M40X (M40X-RH4E) - CPU Fan noise issue

My new Toshiba M40X (Celeron 370 - 1.5GHz) is incredibly noisy and quite annoying. It is only 2 weeks old.

After a few minutes of being turned on (sitting idle, no apps running), the FAN starts kicking in (which is quite loud, it can be heard easily from 50 ft away) and this darn thing lasts 30s, and restarts again every 30-50s. This is incredibly annoying and distracting. My first Toshiba purchase is quite disappointing. I wonder what would happen if the CPU usage went up.

Anyone else with similar issues?

I called their tech line as well and unfortunately, like many other big vendors, their offshore tech support is clueless and despite their apparant sounds of helpfulness, substancewise, it is the contrary.

I took the next step of sending it in to a local depot for inspection. The technician confirms the unusual behaviour.
9 days later and they are still waiting for a new fan assembly to arrive.

Just for the heck of it, I went and bought the exact unit from Staples (thank god to their return policy), and this new unit is slightly better, but not much.

The FAN kicks in after 10-15 minutes (of idle use), and turns on/off every 90s or so thereafter, and lasts a little bit less than the other.

So, my conclusion is:
- my specific unit may have a FAN/CPU heat dissipation issue (not enough thermal paste, etc) - hopefully the new FAN assembly will resolve it.
- M40X's don't have adequate CPU cooling - bad design
- M40X's have loud fans - my Dell M20, 600m, 6000, etc never had anywhere near this type of a loud fan.

I wonder if anyone else has had similar experiences.

 

Hmm...

Well, the Celeron CPU is always running at full capacity - it doesn't downclock itself like the P-M or Core Duo does, so fan noise can be expected out of your notebook. However, the noise should not be excessive - where do you use your notebook (tabletop, rug, lap, floor)?

 

I can understand that C-M don't have the P-M speed stepping technology, but as you've indicated, it shouldn't be so excessive and annoying, specially in this day and age.

My 3 year old Dell I5150 with P4-M (3.06GHz, 533FSB) which should run much hotter didn't even come close to the noise of these 2 M40X Toshiba's.

I had the laptop sitting on top of coffee table in order to ensure proper airflow.