Hel 80 Owners Lounge

The fan and vents can be cleaned out with a blast of compressed air. It's really an easy procedure that you can do every month or two, depending on how dusty your place gets.

The cooling guide is a great resource for reading more on the subject.

 

Do you have any idea of which bios would be the more silent? I'm running 116b

 

114b / 116b are about the same (my favorites so far), the earlier ones were noisier (fan ran at higher speeds for longer times), and the more recent onces are.. more erratic (runs slower, on a bit/off a bit a bunch, but not as noisy since slower)?

I have to say I don't actually hear my system, I'm just going by what can feel with my left hand while using it. I keep my home in the lower to mid 60's, and there is a television on, people talking to me all day on voice chat, and a large dual window fan a few feet from me that I never stop.

 

Tried the 119b bios. It did make some improvements. Now the fan cycle is 25sec on, 60sec off.
I don't think it is any slower. What I guess would be better was if the fan was running on 60% of the speed it has now, more or less all the time.

Why isn't there some user accessible bios setting to control the fan?

 

If you get the answer you win a cookie.. or something..

I wonder if different fans were used in the building of these.. like right now the only reason I know the fan is on is because I can hold up a thin strip of paper to the bottom of my case and it will stick.. I can't hear it though unless my head is against the chassis.

 

I'm 10' away from my HEL80, playing music so loud that I would have to raise my voice to have a conversation, and I'm still able to hear when the fan is running!

Could it be that they didn't fit the cooler onto the cpu / gpu properly when they assembled my laptop? Maybe even forgot grease? Would there be any way to figure out without disasembeling?
(how do you access the gpu anyway?)
NHC says core temp is 42-44C. (About 108-113F)
If the fan intake is blocked the temp increase to 48C. Even with a warmer core, the fan doesn't run any more than before.
Also an interesting observation is that one core is always 6C cooler than the other.

Any way to get the GPU temp?

 

I'm closing in on the CPU fan noice issue - disasembled the cpu cooler, cleaned the cpu, had some Arctic Silver on and reassembled. The fan is still running the same cycles, but a bit slower (and less noisy) than before.
Considered the grease takes some hours to settle this might actually do the trick.
Would like to do the same with the GPU, but I don't see how to gain access to it... Anyone?

Edit: The warmest place on my HEL80 is the left touchpad button. What is located under there?

 

Hard drive is located under the left wrist area. Do you have alot of HD activity maybe by background applications? (stuff like Norton SystemWorks maybe?)

The only time this section of my notebook get's warm is when I'm gaming, otherwise it's only a few degree's warmer then the right side.

 

We have a left-right missunderstanding. The warm area is not the harddrive side.
It's between the harddrive and the PCMCIA slot. I see a heatpipe going that direction... Might be WLAN or graphic card?

 

Huh? I'm confused... The HD and the PCMCIA are on the same side in a HEL80, both just to the left of the touchpad. This is a known source of heat for these machines.

The wireless is almost dead center underneath the touchpad.

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If your fan is that loud, you need to have your warranty fix it... I just turned all my things off that make noise, and the my HEL80 still isn't loud enough to hear without putting my head against it (even when using CPU burn-in to heat up the system to max fan speed I can only barely hear it in "dead silence")

 

hmm, not at mine
A pic linked to in posting #2 of this thread that looks like mine:
http://www.powernotebooks.com/specs/images/l8-15/l8-15inside.jpg

Upper right opening is the harddrive. Sligthly to the left of this cover is a small grid. You can see the heatpipe passing. Assuming the pipes does not bend in any direction after passing this grid they'll end at the warm spot I'm talking about.
So, what is located at the end of this pipe?
I think that thing, what ever it is, has a problem transporting heat away. It is heating the touchpad button, while the heatpipe is dead cold!

I've sent a mail to the dealer regarding this noise issue.

 

Your describing the same side of the notebook I am, but I'm talking about it from the "used" side of the machine. Thats why I refered to the wrist wrest.. Look at that photo where the extended battery is located and your perspective should straighten itself out

The area with the heatpipe is the graphics card, which is underneath your power button.

I'm guessing you got it at powernotebooks, if so, you should give their support number a call since it's 24/7. No fan in your machine should make any sort of racket that you can hear from 10' away with music playing.

 

Unfortunaly I didn't buy mine at Powernotebooks. I live in Norway, and it is kind of unpractical to ship a single laptop across the Atlantic. (All though I've done so twice before.)


How warm does your CPU get when showing windows desktop without any programs running?
Mine goes from 42 to 48C (109-118F). Fan kicks in on 48, and stops on 42.



I’ve installed some software on this laptop today (until now it’s only task has been displaying its own CPU temperature all day.) Then I realized some touch pad windows driver issues:
1: In Excel, when using the split function (window menu) the scroll functionality on the touch pad always works on part #1 of the sheet. The other parts has to be scrolled by using the scroll bars the old way.

2: When using Opera the touch pad doesn’t scroll at all

3: Left-right-clicks are detected as middle-button clicks.
Right-left clicks are detected as right click

4: Randomly the touch pad detects tap-and-drag events when it’s not supposed to detect and tapping at all. And it doesn’t release when the finger is lifted of the touch pad! I have to tap it hard several times before it realizes it’s making a fool of it self.

In Linux there is no problem with the touch pad at all, so this must be a windows driver issue.


Edit: Uninstalling the KTD software (touch pad control) and install Symantec driver did solve those issues. Disadvantage of this solution is that there is no longer any way to set acceleration or horisontal scroll.

 

My CPU sit's around 42 unless I set it to max performance when gaming.. it's pretty consistent and by fan doesn't run high enough to detect until I'm in the upper 40's or early 50's.. Not sure, I don't tend to watch it since it's not broken..

I've undervolted my CPU using RMclock.. and I control my cpu performance by hand using it.

 

hi, i am getting this error, should i reinstall this? I am not sure where would i get that program, would it be in the xp cd?

http://img443.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ttcm9.png

 

The error is from Infineon Trusted Platform Module(TPM) Professional Package v2.5 software & hardware v1.2

The software should be on your driver disk and a reinstall should fix the problem.


You could aslo try messing with the Registry NOTE IF DONE IMPROPERLY YOU CAN MESS UP YOUR COMPUTER IF you do this, plz backup your registry(while in Regedit go to file-export)

http://forums.techguy.org/windows-nt-2000-xp/511108-c_spursdll-not-found.html

 

I figured out something! What made the fan so noisy was that air was leaking between the fan-block and the ribs. Moving the fan block towards the corner of the pc (combined with some Artic Silver on the CPU, and undervolt to 0,95V on all speeds) brought the noise of my HEL80 down to an acceptable level.
Now I've been running the CPU on 100% for 30 minuttes, and it's less noisy than it was on idle before!
Also the HD temperature is down by 5C (8F)

I would still appreciate a driver that is able to control the fan speed.

 

I think I was reading someone in this thread looking for optical sound-out from the HEL80. Just plug the optical cable into where you would put the headphones. The light will come on when the cable is pluged in.

 

hooray!! for getting your fan speed down! I wonder if your steps would be useful to anyone else?

 

thanks!
that registry didnt do anything, but the cd reinstall did. I dont even use the infineon, is there a point to it? Just more secuirty right?

 

It wasn't the fan it self making the noise. It was the airflow making the noise. And also because so much of the air not going through the ribs the cooling was less efficient, hence tha fan had to run more often.
The fan is running at the same speed, which I think is too fast. If the fan could be slowed down this laptop could be virtuly silent.

 

Yes, its more security

-Donald(powernotebooks.com)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=106839

 

thanks for info!

 

I was thinking of downgrading bios in an attempt to reduce noise even more. But before I do something stupid - does anyone know when support for T5600 cpu was introduced?

 

My machine shipped with 108 and I've got a T5*00 series chip, I'd say that you can go back pretty far =P

I'm currently bouncing between 114 and 116, in 114 I have the 4 hotkeys, and in 116 I have software controlled brightness, but neither version has both..

At this point, I like RM clock auto setting my brightness levels when I change the speed of the system.

 

I was thinking of trying out bios 105 as someone said they had experienced more noise when upgrading from 105 to 110.

Guess what - I've made a tunnel tonight! Pulled out the fan block again, put some tape togheter to make a tunnel between the block and the ribs to make sure theres no air leaks on the sides. That made an incredible difference in noise level.

Making the tunnel was easy. Getting the block back in posision without making the tape block any part of the air flow through the ribs was more tricky.

 

I'm not quite sure what you've done petterg, but I'm curious.

Can you post a picture?

 

here is a picture. The red stuff is tape.

 

So you made all the air the fan moves go over the heat sink fins. Looks good.

Do you notice any air getting pushed out the back of the notebook? I think the one in the back is the heat sink for the video card but even when I am playing a game I don't really feel any air coming out that vent, at least no where near as much as the amount of air that comes out the side vent.

Heres my temperatures, What are you getting?
CPU: 31 IDLE 65 LOAD (T7200) taken from speed fan
GPU: 64 LOAD (haven't look at it when idle and it is not oc'ed) from ATITool

 

Does anyone know anything about the CMOS battery? Mine arrived dead about a year ago, and I never bothered to return it or fix it due to my being so busy. PLease help me with the cmos battery, location on the motherboard and ease of getting to it. What type it is, Can it be fixed or recharged?

Thanks in advance.

 

I don't think Speed fan returns the correct temperatures. It's far off what NHC gives. The NHC results seems much more resonable to me.

The vent on the back is a lot smaller than the one on the side. It's resonable to expect less air out of that. I think tunelling the air helped push more air out the back vent.

 

How tight is the battery in your HEL80? I have the 9 cell and it is a little loose. It wobbles up and down maybe 1/8 of an inch but it doesn't seem like it is going to fall out. Any one else notice this or is the battery supposed to fit tight.

 

Mine moves about that much, doesn't seem to be a problem.

 

Mine is like that.

The wifi switch and the bluetooth signal receiver (that shiny black plastic thing) are also loose, making jiggling sound when I move the laptop.

 

yeah my battery does that too...

one question...does anyone know how to turn off the screen? Like if i want to go away from the laptop but i just wanna leave it on. I just want to turn the screen off.

 

Do you have it set to turn off in your power settings? You could adjust the time there to have the screen turn off. Mine turns off after 20 minutes, but you could set it to turn off after 1 minute if you like.

 

Hi, did anyone tried to connect HEL80 directly to 12V from car? How stable did it work? Was the battery charging?
I’m planning to make DC 12V/19V inverter myself unless it’s not possible to connect directly. Maybe someone already have any experience with that?

 

I would think connecting to a car would give some charging, but not much. I think the laptop battery is 12V (cannot pull it out to look right now). A running car should give about 14V.
I think you should unplug the laptop when the engine is not running - the laptop battery is probably not fit to power the car elctronics.

 

Yes, using either the proper 12V Auto Adapter (if you use a universal make sure it is set for 90Watts) or an inverter of at least 400 Watts will work. The will both trickle charge the battery.

 

thanks chris,

does anyone have a problem with standby? I dont even set the system to standby, but sometimes it just goes to standby if i idle a bit....It does not happen very often though

 

In your Control Panel>Power Options you can set how many minutes of idle before it will go into either Standby or Hibernate...just make the setting longer

 

So no need in making 12V->19V converter and it as well work without it (by pluging 12V into the standard power in)? Kewl!

 

thats the problem, i set it to never....

 

That is strange. Are you sure that it is plugged in when it goes to Standby?

 

actually i think i found it, I should of serached first :3 haha

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=104206&highlight=hel80+standby+problems

the last poster was talknig about smart watchdog, i think i should be fine if i set that to never standby or hibernate.

 

does anyone elses hel80 get really freaking hot even when idol

the metal around the edges of the keyboard is really hot...

this started happening a couple months after i got it... for some reason the fans started working more and the laptop heated up more...

i dont know why it does it or if i can do anything about it but im getting sick of it... i used to be able to leave it on hibernate or sleep or whatever at night and not worry about it... but now the fans go on and off constantly and it bothers me when i try to sleep...

any ideas would be appreciated

 

1. Have you cleaned your cooling system since you received it? That is blown out the fan and exhaust and intake vents, and blown off the heat sink?
2. Have you changed the BIOS?

 

Guys...look at this. Check out worst design #5 *sigh*
http://laptopmag.com/Features/Best-a...Modern-Era.htm

(posted by Chaz in "Off Topic")

 

Use the insert link button(globe plus chain) instead of "pasting" the link(some links are too long for "pasting" them)

Here is the correct link

I actually like the Brushed Aluminum LCD cover and Keyboard Trim and the "generic look"