Vaio Pro 13: The quest for silence thread!

From what I heard, if Sony handles this like the Z battery, don't expect a new revision fixing any of this issue.

That's too bad, because with the current price range, it would be the best ultrabook...

 

Any progress here?

I have a Sony vaio Multi flip 15 with a noisy fan. (Does sony think that noisy fans are a feature??) I've been looking at the values for my laptop and I identified the CPU temperature as register address = 0x58. This value is always the same as the reported ACPI temperature by HWiNFO and this is the same as the reported CPU temperature. Now for the FAN speeds, I suppose these are registers 0x66 and 0x5C (Both 16bit registers).

Idle: Fan fully off


Just started the Holy Grail program: FDU.exe


After some time, the fan slowed down again to an acceptable level.


After wake from sleep: fan also goes crazy, and we see a very high value for the suspected fan speed registers. The temperature registers show 0x14 = 20°C.


Red = temperature, 0x2D = 45°C.
Blue = Keyboard backlit control
Green = supposed fan speeds
0x17CA = 6090 (Can be fan speed in rpm)
0x0E2E = 738 (Way the low for a fan speeds, the fan was very audible, but not that annoying)
0x1338 = 4920

You see that after pushing the fan to 100%, the temperature dropped by a hole 2°C to 0x2B (43°C).
Writing to these green resisters does nothing. Also, these 2 always hold the same number. Other values do not seem to be near to green values to differentiate between fan speed "set point" and "current" speed. The registers seems just to report a kind of fan speed.

Register address 0xEC is the keyboard backlight (Only the lowest 2 bits, other values in this register change as well, but I've no idea of the meaning. Backlit control only involves the lowest 2 bits). This value IS WRITABLE and can overwrite the value set in Vaio Control Center! But writing the value does not immediately take effect. I've to put the system to sleep and back on again. The changes made to Sony Vaio Control take effect immediately. There must be some kind of flag-register to push the updates to the actual hardware. I noticed that with every change register 0x7E changed randomly as well. So after writing 0, 1 or 2 to 0xEC i wrote a random number to 0x7E and the keybord backlit changed accordingly!! The value of 0x7E is 0000 while fan testing with FDU, so it has nothing to do with fan control. I'v no idea if changing register 0x7E does actually something or maybe it is a hash-registers and the controllers waits for change of the hash register to push all other values... I have no idea... But changing the backlit with the 0xEC/0x7E combo works.
0 = Always off
1 = Turn on for some seconds after keystroke
2 = Always on

Knowing this, there is hope. Maybe the fan speed registers are updated every (few) 100ms or so... making manual testing not possible. Maybe an additional "take manual control"-flag somewhere (should be discoverable with FDU.exe as this forces the fan to a certain rpm). Maybe redundant writes are necessary (both green registers) plus an "push updated values" flag, similar to 0x7E for the backlit.

 

Hi,

Any further results and progress about controlling the fan properly?
This thread is my only hope.. Nobody can convince me that it is it a normal operation that in silent mode the fan switches on and off in every 2nd second.

Thanks!

Happy holidays!

 

I have returned mine (Multi flip 15) today, so no more testing for me... I did some more testing after that previous reply, but without any results. I think there is no register address in the EC for manual fan control. (Maybe you need to set a bit first somewhere and then write to some other register to set manual speed, but thats a needle in a haystack without documentation)
The FDU.exe didn't provide any clue to me. Maybe it pushes the CPU for a split second to 100% CPU usage which triggers the fan to full speed...

 

Hi,

I also have the noisy vaio pro 13 - apart form that its a very good laptop.
Been doing some research to what the FDU.exe program does and have found some interesting things along the way:

There is an human interface device driver installed by Sony called "Sony Firmware Extension Parser Device"

SetupDiGetDeviceInstanceId ACPI\SNY5001\4&2D55E580&0

and the FDU.exe program makes an deviceIoControl call towards this "hardware device" which causes the fan to spin at full speed for 20 seconds.
This is a trick used by SW ppl because you have no direct access to the HW, you need to use kernel mode/drivers for that and "deviceIoControl" is a built in windows function to talk to device drivers from user space (FDU.exe program).

the full path to the driver is on my laptop the following: \\?\acpi#sny5001#4&2d55e580&0#{f304eb09-5c5f-11d2-b53f-0800460198ac} , this GUID string may or may not be unique for my laptop i'm not sure at this moment. But I can confirm the FDU.exe makes a connection to that GUID and executes something with controlcode "0x0022201C" passing 8 bytes data along using the deviceIoControl() function.


Because there is no documentation about this driver, I dont know what this controlcode does and the 8 bytes of data. It might as well just signal the sony firmware extension driver that it wants to run the fan test mode an not even give an RPM for the fan...

you can download the GUID explorer and look for the driver device yourself, I used this free tool: http://www.bustrace.com/downloads/GuidExp.exe

Hope this will inspire some to proceed with finding a solution.

Regards

 

Hi,

All the information is helpful which may lead to a solution to reduce fan noise.

NBFC still seems to be manageable considering my experience but it is getting more and more difficult.

I tried to read about the mentioned "Sony Firmware Extension Parser Device", I have found the followings:

That's another name for the Sony Notebook Control device. Together with the Programmable I/O device, they add proper ACPI support to control the various features like Fn functionality, button assignment, brightness control and power management settings on the notebook. This page has more information: Sony Notebook Control ACPI support

It may also be helpful how the noisy fan is controlled under Linux:
vaiofand, fan controller | Linux tools for Sony Vaio
Ubuntu Forums

I am not sure if any of these helps under Windows or what is feasible with newer models like SVP 13 and the Vaio Flip PC...

Is there anybody else who is willing to investigate it fuhrer how to reduce fan noise with manual Fan Control for the mentioned models?

Smoerijf already sent his Vaio Flip PC back.

Thanks

 

I assume there is no progress on this grotesque issue? Or has everyone just returned their laptops? I got mine today and am seriously considering to return it.. fans is insanely loud, and high pitched on top of that.

 

Did anyone try digging deeper into this - maybe trying other values for EC_SC and EC_DATA?

 

BEFORE you read what I wrote below note that my own fix for the Vaio Pro 13 fan noise which suddenly appeared after 11 months of fan noise free usage refers to a youtube video made by Larry Blackledge , here is the link go watch it .. it puts my comments below into context and helps you fix the problem (video title on you tube is the following but don't worry for the fix I didn't replace or remove the existing troublesome fan:
"Sony VAIO Pro13, svp132 fan replacement, case removal") .





I am surprised that owners of Vaio Pro 13's are getting this problem on day 1 as the fan should be in tip top condition.


So my original youtube post starts:

Many thanks for this kind sir, I was nervous about opening the laptop but I fixed the problem without replacing the fan (although for the future I ordered a fan as it seems to be the weakest link in this excellent laptop). Just as background I got my Sony Vaio Pro 13 around March 2014, it was the later version which didn't have the WiFi problem and I've never had any problems with fan noise or overheating until 2 days ago where the laptop launched into fan full speed with prolonged overheating on the underside and also with awful helicopter type buzzing noise which made the laptop almost unusable as this was a terrible distraction to others and myself. The noise would commence after starting the machine for 1 minute and then launching any application such as Skype or YouTube. I suspect that the problem was that the oil lubrication on the spindle of the fan had totally evaporated and the ball bearings were grinding, I typically used my laptop every day for an average of 2 hours and then left it on all night playing podcasts which I listened to (subconsciously mostly) for hours - this has been the pattern of usage for 11 or so months.

So the steps I followed to fix the fan noise problem for my Sony Vaio Pro 13 were as follows:

1) open the laptop as described in the video above being careful to not force anything as the plastic could snap, using one of those plastic levers used to open tablets is useful to have for this.
2) you will see the troublesome fan, focus on the fan and not the copper heat sink and without removing the fan (don't remove the fan for my fix) you will notice that it has a black circular sticker attached to the main spindle, the sticker has a center circle cut out at the middle with a small silver/white spindle dead center of the black sticker cut out hole (it's around 5mm in diameter). Now I removed the sticker taking care not to damage it but looking back I suspect this may be UNNECESSARY. Then I doused a COTTON SWAB with oil lubricant (I used U.K. WD-40(tm) although again I'm not sure if that was the ideal chemical to use), so you can use an oil soaked cotton swab or say instead a kitchen towel twisted to form a fine tip with oil on the end. REMEMBER you want the cotton swab to be wet with oil but not DRIPPING as it may drip the lubricating oil onto other components and you don't want that as damage may occur due to this.

3) With the cotton swab wet with lubricating oil simply gently circle the silver spindle in the middle of the black sticker ensuring that a modicum of oil enters the spindle. REMEMBER we don't want to saturate the spindle with OIL just a small SMEAR will do.
I smeared light amounts of lubricating oil under the sticker area but I think that is not needed. Also if you DID decide to remove the sticker remember that there are copper coils beneath the sticker now exposed, there is no need to oil those so don't do it ! If you did decide to remove the sticker put it back exactly as you found it, I used a small about of Pritt Stick(tm) to do this and it worked fine - make sure it is secure though you don't want that sticker peeling off and falling onto the components whilst your machine is on.

4) re-attach the underside of the Sony Vaio Pro 13 carefully as shown in the video above being mindful that the side with the ports USB/audio jack should be tackled first as this is like the main hinge (of the oyster clam!). The audio jack is notoriously difficult to slot into place but as a useful tip, simply plug in your head phones into the audio jack on your Vaio Pro 13 and then GENTLY pull down on the plugged in audio connector to slot it back into place. Then replace the screws and the rubber 'feet' of the laptop as stated in the video and VOILA !!! you have a (FAN) SILENT AND COOL SONY VAIO PRO 13, mine has been playing 4K Youtube videos for 5 hours straight and the fan is silent, you can't hear a thing.

Side Notes: To be honest I was surprised at the results, it's almost as if the controller for the fan doesn't start if it detects resistance due to lack of lubricant on the spindle for the Panasonic fan and then doesn't kick in until it's panic time and the CPU is at 65 to 70 degrees Celsius and then the fan is like a buzz saw / helicopter rotary blade on full steam ahead with the underside of the laptop uncomfortably hot. I'm glad this fixed it as I didn't want to make modifications to any driver configs (there are tools to do this) or go on a hunt for a troublesome app that was causing this or do a factory reset to see if it was a software problem. If your Sony Vaio Pro 13 is still under warranty and you have time then I recommend that you return it to Sony instead of following my instructions or if you are worried about taking damaging your laptop, call up Sony and ask how much it would cost to repair your unit - I'm not sure if they still do fixes for out of warranty laptops though as they sold their Vaio business last year...