[Lifebook] S7110 fan

[Moebiuzzz]

Hi folks,

Also I have a FSC Lifebook S7110 (with an "old" Core Duo) with a fan that is often pulsating and far too noisy. Considering that the noisy fan of my old Dell Inspiron 5100 was the main reason for buying a new laptop, I cannot say I am satisfied with my purchase. However, after a lot of experimenting, I now know a lot of tricks how I can work with my Lifebook without the having the fan turn on and off every 20 seconds. I hope these tricks are useful for you as well.

- Install the freely available RMClock program. Make sure you do not have other utilities running that also try to influence the power management, for example SpeedswitchXP. Start it and configure it as follows:

* Under "Settings", check "Run at Windows startup"
* Under "Profiles", select "Power saving" for both "battery" and "AC power", and both "current" and "startup". Check "auto-adjust", set index 0 to the minimum VID voltage, and the highest index to the maximum voltage. The intermediate indices should now have intermediate voltages. (You can also try to assign lower voltages, but this can be dangerous)
* Under "Power saving", under "CPU setting" check "Use P-State transitions", check index 0, uncheck the other indices. Do this for both AC power and battery. Uncheck both "Use throttling (ODCM)" boxes; in my experience throttling has a negative effect on the heat production, unless the CPU is really hot (>55 C). At that point the fan is already going crazy for a long time.
* Under "Advanced CPU settings", under "Processor", check all the enhanced low power state settings. Check "apply these settings at startup".
* THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT ONE, VERY EFFECTIVE AGAINST FAN NOISE: Also under "Advanced CPU settings", under "Platform", check "Enter C4 on C3 command", check "Enable popdown mode", check "Enable popup mode". This can cause a high frequency electronic whine in some situations, but it helps immensely in keeping the CPU cool (and therefore the fan down). This is actually the standard setting when the Lifebook running on batteries; in which case the default fan behaviour seems to be a lot better than when running on AC. Check "Apply these settings at startup".

- Remove the velvet padding form the bottom plate of the laptop. These are probably meant for protection of the legs when working with the laptop on your bare legs. However, this clearly inhibits the heat dissipation and worsens the fan noise. Removing this stuff is not exactly easy; I used a screwdriver to scrape off the top layer and then alcohol to remove the glue (be sure not to soak your laptop in alcohol ). It took me more than one hour.

- Don't play MP3's while you are working. Playing MP3's prevents the CPU from entering sleep state on short (even millisecond-long) idle moments. This significantly increases heat production. Better to have a separate MP3 playing device if you want to listen to music while working. If you decide to play MP3's on your laptop anyway, use Winamp, which seems to need less processor time.

- Don't use WLAN when it is not really necessary. A direct connection uses less CPU time and therefore generates less heat. Maybe this has to do with the WPA encryption/decryption gobbling up processor time.

- When websurfing, use the Firefox browser and install the Flashblocker extension. Flash commercials use a vast amount of CPU power and blocking them helps immensely at keeping the fans down while websurfing. Flashblocker still allows you to easily start a Flash application manually if necessary, so it is still possible to watch YouTube...

- Remove unneeded programs and services running in the background with the freely available Startup Control Panel. This adds an icon to the Control Panel that allows you to change programs launched at the startup of the laptop. Removing these processes makes sure the CPU gets a maximum amount of sleep time. I removed stuff like ipodservice (don't have an IPod), bluetooth service (don't have any bluetooth devices), acrobat quick launcher (acrobat launches quick enough without this).

- If possible, put the laptop on a metal surface. Ideally, the metal surface should make contact with the bottom plate of the laptop. This metal then works as an effective heat sink. This way, i can watch an entire DivX movie on AC power with the fan turning on only once. (When this happens, pause the movie for 5 minutes, and you should be able to finish the mvie without further fan action). I now use the CD player of my audio system as this metal surface, but i plan to make a special steel support for the laptop.

So, these are the techniques that I discovered during the past 9 months in my attempts to keep the noisy fan down. I also installed all BIOS updates, of course. However, i think the "silent" mode that one can select in the BIOS menu only reduces the maximum rotation speed of the fan; however, as a consequence the fan only keeps pulsating for longer to achieve the necessary cooling. So, this did not help much. The tricks that I listed above DO help.

If anybody knows more techniques to keep this laptop cool and the fan turned off, i would be very interested. By the way, does anybody know more about this "solution" that FSC is said to be working on?

Cheers
Moebiuzzz


[/list]

[Moebiuzzz]

(Last post was cut off unexpectedly; here is the rest...)

- Remove unneeded programs and services running in the background with the freely available Startup Control Panel. This adds and icon to the Control Panel that allows you to change programs launched at the startup of the laptop. Removing these processes makes sure the CPU gets a maximum amount of sleep time. I removed stuff like ipodservice (don't have an IPod), bluetooth service (don't have any bluetooth devices), acrobat quick launcher (acrobat launches quick enough without this).

- If possible, put the laptop on a metal surface. Ideally, the metal surface should make contact with the bottom plate of the laptop. This metal then works as an effective heat sink. This way, i can watch an entire DivX movie on AC power with the fan turning on only once. (When this happens, pause the movie for 5 minutes, and you should be able to finish the mvie without further fan action). I now use the CD player of my audio system as this metal surface, but i plan to make a special steel support for the laptop.

So, these are the techniques that I discovered during the past 9 months in my attempts to keep the noisy fan down. I also installed all BIOS updates, of course. However, i think the "silent" mode that one can select in the BIOS menu only reduces the maximum rotation speed of the fan; however, as a consequence the fan only keeps pulsating for longer to achieve the necessary cooling. So, this did not help much. The tricks that I listed above DO help, however.

If anybody knows more techniques to keep the laptop cool and the fan turned off, i would be very interested. By the way, does anybody know more about this "solution" that FSC is said to be working on?

Cheers
Moebiuzzz

[sc911]

Ok, how about this: wait until your battery is flat, unconnect your charger and enjoy the silence.

What I want to say is: If I dont use my laptop it is quiet for shure. And if I have to stop using certain programs to get a quiet laptop its not what I want.

But thanks for your answer.

sc911

[Moebiuzzz]

Well, I also would prefer to have it differently, and be able to run every program I like without fan noise... but since I am stuck with the S7110, I had to be pragmatic and find some way to keep the fan noise down. The RMClock hack by itself helped a lot already.

Moebiuzzz

[Moebiuzzz]

A problem for which I have no solution (except the "heat sink" technique) is the fan turning on whenever Skype is running in the background...

Moebiuzzz

[Moebiuzzz]

Yep, I found some more tweaks to keep the fan noise down that can be used conjunction with the ones in my previous post. What's that? How much time I already spent on this? Don't ask. It has become a small obsession...

Ordered from high to doubtful effectiveness:

- For WLAN, use an external PC Card for your WLAN connection instead of the built-in WLAN. It helps in two ways: it keeps both the fan noise down but also the electronic whining when the CPU switching on and off the C4 state many times per second. I think the internal WLAN puts extra strain on the CPU, while the external WLAN uses its own hardware.

- I noticed when studying the temperature behaviour of my Core Duo processor that core #1 is always 3 - 4 degrees hotter than core #2. Normally, processes switch back and forth between the two cores to spread the heat generation, but when there is such a large temperature difference, I thought that that does not really make sense. I now use a utility called "BindCPU" to run some applications (like a music player) on core #2 only.

- In my BIOS settings, I turned "hardware power management" off. I am not so sure about the effectiveness of this (or what it does), but my laptop is really nice and cool and quiet lately, so I thought I mention it.

I am now typing this with the laptop on my lap, streaming music from Last.fm to Winamp, connected to my personal WLAN with the external WLAN PC-Card (T-Sinus 154 from T-Com). RMClock indicates a CPU temperature of 37 degrees celsius. Usually the fan turns on at 45 degrees, so I think this is pretty nice. The cool weather also helps, probably.

Cheers
Moebiuzzz

(edited once for spelling mistakes)

[Moebiuzzz]

I told already I was a bit obsessed...

- The color depth of my screen was 32 bit... Why? No idea! Some things may look slightly nicer with 32 bits, but 16 bits is enough I think for most people who are not serious photographers or graphic artists. 16 bits means that the laptop has to deal with 50% less data when doing something with the screen... like, playing a movie.

- Disabled the IR, Bluetooth, IEEE, serial and parallel ports in the windows device manager and in the BIOS.

CPU temperature according to RMClock: 35-36 degrees celsius. Yoohoo! Less and less...

[Keenny]

So i got my new S7110, C2D 5600, 1GB RAM and the fan is a nightmare. Going on (~46 degrees) and off (~45 degrees) all the time when idle. On the worst the period can be only half a minute or so. Except when the laptop is initially cold (been shut down or in hibernate), then the fan goes on around 50 degrees. When i'm actually using it the fan is pretty much running all the time, or pulsating with a very short period. The core temp never goes below 45 degrees, there's no evil background processes and the room has normal temperature.
I've tried pretty much everything; Vista, XP and even Linux (Ubuntu) but the behavior is the same. I've tried the three most recent BIOS versions (well, not 1.30 since the Disk Image dosn't seem to be provided, and the BUP file wouldn't install). I've tried RMClock, NHC, SpeedswitchXP, w/the suggestions described earlier in this thread. They help only very little. The rest of the laptop (e.g. keyboard) is annoyingly cool, i'd rather it be a little hotter and the fan a little less active (this has been the case on many other laptop i've used). I've gotten the bios-patch that's suppose to give me a 'silent' option in the bios. Not working. I burn the patch on a disk, use an old Win98-cd to load DOS, swap cds, and run FLASH. The program indicates that everything went ok, but there's no new options in the bios (well, unless they are hidden or something). And i've tried this with bios version 1.29, 1.25 and 1.21. Thoose of you who has got this to work, which bios version are you using, and where's the setting?

Has anybody tried sending in the laptop for repair and actually got a silent one in return?
That is, has FSC admitted that there is an issue? Or will sending in the pc result in a 'This is normal behavior for the S7110'?

I'm just so tired of this laptop, and it's starting to affect my work.

[Moebiuzzz]

Hi Keenny,

Half a year ago i also installed this BIOS "update" to have a "silent fan mode". It gave me a "fan mode" option under "Advanced/Miscellaneous configurations". I forgot how I exactly did it... I have BIOS 1.28 now, but when i installed the fan patch, it must have been an earlier BIOS version. Maybe you feel better when I tell you that the silent mode did not make much difference...

After I noticed that the improvement was negligable, I called FSC again (in Germany), and they gave me the addresses of some FSC service centers so that they could check the problem. Maybe the support center can help you.

I never went to the support center though, because I need my laptop daily. The tweaks above helped a lot for me, pity that they don't work for you! I would recommend using a combination of XP and RMClock, because Vista seems to be more CPU-hungry and I have read somewhere that it interferes sometimes with RMClock. Checking "Enter C4 on C3 command", "Enable popup", "Enable popdown" in RMClock helped a lot for me. Be sure to have the lowest VID for the lowest FID under "profiles".

Perhaps you have a hyperactive antivirus program that prevents your CPU from entering the C4 state? Maybe you can try deactivating the AV program to see whether it makes any difference. I use F-Secure AV instead of the Norton AV that came with the laptop; much better.

It could be that the CPU's temperature sensors are calibrated incorrectly, triggering the fans at a temperature that is much too low. Maybe the FSC service center can help you there.

I know irritating this noisy fan can be. I hope you can find some solution... Good luck!

Moebiuzzz

[pcar]

Hello,

has anybody find a solution ?

I've hot the same problem, and like Keenny, it's starting to affect my job !

Regards

[Moebiuzzz]

Another trick to keep the temperature (and the fan) of a laptop down is "undervolting": using a lower CPU voltage than the default values. RMClock may even set all the voltages to maximum when it starts up for the first time; maybe this gives the impression to some users that RMClock is not doing anything good for the fan noise.

The trick is to find the minimum voltages that still work without causing crashes. The values below work for me (As I mentioned already, I have a core duo "yonah"). They may not work for you, use them at your own risk:

Index Frequency ID Voltage ID
1 6.0x 0.950V
2 7.0x 0.962V
3 8.0x 0.975V
4 9.0x 1.025V
5 10.0x 1.075V
6 11.0x 1.125V

Under the "performance on demand" profile, I checked "use p-state transitions", and I checked all the indices for both battery and AC power. Keep ODCM unchecked! Usually I work in this mode when I using the laptop on AC power; this is my "startup" profile for AC power. In contrast what I wrote before, I am now using "allow multistep transitions".

Here is a full guide to undervolting (uses an old version of RMClock and an AMD CPU, but the principles are applicable to any modern CPU): http://www.nordichardware.com/Articles/?page=1&skrivelse=465

You may want to test these undervolting settings before using your laptop for important work. The best program for a core duo system seems to be "orthos":
http://sp2004.fre3.com/beta/beta2.htm

In an unrelated note: having a usb device connected, even something simple like a usb flash drive, somehow raises the temperature and sends the fan spinning. Disconnect any USB device when you don't need it.

[Moebiuzzz]

Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook S7110 fan noise update...
A year ago i switched from Windows XP to Ubuntu as the main OS for my Lifebook S7110. Unfortunately, that also brought back the fan noise problem. There is no Linux version of RMClock...

But yesterday i found a solution. By installing a tweaked kernel and a kernel module, it is possible to do undervolting under Linux. On http://openmindedbrain.info/09/05/2010/undervolting-in-ubuntu-10-04-lucid-lts/ there is a very clear and easy-to-follow manual on how to do this.

UPDATE: Undervolting stopped working on my Core Duo after updating to kernel 2.6.32-23-generic-phc. I downgraded to kernel 2.6.32-22-generic-phc and it works again.

I ended up with the following VIDs in my /etc/rc.local. Your values can be different. Call an editor from a shell window:

Code: Select all

sudo nano /etc/rc.local


...and enter the follow lines before the "exit 0" instruction (your values can be different):

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echo "29 1 1" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/phc_vids
echo "29 1 1" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/phc_vids


(edit: after some suspicious crashes I changed the VID values)

In addition to this, the program "powertop" (can be installed through the Ubuntu Software Center) gives additional hints how energy consumption (and heat generation) can be reduced. It shows you possible shell commands that can be entered into /etc/rc.local to do this at startup. I added the following instructions:

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echo 1 > /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save


(edit: I removed some lines, because some of the powertop suggestions gave errors)

Finally, by adding two "CPU frequency scaling monitor" applets to the Gnome panel, the user can set the power management scheme to "powersave", so that the CPU always stays in the lowest frequency (and voltage). It is important to add and set TWO of these applets, and assign them to different CPU cores.

These tweaks significantly reduce the number of times that the fan comes up. Now, if only there would be a way to activate the C4 state of the CPU. Powertop only shows C0 to C3, this makes me wonder whether the kernel is aware of the presence of a C4 state.

Cheers,
Moebiuzzz

[Moebiuzzz]

After using the undervolting procedure described above for some weeks, I am a bit disappointed. If there is any effect on the fan noise, it is not that great.

But now I think I have found a solution for the C4-on-C3 problem. The C4 state is activated on a C3 command when the laptop is running on battery. However, this is not the case when the laptop is running on AC and there is no obvious way to change it. This morning I ran into this forum post: http://www.bughost.org/pipermail/power/2007-June/000639.html

Using that information, my /etc/rc.local now looks like this:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh -e

echo "29 1 1" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/phc_vids
echo "29 1 1" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/phc_vids
echo 1 > /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save
setpci -s 00:1f.0 a0.w=a8

exit 0


This will start up the laptop with C4-on-C3 enabled, whether it is plugged in or not. Unfortunately this changes when you plug it out and plug it in again. Therefore I wrote two scripts that I dumped into /usr/local/bin. The first one is "keepcool":

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#!/bin/bash

# keepcool script
#
# Keeps my noisy Lifebook S7110 laptop cool and quiet by undervolting and enabling
# the C4-on-C3 configuration.

echo "29 1 1" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/phc_vids
echo "29 1 1" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/phc_vids
echo 1 > /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save
setpci -s 00:1f.0 a0.w=a8

exit 0


Sometimes you simply want to know whether C4-on-C3 is enabled or not. That is what the "checkcool" script is for:

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#!/bin/bash

# checkcool script
#
# Checks whether my noisy Lifebook S7110 laptop is keeping it cool by checking
# whether C4-on-C3 is enabled.

stat=$(lspci -xxx -s 00:1f.0 | grep '^a0:' | awk '{print $2}')
if [ -n "$stat" ]
then
   if [ "$stat" = 'a8' ]
   then
      echo 'C4onC3_en enabled: we are keeping it cool.'
   else
      echo 'C4onC3_en disabled: we are NOT keeping it cool.'
   fi
else
   echo 'Please use sudo.'
fi
exit 0


Make sure these script are executable and owned by root:

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user@lifebook:~$ sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/keepcool
user@lifebook:~$ sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/checkcool
user@lifebook:~$ sudo chown root:root /usr/local/bin/keepcool
user@lifebook:~$ sudo chown root:root /usr/local/bin/checkcool


Both of these scripts should be run as root:

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user@lifebook:~$ sudo keepcool
user@lifebook:~$ sudo checkcool
C4onC3_en enabled: we are keeping it cool.


To illustrate the effect: during the writing of this post the fans came up only twice in short succession, which is tolerable I think. Don't forget to set both the frequency scaling applets to "powersave" to achieve the maximum effect.

Cheers
Moebiuzzz