Vaio FW noise / fan control

Hi all, I've recently purchased Sony Vaio FW21E (European model) and to my surprise, I find it quite noisy (contrary to what you can read in many reviews).

The first problem is HDD - I've owned 3 notebooks so far and no one had such a noisy disk. I almost thought that there is some kind of motherboard or GPU fan in there until I opened the case to confirm that the noise really comes from the HDD. It is quite unpleasant in a totally quiet room (like in the night) but I can hear it even during evenings when the room is relatively quiet. Vaio owners with Toshiba MK3252GSX disk (320GB), do you experience the same amount of noise? (On the upside, the performance is really nice compared to my older laptops, Windows Experience Index being 5.4.)

The second problem is the main fan (which I understand is the only fan on this Vaio). It is quiet for the first hour of usage or so but then it always turns on for about 5 minutes, then it's quiet for another 2-3 minutes, then it goes off again etc. etc. I really find this annoying because the fan speed is changing frequently and rapidly (i.e. from zero to high spinning, then it slowly goes down to what I would call acceptable level, then it stops rotating immediately; then it goes of for 100% again etc.)

When you combine these 2 noises, the notebook is quite unpleasant to use in quiet conditions. From the right hand side where the disk is placed, you constantly hear a whisper-like sound while from the left side, you are distracted by the main fan which tends to be turned on and off in a few minutes intervals.

Now I am OK with the HDD noise if someone confirms that this is normal - it may well be because the capacities are high and the transfer rates can't come out of the blue sky. But the main fan really annoys me. The worst part about this is that SpeedFan isn't apparently working on Vaios which is very sad. My old Asus was very noisy but with SpeedFan, I could force it to be warmer but quieter. My FW, on the other hand, runs on very low temeratures (CPU ~ 45C, system ~ 37C) and there is definitely no need for the main fan to spin. I would love to tell my Vaio that it can be 60C hot and I don't want a thing to move inside it.

Does anyone have the same experience? Any ideas on how to fight the fan noise of this Vaio?

Thanks,
Borek

 

I have an FW too and would also like to set the fan threshold temp alot higher. any ideas anyone???

 

I don't have the problem you mentioned (FW190 CT0). I replaced the harddrive once. The original drive is Toshiba 160GB 5K and replaced it with Seagate 500GB 7K. Neither drive makes loud noise. The fan makes more noise than the drive but the noise of the fan is whisper quiet. It doesn't make the cycle you mentioned. And I don't use 3rd party program or anything to control the fan.

The only time that the fan makes more noise than normal is when playing 3D game. So, probably the problem you are having is related to software running in the background on and off that taxes the CPU to its max.

Press CTRL-SHIFT-ESC and find the offending program. Wiping out the drive and install just the OS might help you isolate the problem too.

 

OK I have kind of figured it out....for now...will keep working on it...

I'm on a vaio FW with a P8700 core2duo processor (2.53GHz) which runs at 25W of power and cooler than a Txxxx (the Txxxx series core2duo processors run at 35 watts = hotter)

Hendra do you have a Txxxx????

...with the cooler cpu this means that when my computer idles/doesn't-do-much for long enough (with the fan already running after windows boot) the cpu temp eventually cools down to <33 oC (PS: I use RightMark CPU Clock Utility to detect the CPU temp)

...at <33 oC the fan turns OFF....then...after some time with the fan now OFF the CPU slowly warms up to >41 oC and at this temp the fan comes back ON again!....with the fan now ON the CPU temp goes back down to <33 oC ....and then the fan turns OFF....so on and so forth....ARG!

The quick solution is to use RightMark CPU Clock Utility or a Windows Power plan to maintain the CPU at a high multiplier and high voltage ....thus making sure the temp of the CPU will never <33 oC even with the fan ON and thus the fan will always be ON (its not that noisy and it much better than it turning on and off all the time! )

OR ALTERNATIVELY.... im currently looking into writing an ACPI Control System class for the vaio FW so that we can use
Notebook Hardware Control (NHC ...see http://www.pbus-167.com/nhc/nhc_main.htm#anchor_acpi_control_system) to change the fan on/off temps to something higher like ON at 65 oC and OFF at 55 oC ...so that hopefully if the system idles/doesn't-do-much with the fan off then it will stay below 55 oC and the fan won't turn on (until you run some really intensive system tasks of course)

hope this helps for now.

 

I have T9800, 2.8GHz, 35W TDP. Temperature is around 45C for normal operation. It could go higher as I add more load but at any rate the fan is whisper quiet.

 

cool, well there we go....yours (T9800) idles about ~45 oC (with the fan on) and mine (P8700) at least somewhere below 33 oC (with the fan on)

I agree...the fan is whisper quiet though!

Having it ON all the time is much better than having it turn on/off all the time which gets really annoying in a quiet environment!

 

Suggestion: Call the manufacturer of the HD drive and ask if that model should be making so much noise. You will be told "no", most likely. Get a case number and the name of the rep you spoke with and then, armed with the manufacturer's statement, call Sony and use your Sony warranty to get a drive which is quiet!

P.S. Just one more reason that SSDs are becoming more desirable....

Good luck!

 

Precisely! My HDD was really noisy too but I planned on getting a SSD anyway so got a Intel X25-M 80GB SSD.

 

I have the FW285 - HDD is whisper quiet. Recommend the actions Derrida provided.

 

hi...i have a vaio VGN-FW21E (also european) and the fan is loud as you've described! the HDD doesn't make much noise.....i cleaned the fan from dust but nothing changed!