Vaio VGN-Z21WN ... reduction of fan noise?

Hey

I'm the otherwise pleased owner of a Sony Vaio VGN-Z21, however, I would like to be able to make the fan go off completely (no fan blowing) in certain situations (sound recording & editing purposes)...

I've tried to make this happen by going into the Vaio Control Center using these steps:

- Power Management - Processor Power Management (don't know if this is what it's called in English - translated from Danish) - Policy for system cooling - and here setting the policy to "passive" both when the computer is on battery and connected to the mains.

But even so the fan often makes quite a lot of noise even when not using challenging programs ...

Anyone here knows if it should be possible to switch off the fan completely - might there e.g. be a software "glitch" in my computer's software that causes the fan to not switch off when Processor Power Management is set to "passive"?

Thanks for reading & maybe replying - I'd appreciate any insights into this

Jesper

 

A P.S.: In another context I was told that maybe the Vaio Control Center doesn't function correctly on my computer because it's installed with Windows 7 Professional instead of the Win 7 "standard" version... However, battery management (e.g. 80% charging) works on this machine ...

Jesper

 

Leave the windows power setting alone. In VCC set the thermal policy to silent. It will cause the CPU to throttle instead of ramping up the fan speed.

 

I have never seen this before but whatever you did to create this thread is very strange.

The email notification I got was for "Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread Part 2" in the Sony Owners Lounge forum.

Clicking on the notification takes one to that forum, which it turns out is not the thread that caused the notification. Your link actually comes in as: ".../sony-owners-lounge-forum/512472-sony-vaio-z-i5-i7-official-owners-thread-part-2-a-new-post.html". Which is most bizarre.

Then searching for your actual thread turns out that it is at: .../sony/662910-vaio-vgn-z21wn-reduction-fan-noise.html. A completely different link.

How exactly did you end up creating this weird effect?

 

Hi both

& thanks for replying ...

@Oscar2: I didn't really do anything to make it happen other than that when I clicked "post" to post the thread the system kept the hour-glass going and there was no notification that the thread had been started. So I tried this 3 times (in Google Chrome) and then switched to Explorer because I've sometimes observed that there may be browser vs. system incompatibilities...

Then I also decided to post in the Sony Vaio Owner's thread and this post was set up immediately.... Hope this explains at least part of what happened ;-)

@beaups: I'd really like to do what you suggest but I can't find it inside VCC - which BTW is where I try to set it up and not in Windows. Any chance you can specify the steps in VCC to go to the "silent" selection?

'Best for your day,

Jesper

 

I moved the original post here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...uo-series-owners-thread-1071.html#post8518901

This new thread was posted separately by evalon.

 

Hi again,

I think it may give a better overview to keep this as a separate thread instead of maybe mixing things with the Vaio Z owner's thread. So will follow up here and end the Z owner's thread ...

I've tried to attach an image to this post of what the VCC looks like on my computer but with no success (?) so now have uploaded it to evalon.dk instead ..

This text accompanies the image on evalon.dk.

The only place I’ve found where I can adjust the Vaio’s power management is to go into the VCC and click the Vaio Power Management Viewer field. When this appears I then click on “Advanced” at the bottom right. See image 1.

Then opens the second dialog (image 2) where I go into “Processor Power Management”
(“Strømstyring for processor” in Danish, No. 3) and then “System Cooling policy” (No. 4) and then set the policy to be “passiv” (passive in English – No. 5) both when the computer is powered from its battery and the mains.

I’ve found no other setting in VCC that possibly allows for setting the computer to be silent and setting the “system cooling policy” to “passive” doesn’t at all change the pattern by which the fan is switched on or off….??? No difference actually.

So I wonder if I’ve overlooked another place to set the computer to operate silently – or maybe my VCC software doesn’t work? You might notice there’s two “VAIO Power Management Viewer” sections on image 1 and when I click the bottom one nothing actually happens …

I’d really appreciate help on this as it makes the computer much less useful to me …

Greetings,

Jesper

 

A little spring cleaning may be in order as well

I see this overlooked in many of these threads regarding loud fan noise.

I have a VPCF13BFX that is just over a year old and recently the fan would NOT stop running full boar no matter how many software/OS changes I made -

Finally, I took it apart, scraped old thermal paste and replaced, and most importantly took a can of compressed air to the fan assembly and cooling grill - CHUNKS came out. And I am a clean desk person - they just build up - dust and dirt.

Post re-assembly, I have not ever heard the fan above a whisper - even while running 3 Adobe CS5 apps at once.

Hope this helps other users!

Steven

 

Hi Steven,

This is indeed very interesting information leading me to try to disassemble my Vaio yesterday. However, the top part doesn't just disconnect easily which made me choose the careful path in the first round and mount the screws again.

Any chance you will be interested in posting some pictures of how you disassemble your laptop?

Greetings from DK,

Jesper

 

Don't forget, that disassemble VGN-Z is much more difficult then VPC-F. I own both, so I know what I'm talking about. Also for exchanging thermal paste on VGN-Z, you need to disassemble it completely, which is not an easy task for a beginner...

 

Thanks Metsn for replying again ... I'll leave it be then for now and address the other suggestions you mentioned in your other reply to me.

'best for your day ;-)

Jesper