Thinkpads Forum

I'm running Win7 x64, don't have any Lenovo apps installed. I'm using TP Fan Control utility for controlling the fans.

It seems like the fan operates in binary mode. It doesn't respond to speed adjustments, it's always either full on, or off. I've tried controlling it by hand thru TP Fan Control, and adjusting speeds has no effect. It is always running around 4500 RPM.

Does anyone else have this problem? How can this be fixed?

This is especially annoying when hovering around normal T, when the fan comes on and off every 30 seconds, but at full speed, instead of just slowly/quietly running all the time.

Thank you!

on my T61 only 0,1,3,6, and the 64 setting actually change fan speed.

the 64 setting is the extreme and thus has additional control over the way you want it to run when that setting is used. Read the ini file and you should find for yourself. Check where it says about cycling fan operation - and what to do to prevent it, as this seems to be your issue. Come back if you still have problems.

btw, ~4500 rpm on the fan can be reached only with the 64 setting.

Hi miro_gt!

Yeah, I read the .ini file. I am not even talking about the Smart Mode, or BIOS mode. Even in manual mode, setting it to any value maxes out the fan speed. As I was saying, setting to 0 (zero) turns it off, setting it to any other value (1-7) sets it to ~ 4,500 RPMs right away.

I'm running TPFC in full mode and can see that it is sending the correct values to ACPI (0x01, 0x02, etc...), and I can see the fan speed displayed by the program.

Here, in the screenshot, as you can see I am currently running in smart mode, the last command was sent as 0x01, but the fan speed is at 4,600.

Screen: http://i.imgur.com/aINpl.png

what bios version do you use ? (and embedded controller version) ?

also, I assume that there might be some problems when trying to run TPFanControl in a 64 bit environment, as it's a 32 bit application as far as I know. You can test by running the laptop without TPFanControl and load it up somewhat so that you can check if the fan is changing speeds but would not max out at 4500rpm.

I'm in 32bit XP and no problems here.

>>> it's always either full on, or off

I have a T61p with Windows 7 Pro and I use the much maligned Windows and Lenovo power managment tools. The fan works great. It is always on, but very low speed and no noise or vibration (after 4 years of constant use). When I push it (3 machines simultaneously) it runs a bit faster (audible) and the temperature goes over 45C.

... JDH

miro_gt wrote:what bios version do you use ? (and embedded controller version) ?

BIOS: http://i.imgur.com/18dgy.png

BIOS is a middleton mod version for SATA II support. But there are no side effects or any reported issues as far as I know.

BTW the rest of the system is stock besides added RAM and replaced HD.

As for EC, not sure how to ID that. Tried looking it up with AIDA64, but didn't find it. My model however is T61P 6459-CTO.

miro_gt wrote:also, I assume that there might be some problems when trying to run TPFanControl in a 64 bit environment, as it's a 32 bit application as far as I know. You can test by running the laptop without TPFanControl and load it up somewhat so that you can check if the fan is changing speeds but would not max out at 4500rpm.

I'm in 32bit XP and no problems here.

Latest version on the app page says 32/64, so I assume the author implies that it is 64bit compatible.

jdhurst wrote:>>> it's always either full on, or off

I have a T61p with Windows 7 Pro and I use the much maligned Windows and Lenovo power managment tools. The fan works great. It is always on, but very low speed and no noise or vibration (after 4 years of constant use). When I push it (3 machines simultaneously) it runs a bit faster (audible) and the temperature goes over 45C.

... JDH

I haven't tried with Lenovo PM tool yet on Win7, and I don't remember how it worked on XP. But I just didn't want to install that bloatware. But if that is necessary, then I might end up doing that.

I'm using the Middleton BIOS, am running Windows 7 64-bit, and have absolutely no problems with tpfancontrol -- mine works like miro_gt's -- 0, 1, 3, 6, and 64.

I initially ran without Power Manager on this install, and tpfancontrol most certainly worked fine without it. I later installed Power Manager as it does do a better job of keeping track of battery life. I do have 8GB of RAM and a SSD though, so I don't really care about bloat :D

I would imagine there's a transistor or something on the motherboard that controls the fan speed (??) and that yours might be shorted...

well if the fan changes speeds without TPFanControl then it's the program that gives issues. I'm not on W7 but you also may check that you run it with administrative privileges (?)

Hmmm, that is very odd.

Thinking of trying a bootable linux with ACPI support. Does anyone know if Ubuntu or anything else has ACPI for ThinkPads built in?

Thanks!

miro_gt wrote:run it with administrative privileges (?)

...I do have UAC disabled and run as an administrator all the time...

I have 32-bit XP on another hard drive (for occasional gaming...) and everything to do with fan speed control and power management works perfectly there as well as in 64-bit Windows 7...

In any case, yours really sounds like a hardware problem to me...

One thing I'm curious about -- when you set your Manual fan speed control to 1, does the fan switch on and go straight up to 4500rpm very quickly, or does it ramp up slowly? If I go from 0 straight to 64, it takes about 55 seconds to ramp up to 4500rpm...

JeffCullen wrote: One thing I'm curious about -- when you set your Manual fan speed control to 1, does the fan switch on and go straight up to 4500rpm very quickly, or does it ramp up slowly? If I go from 0 straight to 64, it takes about 55 seconds to ramp up to 4500rpm...

It reports going ~ 2,500 for about 15s, and then shows 4,500. However, there is no difference in sound between the two options and it sounds like it's going 4,500 right away. Well, maybe within 3-5 seconds.

Without knowing how the thing actually works, I can only guess... but that certainly sounds to me like a hardware issue -- like a dimmer switch for a light being broken and behaving like an on/off switch... probably a transistor in this case??

I've read somewhere else this little tidbit, but not really sure what that means

Lenovo has put some effort into the fan design and made it a closed feedback loop where the fan speed is directly controlled by the RPM pulse signal from the fan.

maybe open the laptop and blow some air ... as there may be debris that is causing a connection somewhere. Not likely to happen, but it's possible.

moltar wrote:I've read somewhere else this little tidbit, but not really sure what that means :)

Lenovo has put some effort into the fan design and made it a closed feedback loop where the fan speed is directly controlled by the RPM pulse signal from the fan.

That sounds pretty simple -- rather than the fan levels being simply predefined voltage, an intelligent controller is looking at the rpm output from the sensor on the fan and adjusting input levels to get what it wants out of the fan. I think this controller is what's broken on your machine.

JeffCullen wrote:That sounds pretty simple -- rather than the fan levels being simply predefined voltage, an intelligent controller is looking at the rpm output from the sensor on the fan and adjusting input levels to get what it wants out of the fan. I think this controller is what's broken on your machine.

The part I don't get is where the controller is located? Is it part of the fan or is it part of the circuit board of some sort?

Also, sidenote question. Does anyone know the direction of the airflow? I've put my hand next to the vents, and I can feel the flow from both directions. Is it coming out of the back or on the side? I got an external fan, and I am not sure which way to position it.

it's coming from the inside of the laptop towards outside (both back and side heatsink exits). The suction part is exactly from the top of the fan, so if you want more cooling abilities, take off your keyboard

moltar wrote:The part I don't get is where the controller is located? Is it part of the fan or is it part of the circuit board of some sort?

The RPM sensor is part of the fan. The controller is part of the system board. Since you appear to be receiving accurate reports on your RPMs, the sensor seems fine. The controller's ability to throttle the fan seems broken. Very interesting failure!

miro_gt wrote:it's coming from the inside of the laptop towards outside (both back and side heatsink exits). The suction part is exactly from the top of the fan, so if you want more cooling abilities, take off your keyboard

Hmm, maybe that explains somewhat my heating issues I mostly used it docked with lid closed, because I have a dual monitor setup, and if I open the lid, it uses that instead of the monitor.

JeffCullen wrote:The RPM sensor is part of the fan. The controller is part of the system board. Since you appear to be receiving accurate reports on your RPMs, the sensor seems fine. The controller's ability to throttle the fan seems broken. Very interesting failure!

I found an after market fan controller. You can find it, if you google "ThinkPad Fan Controller", it's near the middle of the page. Wonder if that will fix my issue... Kinda pricey tho not knowing if that will fix the problem. I think I am going to try replacing the fan first, I was going to do it anyways.

Man, this is impossible, lol. For a long time the laptop was sitting on top of an amp. So I was thinking that maybe amp is heating it up. So I moved the laptop, and placed it next to the amp. Rewired everything. Spent 20 minutes reorganizing and cleaning the desk. Now it can't even get below 55C! Yesterday was consistently getting to 47C. The amp has vent holes on top of it, which I think actually aided the cooling. Now it's just on a flat desk. fml

I'm presently running mine docked (with only 1 monitor) and the lid closed, doing light web surfing, and it's sitting steady at 50C with the fan at 3100rpm. Ambient room temp is 20.5C. The dock is on a wooden desk... I can't possibly imagine how a hot amplifier would be helping cooling -- heat does rise...

Ok, new development. Installed the stupid ThinkPad Power Manager. Now the fan is able to control the speeds properly. No idea how that fixes it? Driver issues? Meh... But this now actually doesn't help me, because even at the top speed, the computer is running hot. Both CPU and GPU are currently at 57C.

Also I am noticing, different tools report different T. RightMark CPU Util shows 40C for CPU, but TP Fan Control app shows 57C. Who is right? Btw SensorOffset1 in TPFC is not set (commented out by default). It says "Default: SensorOffset1-12=0".

Hmm, Open Hardware Monitor software reporting 40C too. Maybe TPFC is broken? But OHM says GPU is at 65C. Is that a good T to be at?

Or maybe these other programs are reading the wrong value. Seems like CPU temp matches battery temp.

moltar wrote:Also I am noticing, different tools report different T. RightMark CPU Util shows 40C for CPU, but TP Fan Control app shows 57C. Who is right? Btw SensorOffset1 in TPFC is not set (commented out by default). It says "Default: SensorOffset1-12=0".

RMClock read the cpu temp from the cpu itself, while TPFanControl reads the temp from a sensor that sits next to the CPU socket.

note that Intel CPUs are notorious for their crappy CPU temp sensors, so what those show may be off by quite a bit. That's why they changed from analog type sensor to a digital type sensor, eventhough the later is still a so so option.

if your GPU is at 65 deg C, it's not likely your CPU to be at 40 deg C as both sit on one and the same heat sink.

if your GPU sits at 65 deg C at idle then that's too much, unless you're in the mid desert somewhere.

miro_gt wrote:if your GPU sits at 65 deg C at idle then that's too much, unless you're in the mid desert somewhere.

Thanks! Nah, I wish I was in a desert. I'm in Toronto, just getting over the winter. First few sunny days

I'm guessing my heatsink maybe is not sitting correct, or just needs cleaning and some new thermal paste. I'm going to order a new fan then on eBay. Open this thing up and see what's needed on the inside.

Anyone know if it will damage or shorten the life of the fan to run it on the 64 setting?

Running pretty much anything at its max shortens its life... but fans are cheap!

Aaaand GPU died today should have seen it coming. Trying to find 08/08 mobo