TX1 fan noise

[McMagnus]

Hi

I upgraded from a T1XP to a TX1XP last week and the new fan is starting to bother me. I've heard (at Tom's hardware I think) that the new Centrino chipset runs a bit hotter than the old, but I thought the BIOS would be able to keep it slow enough at the lowest performance setting to not bother me.

However, when at the lowest possible performance (CPU Control on "Battery Life" and the "System Idle Process" toggles between 98-99% and the My Computer->Properties says the CPU is running at 299MHz), the fan is still spinning up and down every 6 seconds or so. The old T1XP was dead silent until I at least started compiling or something. And then the fan spun up only after running at 100% CPU for almost a minute.

Also, the fan itself has a noise of its own in the new TX1XP. In the old T1XP, all I heard was the sound of the air flowing out, nothing else.

So, the problem is two-fold.

1. The fan spins up and down constantly. It runs *much* more than the old T1XP.

2. The fan sounds more than necessary. The old T1XP proves that it's possible to make them really silent, why isn't the new as silent? Did I get a bad one? Should I switch?

[dj_Eddie88]

I have the same noise on my Vgna397xp. How hot does the cpu get, have u checked It with mobilmeter- just wondering.

[tonybeard]

go to adjust power properties and switch your CPU setting from performance to adaptive. I guess each unit especially that small has its own assembly characteristics

[McMagnus]

MobilMeter reports 61 when the fan switches on, but "Notebook Hardware Control" says 60. Then it's one degree lower when the fan goes off. A little "itchy" regulator if you ask me. I'll check the old T1 later.

Can the fan be controlled in finer steps?

[McMagnus]

Thanks for the tip, but as I wrote in the initial post that setting is already at minimum, i.e. "Battery Life" which is lower than "Adaptive".

By "assembly characteristics", do you mean mine might be a bad unit? Causing the resonating fan?

[tonybeard]

Anything that small working that hard would have to either get louder or settle with use. I think the latter more than the former so give it some time.

[Pagemakers]

Hi

I upgraded from a T1XP to a TX1XP last week and the new fan is starting to bother me. I've heard (at Tom's hardware I think) that the new Centrino chipset runs a bit hotter than the old, but I thought the BIOS would be able to keep it slow enough at the lowest performance setting to not bother me.

However, when at the lowest possible performance (CPU Control on "Battery Life" and the "System Idle Process" toggles between 98-99% and the My Computer->Properties says the CPU is running at 299MHz), the fan is still spinning up and down every 6 seconds or so. The old T1XP was dead silent until I at least started compiling or something. And then the fan spun up only after running at 100% CPU for almost a minute.

Also, the fan itself has a noise of its own in the new TX1XP. In the old T1XP, all I heard was the sound of the air flowing out, nothing else.

So, the problem is two-fold.

1. The fan spins up and down constantly. It runs *much* more than the old T1XP.

2. The fan sounds more than necessary. The old T1XP proves that it's possible to make them really silent, why isn't the new as silent? Did I get a bad one? Should I switch?

I have just upgraded from a TR5MP to a TX1HP.

My old machine was silent and the fan noise you talk about on the TX1 is driving me mad on mine also. Even the case has a small unconfortable vibration.

If I can't find a fix in the next day or so I ill just return the unit and stick with my old machine.

[McMagnus]

My dealer will get another TX1 soon and I'll compare mine with that one. I'll let you know if there's any difference.

I wouldn't want to return mine if I wasn't sure I could get a silent one. I'd rather find a silent fan, or open it up and find a way to stop the resonance.

Can't feel the vibration in the case though.

I also give it some time as TonyBeard suggested to see if it gets better.

[Pagemakers]

Only problem if you keep it you can't take it back later. I don't think time will cure this problem at all.

Just called Sony and they couldn't help. They said it was too new!

I'm running an app called MobileMeter to monitor the laptop (free tiny download).

What's interesting is with the laptop power settings at adaptive and performance, the machine runs at 600mhz. If I change the settings to adaptive and quiet, the machine runs at 800mhz - Why could quiet make it run faster??

The only way I can get the machine to run at 1.1ghz is to make the settings performance and performance.

Sitting next to me is my old TR5MP which I upgraded from. With the same settings it runs at 1.1ghz while the TX1 is at 600mhz. Indeed, the old laptop feels faster than the TX1.

The TR5MP is at 49degrees and the TX1 at 61degrees.

I'm going to watch the forums for another few days and if there is no solution I will return it. The fan noise is just too unconfortable for me to work with.

BTW have a look at this review and note his comments about the fan noise about 2/3rds down the page...

http://laptop-notebook.blogspot.com/2005/10/sony-vaio-tx1xp.html

[lantek]

Hi

I upgraded from a T1XP to a TX1XP last week and the new fan is starting to bother me. I've heard (at Tom's hardware I think) that the new Centrino chipset runs a bit hotter than the old, but I thought the BIOS would be able to keep it slow enough at the lowest performance setting to not bother me.

However, when at the lowest possible performance (CPU Control on "Battery Life" and the "System Idle Process" toggles between 98-99% and the My Computer->Properties says the CPU is running at 299MHz), the fan is still spinning up and down every 6 seconds or so. The old T1XP was dead silent until I at least started compiling or something. And then the fan spun up only after running at 100% CPU for almost a minute.

Also, the fan itself has a noise of its own in the new TX1XP. In the old T1XP, all I heard was the sound of the air flowing out, nothing else.

So, the problem is two-fold.

1. The fan spins up and down constantly. It runs *much* more than the old T1XP.

2. The fan sounds more than necessary. The old T1XP proves that it's possible to make them really silent, why isn't the new as silent? Did I get a bad one? Should I switch?

Unfortunately I have the exact same problem on my new TX1XP. In a quiet the room, the fan sounds pretty similar to a rack mount 1U server with the fan noise. For a laptop, its very noisy indeed, and annoying. I am hoping Sony can release some fix for this.