter than the fan rotation. Good isolation, big fan, low rotation, big tower,... you can tell me alot of tweaks, as you mean it...our sensitivities are too high!! Good luck man.

 

In conclusion, your cause is coming from the software. In my Asus computer, they don't understand somehow and beeping me alot. Change it or modify it...you will be fine with that temperature.

 

You provided the temps from the tpfancontrol temp monitor but you omitted one important piece of info. What settings are you using for your tpfancontrol?
They should be in the fancontrol.ini file...lines look like these: (example)
Level=47 0
Level=50 3
Level=55 5
Level=60 7
Level=70 64

At 39CPU running the fan at 3k is a bit overkill which was the whole point of using tpfancontrol..to give you control over the fans.

 

I actually have not messed with the ini yet. Can you give me yours? I dunno what I have to change.

 

What are the specs on your system?...cpu,gpu, hdd, OS etc
Also if you can open up fancontrol.ini in notepad and copy paste the lines that are similar to the example above if you can so I can see what settings it is using.

 

Do you have a fingerprint reader and use a webbrowser a lot?

 

I am using a 14" T61p (8891CTO)

Intel T7300 C2D 2GHz
nVidia 128MB Quadro FX 570m (running as Geforce 6800M GT)
Hitachi 7K200 200GB HDD
Windows Ultimate

This is my fancontrol.ini

Active=0
Cycle=5
MinimizeToSysTray=1
MinimizeOnClose=0
StartMinimized=0
IconLevels=50 55 60
FanBeep=1200 30
MaxReadErrors= 10
IgnoreSensors=XXX,YYY,ZZZ
Level=47 0
Level=50 3
Level=55 4
Level=60 7
Level=70 128

As I've said, I have not even tried using it yet... so the above is the default values. I was just wondering if other T61p users are using is and what their settings are. I've read somewhere that it does not work with the T61p. Also, I was hoping there was a way to do it without the software... but it seems the there is no BIOS settings.

I do use web browsing quite a bit, but I didn't know that that is suppose to heat up the computer so much. I also do have the fingerprint reader... but did not that that contributes to heat as well.

Finally, my HDD is loud but its noise is distinct from the fans just in case someone wants to tell me that its my HDD.

Anyway guys, I am not asking to be spoonfed here. This is just for interest more than anything. But I am very happy with my purchase....

At this moment, the hottest thing in the computer... battery. (its charging).

 

Are you using 32bit or 64 bit Vista? Also did you obtain those settings from another user with the same T61p as yours? Mine is different because I use the 256Mb 570M.

This shoud take care of the beeps and your fan won't be too aggressive:

Active=2
Cycle=5
MinimizeToSysTray=1
MinimizeOnClose=1
StartMinimized=1
IconLevels=50 55 60
FanBeep=0 0
MaxReadErrors=10
IgnoreSensors=XXX,YYY,ZZZ
Level=45 0
Level=50 3
Level=55 4
Level=60 7
Level=70 128


Btw if you are using an incorrect or buggy version, it could damage your Thinkpad. And this is not just for the OP but anyone contemplating using this util: read the documentation before trying this. This software bypasses standard windows protection schemes and accesses low level commands that affects the way the fan operates. Don't use it if you're not sure if you need it. And if you think you do do some research beforehand. The best place to do so is on thinkpads.com in their utils section of the forum. The tpfancontrol thread is stickied there.

 

Thanks for the response. Like I said, that's just the default coming from the software install. I will be checking out thinkpads.com before I put TPFanControl on active mode; right now it is only running to read the temps. So am I understanding correctly that you set your fans to turn on at 50C and off at 45C?

EDIT: I'm running Vista 32 bit

 

Thats for the setting I gave above. You may have to fiddle with it if you decide to activate it and run a few trial runs before finding a sweet spot for the fan. Mine is totally different because of different cpu and gpu.

edit: Its good that you had it unactivated. I wasn't sure at first till I saw your setting. That's good

 

Hi, I am back after some reading and this is the version I install:

http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/tpfc_v40.zip

It is the latest modified version by a second guy (not original author). The program works well with the T61p.

As far as temp setting goes, I am using morphy's temp range set above for the moment. I did try to add:

Level=47 1

into the mix, but found that the fans would switch on (rather low but on) every few minutes because my GPU gets so darn hot!

I will keep looking for that "sweet spot", but for now, this is awesome!

 

From your first post your gpu temps seem alright. 42C idle is very good for a gpu and yours is a 140M probably a result of an over aggressive fan. 45C-48C should be alright. If it hit 70C idle then I'd be concerned. My 570M without tpfanctrl idles about 50C.
On fancontrol.ini just remember to have the first setting at 0 to switch off the fan.

 

I am using v40 myself too. Only version that works reliably on vistax64. However I hope a run-as-service version comes out for it...will make me feel better.

Imagine if tpfancontrol had the fans off and the app crashed in the middle of gaming with the gpu overclocked..the fans will be stucked at zero. Followed soon after by blue screen. Not exactly the type of scenario I envision.

 

I actually have a 570M as well, not a 140M. The T61p 14" runs a 128MB version of the same GPU. My 42C was due to the the BIOS moving the fans at 3K. If I switch it to zero, it easily reaches 50C. It is by far the hottest thing... unless I have the battery plugged in.

Did you exclude any sensor in the program? With the battery plugged in, I am reading 50C constant on the battery... making TPFC set off the fan nonstop... since the battery temp doesn't seem to ever drop or rise.

 

ah k sorry, not sure why I thought you had the 140M .
I had BAT, PWR plus something else ignored. I'm pretty set with the settings for 2d usage. Haven't really been gaming much lately to test out the overclock/fancontrol settings yet so its still a work in progress for me too.

It will reach till where you set the next threshold for turning on the fan from its off state which in your case it's 50. With the fans off the GPU temp ( as well as other components ) will undoubtedly slowly rise. I had mine higher at 54C before the fan comes on.

 

Maybe its vista... but I don't think I can even dream of having the computer idle at completely passive cooling.... the GPU is definietly the heat maker, but I do love them games (once in a while).

Has anyone tried to underclock/undervolting the GPU to lower heat for regular surfing, document sessions? I already have my PCI Link to maximum powersave but the GPU is still pretty hot. I may have to try using Rivatuner... any other tools to recommend?

 

"I do use web browsing quite a bit, but I didn't know that that is suppose to heat up the computer so much. I also do have the fingerprint reader... but did not that that contributes to heat as well."

I had a 3000 and noticed that the fan was on a lot as soon as I brought the webbrowser up. Further checking with a process monitor showed pulsating spikes of cpu load when a browser was up. It turned out to be the web password facility. Deleting it fixed the fan problem.

Thinkpads do not use Omnipass but the thinkpad software does similar just not as bad. I have deleted that process on my thinkpad as well.

 

I've left my computer on idle before, and the GPU still goes up alot... maybe its vista itself...

Even with TPFC, my heat cycle is every 5 minutes... as in, computer heats up to 52C, fan level 3 kicks in, heat drops to 45C, repeat.

It is a bit annoying... especially when the computer is just idle and not doing anything.

I tried to let the GPU heat up and see how far it will go before the passive heatsink take all the cooling... but I got scare at around 60+ and it was still going up.

 

I think what you're seeing is very normal. Maybe passive cooling on idle would be practical on an Ultra-Low Power cpu and integrated video. Choice of Power Plan has an effect too on System temps. On high performance plan the temps will be higher.

Either way for passive cooling to work you need good airflow. With desktops that is achievable with case fans, psu fans but in a confined space such as notebooks with no airflow the heat is just gonna pile up. An option would to use an active cooling pad but you'll still get fans.

 

Yeah, true. I may look into an external solution that has bigger fans, making the noise lower. But I am quite happy with the performance and wouldn't know what to if I didn't have a 570m in there.

Those games would suck.