Tecra R830, R835, R840 Fan Noise?

I'm about to buy either the tecra r840 or the thinkpad t420s but read the thinkpad has fan noise issues which is unacceptable since I use the laptop in lectures and for several hour presentations. My own research didn't find any R840 fan noise problems, anyone here have personal experience they can share?

 

I've had a R835-P70x for about 1.5 months....no fan noise issues, even under load.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Thanks for that, it's looking more like the Tecra will be the laptop I buy .

 

Is there a difference between a tecra and a portege?

Mr. Mysterious

 

Tecra is the business line so build quality should be higher. I have a Portege m700 now and would love another but I want dedicated graphics this time so I have to go Tecra, I would have preferred the 13.3 inch screen as well since I carry it around a lot. Every other system I've looked at has complaints about fan noise :-/.

 

Oh....well in that case, I have a portege, not a tecra. I got it from Best Buy.

Mr. Mysterious

 

It looks like the cooling system they use is the same in both, if any of the 13.3 models had dedicated graphics I'd definitely get one of them, the only 13.3 inch laptops with dedicated graphics all have these damn noise problems (VAIOs).

 

Umm...I thought you wanted a dedicated card? If not, my laptop goes for around $750, and I'm loving everything except the keyboard and touchpad.

Mr. Mysterious

 

The Tecra r840 has a customizable version with radeon graphics . I haven't used a chiclet keyboard before, it looks funky. Can you type quickly on it? I never use the touchpad so I'm not worried about that, thanks for the tips.

 

I can't type as quickly as I can with other chiclet keyboards that I have used in the past, so I give it a B-, a B at best.

But the touchpad is highly annoying...I considered installing an app that would stabilize it before finally relenting and deciding to carry a mouse around with me.

Mr. Mysterious

 

I've got the T420s and the R700 and the latter starts to whine once given some work to do. I'm impressed if the R835 is a lot better in this respect. My annoyance about the T420s' fan is that it keeps running (albeit slowly) until the CPU is very cold. However, there's a useful program called TPFanControl which lets users override the BIOS control so my fan goes off once the temperature is below 55C. Also, under normal usage the fan speed doesn't go above 2,000 RPM at which speed you need to put your ear very close to hear it running. However, pile on the CPU load and the fan speed will ramp up, but that shouldn't happen under your anticipated usage.

So I wouldn't exclude the T420s on the grounds of fan noise.

John

 

Thanks John,

I've been considering the T420s, Vostro 3350 and Tecra R840. I read about the high pitched fan noise for t420s and I'm waiting to hear from users over at the forum that the issue is resolved with the upcoming bios update. t420s also has a better video card than the Tecra which is an extra bonus.

I will be playing games from time to time like counter strike source and older games like battle for middle earth 2 so I should be fine but it'd be nice to have a decent video card for future games. Do you have the radeon on the R840 and if so have you tried gaming on it at all? I'd love to know the results.

I'm a heavy multitasker so I'm worried that the t420s might get loud when I have opera open with 20 tabs, a 90 slide powerpoint presentation with videos, newsleecher and onenote.

I also need it for several hour long lectures to take notes and for this it needs to be quiet (onenote and maybe a browser open on wifi) and I expect any machine to be quiet under these conditions and for this the vostro and tecra seem like the better options unless the t420s gets the fan problem solved.

How does the screen compare on the t420s and R840?

 

Multi-tasking as such doesn't load the CPU unless the various tasks accumulate substantial CPU usage. Usually, the only time I notice that my T420s' fan is running is when Google Earth is hung (it doesn't like bad / non-existent internet connections) and is fully loading one CPU thread. Even then I have to be somewhere quiet to hear the fan.

I can't comment on the R840 but Lenovo uses 3 different screens for the T420s each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

John