Samsung Q35 / Vista / Etiquette Mode / Fan / BIOS update problem.

Hello everyone,

I have a question relating to Q35 and the Etiquette Mode: I've had the Q35 model from PC World that comes pre-installed with Vista and I'm nearly really happy with my new purchase.
The one thing I'm "worried" about is that I don't seem to get the Etiquette Mode working (or, well, Vista doesn't). If I hit the key combination a message comes up stating that Etiquette Mode is on... but the fan only stops for a brief moment before it resumes to its usual mooooooooing. Also the fan seems to run more or less constantly which could well be Vista in need for all the power.

Anyone else had this? I've tried to apply the Vista Bios firmware update from the Samsung site but the installation quits out with a "Load to fail driver" message after extracting all the files. Not sure why that is... I kinda hoped that maybe the firmware update would resolve that matter.

So I guess I do have three questions:

a) Is there a way to make Etiquette Mode stick so the fan stops?

b) If not is there a way to control the fan manually? I wouldn't want it on all the time... its even on when I'm doing nothing and CPU % is less than 5%.

c) Why would the bios upgrade fail / has anyone managed to get around the problem? (I tried to check what the current firmware version is and I believe that mine is still older than the new one - I might be wrong though, couldn't tell for sure).


Couple of other things: I had to re-install vista from the recovery dvd. I've also installed the software from the Software Media CD (except the recovery program as I didn't want to split my drive... I prefer one drive only)

Sorry for the amount of questions...I've tried to search through the forum posts for answers to any of my questions but I couldn't find anything useful (that's probably well down to me not knowing how to search properly )

Thanks for your help!
- Georg

 

This is strange, im running an XP Q35, with Vista Home Premium, the Vista Bios and the Vista drivers from the PC World Vista Q35, and it works fine, etiquette mode is really quiet.
Maybe your just stressing it too hard, the fan is only on because it has to be

 

The Q35 shouldn't be stressed... I'm just running Vista Home Premium nothing else (well, apart from AntiVirus and Office taskbar things). CPU level is under 5% load.

Maybe something went wrong with the reinstallation of Vista (wouldn't know what though)... or maybe the unit is fautly (which I hope isnt the case.. but then again, I couldn't update the bios either, quits out with error message)....

Note: I've got the 1.66 core 2 duo with 1GB memory. And I hope its not a faulty unit because it took me ages setting it up the way I wanted it.

 

Welcome to the forum and I'm glad to hear that you are "nearly really happy" with your Q35. Perfection is elusive. As I said in my review, the Q35 could do with a lower power CPU.

What is the CPU temperature of your Q35? Does Mobilemeter work with Vista?

All the etiquette mode does, as far as I can figure out, is to raise the temperature at which the fan cuts in and out by about 3°C. If the CPU is lightly loaded then the fan may stay off completely, otherwise it operates slightly less frequently (a good etiquette mode would slow down the whole computer to promote cooler running). Mobilemeter gives a reasonable plot of CPU speed. If the load is light then the CPU should be cruising along at 1GHz. Mobilemeter gives a very good plot of battery drain. Can you get below 10W when running on battery?

If Mobilemeter doesn't work under Vista, then try RMclock. The monitoring page will show CPU load and temperature (although the temperature doesn't agree with Mobilementer). RMclock has the added benefit that you can venture into undervolting. My Q35 with T5600 is running with maximum voltage of 1.0V which means that even under load the fan never gets above its slowest speed.

If you are using Aero, what is the effect of disabling it and anything else which is designed to improve performance and battery life at the expense of eye candy? (I have got a Vista upgrade on order so my current experience relates to XP Pro).

John

 

Hello!

I've used SpeedFan and Hardware Monitor to check the CPU temp and for both cores it averages between 42 and 44 celcius with max around 46 and 47 with etiquette mode on...after the fan kicked it the temp will average around 40 celcius. SpeedFan and HardwareMonitor display the same values. RMClock displays around 60 celcius for etiquette mode on (as long as it lasts) and 52.2 celcius with fan on. So two out of the tree programs seem to agree on a value. Not sure though how good or bad it is and which one to trust. CPU load is around 7%.

Interesting effect: I've just realized that if i hit the etiquette mode the fan will stop, even if i hit it to turn the MODE OFF (i.e. Vista displays "etiquette mode off"). Could well be that the internal state of the etiquette mode is resetet as soon as the fan kicks in but the notfication message on screen isnt (hence displaying "etiquette mode off" when you really turn it on).


I'm also using the Samsung Optimized Power Plan.

Is the etiquette function a bios thing or an OS thing? If OS then it could well be that me reinstalling Vista played up a few things....

 

If you are seeing 3°C higher temperatures with etiquette mode on then that is much the same as I am seeing (under Windows XP). As far as I can see, that is all that etiquette mode does. It does not (as I had originally assumed and I suspect you are thinking) take action to reduce heat generated. The manual says "for a tranquil environment". Fortunately, the fan is not very noisy compared with some computer).

I was browsing the manual for the new R20 and it seems (page 42) that the etiquette mode has been replaced by the "Easy SpeedUp Manager" with three modes: Speed; Normal and Silent: Low-noise and low power consumption mode. Their words in italics. I would be interested see if this actually steps down the power. If so, this is what the Q35 (and the other notebooks) could do with. Slow down the whole system.

How does the etiquette mode work? I think one of the Samsung software packages reads the special keys and, in this case, then links to the BIOS which controls the fans. If so, a BIOS revision might change the fan trigger temperatures (this happened last year on the X60). However, unless you are working in a cool room or have shut down everything which might use a little power, it is unlikely that that fan will stay off. In XP with one or two applications open then I can keep the temperature to around 40°C (but open up the web page for this site and the flash banner advert pushes up the CPU activity). A good indicator of what is happening is if Vista lets you run PerfMon (in XP it is Start > Run > Perfmon, and then add % C3 time. C3 is a low power CPU state, see the attached plot.

While the Q35's low power performance may not meet all your expectations, it is better than many computers.

John

 

Thank you very much for your help and time, John... looks like the Etiquette Mode is for low usage windows programmes I'm about to do a full-load-cpu test cycle to see how far up the cpu temperature is going to kick up (had it around 55 earlier), will report back results.

You are right about the fan noise. It isnt really that loud, me typing on the keyboard is louder than the fan. I do have a very subtle moo sound as part of the noise and i guess it is one of the things I'll just get used too (maybe thats just my unit... if so then I'll cry )

I guess the first experience of booting up the q35 and literally hearing near-to-nothing while doing the first-boot-setup of the q35 spoiled me.

Perfmon does exist on vista and for q3 it displays an average of 27 with max of around 40 (not sure what is good or bad).

I've also managed to get the bios updated via the boot-cd-rom version available from samsungpc.com (which is not available from samsung.com/uk/ it seems).

I'm just trying to figure out what the "perfect" setup of the q35 should "behave" like. I'm really impressed so far with its quality!

 

Yes, it appears that the etiquette mode on the Q35 does nothing to address the generation of heat by slowing down the computer. For example, I found that using a bluetooth mouse significantly increased CPU activity.

You will see from my perfmon plot that the % C3 state was around 80% to 90% during low use. I am running RMclock but I don't know if this is more aggressive in putting the CPU into low power states.

Here's the link to the Q35 on the global download site. I also watch the NT-Q35 (Korean-version) downloads.

I applied the 22SD BIOS update even though I am still running XP. Maybe my memory is wrong, but I think that the BIOS update just ran within Windows.

John

 

Thanks for the links, John, very helpful!

What settings do you use in RMClock to undervolt the cpu? I'm new to undervolting...

Oh, the q35 has only one fan, right? The mooo - fan kicks in at around 46 celcius but I think has several speeds depending on the growing heat. Also not sure if it should mooo that loud (me typing is faster than the moo but the hard disk seems to be quieter than the mooo noise - but then again the hard disk is really, really, really quiet in my model).

Again, thanks for all your help. The q35 so far seems to cope very well with VISTA btw. I also use the new Office and i havent had any slow downs or stops so far which is good.

 

Yes, the Q35 has only one fan. I think it has three speeds. As we have already discussed, the lowest speed is almost inaudible (more a purr or a whoosh than a moo in my opinion) but the faster speeds are more noticeable.

For undervolting, I will refer you to this thread rather than repeat the instructions. There is a degree of pot luck in how far your CPU will undervolt before alling over. The torture test in Prime 95 normally detects checksum errors before the computer itself see a problem. Then, if you need further clarification, ask here.

I reckon I took about 11W off the maximum power used by my Q35.

John

 

After listening for a while I agree with the lowest speed... its a purr... but I think mine might therefore be on the second speed most times (especially after using vista a few minutes)....and when I'm stressing the unit then it uses its third setting. I've had it one or two times not emitting any noise at all. Could well be that vista stresses the unit much more than other OS's.

Thank you for pointing me out to the undervolting thread, I'll give this a try. I'll have to use the unit in public libraries so I just need to make sure I can make it as quiet as possible all the time ;-)


Again, thank you so much for your help, really very much appreciated - and fantastic review on the Q35 btw; it is a very good buyers guide!

 

Im still confused by this thread... I can barely ever hear the fan on my Q35, and as I'm running the 2.0Ghz Core Duo version I thought I would have. I find that etiquette mode kills the battery life though!!

 

Does the 2.0 ghz version have more RAM? I think vista loves RAM and more RAM would mean less hard disk activity which would probably also lead to less fan activity.

I "only" have 1GB but i might soon upgrade to 1.5GB.

 

I recall, that before I did the undervolting, I could get my Q35's fan into medium speed, but I needed to give it some work to do which would last a minute or more. Since undervolting, I don't think it has ever gone above bottom speed. I doubt if the HDD activity makes much difference to the fan operation. What does Task Manager say about RAM usage.

My impression, but I haven't used it yet, is that Vista does use more of the computer resources than previous versions of Windows. It certainly needs more RAM. I haven't seen Aero at work, but the fact that there was some uncertainty about whether it would run with the Intel integrated graphics suggests that it does load the GPU. Have you tried turning Aero off? Also look for any other power management options. I have my XP set to best performance except for smoothing the screen fonts.

Are you using the Q35 on mains or battery while in the library? Either way, you could set the power scheme to be at Maximum Battery, which would lock the CPU to minimum speed (in which case undervolting would make no difference). Does the Samsung Battery Manager work with Vista? Maximum battery life = minimum heat generated and minimum fan activity.

John

PS: I try to make my reviews thorough.

 

My Q35 has 1.25GB of RAM... and it should turn aero off automatically as soon as it is unplugged from the mains!

 

I had to reinstall Vista completely (several reasons, one software issue and then I didn't like the partitioning thing)... and even though i've installed most of the software from the software media cd it might well be that my current system is not in the same state from a configuration point of view than the pre-installed system.

I'll experiment around a bit more over the next few days with the power settings and background processes (I want to get the most out of the battery life).

More memory is btw a definite plus: I've got a 825MB page file already with just a few processes running... Desktop windows manager takes up 58MB ram on its own.

I guess it all comes down to how well I'm able to tune it