Noisy Hot Laptop !

[Magic Sam]

Hi guys,

Could you please tell me how to underclock the cpu/gpu, lower the temperature of the hard drive and speed of the fans in a laptop ?

My laptop is a Keynux yMAX XR, which is a re-branded Clevo M57RU, and is running Debian Lenny 5.0.4.

It is hot as hell, noisy even when idle (two fans), and power inefficient

CPU :

It is an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T9300 @ 2.50GHz.

I've installed cpufreqd to have more control over the CPU speed, without success until now.

portable:/home/samuel# cpufreqd-get
No cpufreqd socket found

I've edited /etc/cpufreqd.conf, commenting in some lines, commenting out some others, but it seems not to change anything.

GPU :

It is a GeForce 8800M GTX with 512MB of RAM.

I've installed nvclock:

portable:/home/samuel# nvclock -s
Card: Unknown Nvidia card
Card number: 1
Memory clock: 601.712 MHz
GPU clock: 216.000 MHz

Temperature:

portable:/home/samuel# nvclock -f -T
Unknown Nvidia card
=> GPU temperature: 19C

Fan speed:

portable:/home/samuel# nvclock -f -F 10
Error: Your card doesn't support fanspeed adjustments!

Detailed information:

portable:/home/samuel# nvclock -f -i
-- General info --
Card: Unknown Nvidia card
Architecture: G92 A2
PCI id: 0x60c
GPU clock: 216.000 MHz
Bustype: PCI-Express

-- Shader info --
Clock: 648.000 MHz
Stream units: 96 (1b)
ROP units: 16 (1b)
-- Memory info --
Amount: 512 MB
Type: 128 bit DDR3
Clock: 601.712 MHz

-- PCI-Express info --
Current Rate: 1X
Maximum rate: 16X

-- Sensor info --
Sensor: GPU Internal Sensor
GPU temperature: 20C

-- VideoBios information --
Version: 62.92.23.00.14
Signon message: G92 P398 SKU 0003 MXM VGA BIOS
Performance level 0: gpu 1063675494(+2)MHz/shader 513MHz/memory 1064514355MHz/0.85V/1065353216%
Performance level 1: gpu 1065772646MHz/shader 767MHz/memory 301MHz/0.85V/100%
Performance level 2: gpu 500MHz/shader 1250MHz/memory 799MHz/1.00V/100%
VID mask: 7
Voltage level 0: 0.70V, VID: 7
Voltage level 1: 0.75V, VID: 6
Voltage level 2: 0.80V, VID: 5
Voltage level 3: 0.85V, VID: 4
Voltage level 4: 0.90V, VID: 3
Voltage level 5: 0.95V, VID: 2
Voltage level 6: 1.00V, VID: 1
Voltage level 7: 1.05V, VID: 0

HARD DISK :

It is a Seagate Momentus 7200.2 120 Go SATA / 7200 rpm / SMART / 8 Mo.

I've installed hddtemp, when I point my browser to 127.0.0.1:7634 it says temperature is 35°C, but in the summer when it's ~40°C outside, the hard drive temperature can reach 60°C, which is not good I think

|/dev/sda|ST9120823AS|36|C|

One year ago I was working in the "marketing" industry, I needed a powerful laptop capable to run graphics and DTP software and...3D games :blush:

Now my needs have changed, and I'm looking for a more silent, cool and energy efficient laptop.

If possible I'd like to use software only solutions, because I bought this laptop for work, it is only 1 year old, it is/was very expensive (2500€) and is still under warranty...

What should I do to solve all these little issues ?

Bye and thanks for your help, Magic Sam

 

[Mr B]

There is a update for the fan control hardware, which should make it less noisy, when not needing it. You might want to verify that speedstep is active, and working while at it.
And your right. A 60c harddrive isn't a good thing, so you might need to look in to a way to enhance your airflow, which should also help in reducing noise.

Time to give it a good clean-out and remove dust buildups perhaps?
B!

 

[fiveseven]

Check the vents on the laptop, with the fans on full. If there isnt much air coming out, then there's probably dust caught in the vent.
Fixed my old laptop a lot of times by doing that.

 

[Titcher]

You may be able to change some of the fan settings in the BIOS. And the hard drive should be removeable with one or two screws, depending on how it fits in the laptop. It may be worth applying some copper tape to the plain side of the hard drive to help move heat to the case.

 

[Magic Sam]

Hi guys,

Thanks for your replies

There is a update for the fan control hardware, which should make it less noisy, when not needing it. You might want to verify that speedstep is active, and working while at it.
And your right. A 60c harddrive isn't a good thing, so you might need to look in to a way to enhance your airflow, which should also help in reducing noise.

Time to give it a good clean-out and remove dust buildups perhaps?
B!

Are you talking about Debian, nVIDIA drivers, or BIOS update ? Speedstep is working, cpu changes its frequencies depending on the work load, but I think it reaches its peak (2,4GHz) way too often and for nothing, that's why I wanted to use cpufreq

Check the vents on the laptop, with the fans on full. If there isnt much air coming out, then there's probably dust caught in the vent.
Fixed my old laptop a lot of times by doing that.

This laptop has been noisy from day one, so I doubt it has anything to do with dust. Anyway, I bought a spray of "dry air" and used it, but very little dust came out At the moment I'm only browsing gp32x.de to type this message, the laptop is very noisy and warm air is coming out the vents

You may be able to change some of the fan settings in the BIOS. And the hard drive should be removeable with one or two screws, depending on how it fits in the laptop. It may be worth applying some copper tape to the plain side of the hard drive to help move heat to the case.

Unfortunately I can't change any fan settings in the BIOS I thought I could change my hard drive for a new, slower one, because 7200 rpm is a bit fast for a laptop isn't it ?

EDIT:

Some more informations about the laptop:

Extreme Edition

Model: M57RU
Product Code: M570RU-U

BIOS:

M570RU Bios Revision: 1.00.08
KBC/EC Firmware Revision: 1.00.07

VGA card: nVIDIA 8800M GTX
VBIOS Revision: 62.92.23.00.14
VBIOS Build Date: 12/03/07

Do you guys know about a place where I could download firmware upgrades for both GPU & motherboard ?

EDIT:

|/dev/sda|ST9120823AS|47|C|

Hard drive is 47°C, it's snowing outside, and I'm actually doing nothing with the laptop at the moment !!!

Bye and thanks, Magic Sam

 

[Javacat]

I'm guessing that you've seen this. You could try checking the heatsink/reseating it with some decent thermal paste. That might bring the GPU and CPU temperatures down a bit. Do you have the temperature for your CPU? I've gone over your posts, but can't see it listed anywhere.


Not really helping, but my laptop (Dell M1330) is a similar spec, and gets insanely hot when doing a lot of work and runs pretty hot most of the time anyway. I did actually use it to keep my hands warm a few weeks ago when the heating broke in the office, whilst I was working on a desktop
It's currently running pretty idle and according to SpeedFan I've got the following temps:
GPU (Nvidia GeForce 8400M GS) - 72c
CPU (Same as yours, Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 @ 2.50GHz) - 53c
Hard Drive (Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9320423AS) - 41c

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the hard drive has been slowed down in the BIOS (to run quieter and save battery). It could be worth you checking on yours for something similar.


If you don't move around much, you could look into getting one of those laptop cooling stands. I don't think they cost much and might lower the temp down enough most of the time to keep the fanspeed down/quieter.

</gibberish>

 

[kuru]

I'm using a Fujitsu laptop at work, brand new with a Core2Duo and some Nvidia card. Surface gets pretty warm to the touch and vent releases hot air as it sits there _idling_. Could it be that this processor just isn't "cool" for laptops?

My old, private laptop is a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo A, it has a black mark from my wasd-hand under the keyboard where the (crappy) HD sits. HD working, hot PC. Idle: almost room temperature. I lost a mainboard to overheating. And Fujitsu/Siemens gave owners a very hard time getting another HD as replacement, I didn't even try.

 

[Titcher]

You may be able to change some of the fan settings in the BIOS. And the hard drive should be removeable with one or two screws, depending on how it fits in the laptop. It may be worth applying some copper tape to the plain side of the hard drive to help move heat to the case.

Unfortunately I can't change any fan settings in the BIOS I thought I could change my hard drive for a new, slower one, because 7200 rpm is a bit fast for a laptop isn't it ?

Sure you can replace the hard drive, a 5400RPM should run a bit cooler, avoid seagate drives, as the recent ones are quite noisy in comparison to other brands. I'm not too sure on the heat of laptop brand drives, but on desktop size at least, I've found samsung drives to keep very cool. You're kind of running out of options, as keeping it cool normally involves loud fans and such. With that said, maybe it's worth shopping around for a quiet laptop stand(the kind with fans in) to get a bit more airflow?