T420s Fan noise Issue

[ThorsHammer]

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ExJamJus wrote:

Anyone tried reapplying the thermal paste?

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Most of these machines are relatively new and under warranty.  Wouldn't that void the warranty?

[antsh]

For me the issue isn't even high temperatures. The fan will get stuck at 4000RPM and stay there even as my cpu temps get below 37*C.

[alexcriss]

@Mark_Lenovo: any news about isolating the problem?

Besides, what about asking for an intermediate fan speed, for example 3000 RPM? Could you pass the question to the engineering group? I think it might be a reasonable design choice, since the gap between 2000 RPM and 4000 RPM is far too wide, and I'd love some feedback from Lenovo about it 

[_magic_]

I recently bought a new T420s and I also have this problem. Very annoying, grr...

I got this problem under Windows7 as well as under Ubuntu Linux.

Unfortunately, this issue discharges the battery very fast, which sometimes prevents me from working.

I also got a lot of evil eyes within meetings.

Is there any chance to get this issue solved within the next weeks?

[jmstuckman]

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_magic_ wrote:

I recently bought a new T420s and I also have this problem. Very annoying, grr...

I got this problem under Windows7 as well as under Ubuntu Linux.

Unfortunately, this issue discharges the battery very fast, which sometimes prevents me from working.

I also got a lot of evil eyes within meetings.

Is there any chance to get this issue solved within the next weeks?

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magic: When my fan was stuck at a high speed, I never noticed that the battery was discharging especially quickly. It will discharge a little faster, but not at an extreme rate.

Also, this fan noise issue is rarely experienced by users who are on battery power. (It mostly happens on AC power).

This makes me suspect that there's a runaway process or a power manager setting causing your processor to run too fast, generating heat and making the fan spin loudly. I would look into this.

[xzhou]

For ubuntu, please install thinkfan, I have the following config file which may help a little bit:

######################################################################
# thinkfan 0.7 example config file
# ================================
#
# ATTENTION: There is only very basic sanity checking on the configuration.
# That means you can set your temperature limits as insane as you like. You
# can do anything stupid, e.g. turn off your fan when your CPU reaches 70°C.
#
# That's why this program is called THINKfan: You gotta think for yourself.
#
######################################################################
#
# IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads (thinkpad_acpi, /proc/acpi/ibm)
# ====================================================
#
# IMPORTANT:
#
# To keep your HD from overheating, you have to specify a correction value for
# the sensor that has the HD's temperature. You need to do this because
# thinkfan uses only the highest temperature it can find in the system, and
# that'll most likely never be your HD, as most HDs are already out of spec
# when they reach 55 °C.
# Correction values are applied from left to right in the same order as the
# temperatures are read from the file.
#
# For example:
# sensor /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal (0, 0, 10)
# will add a fixed value of 10 °C the 3rd value read from that file. Check out
# http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Thermal_Sensors to find out how much you may
# want to add to certain temperatures.

# Syntax:
# (LEVEL, LOW, HIGH)
# LEVEL is the fan level to use (0-7 with thinkpad_acpi)
# LOW is the temperature at which to step down to the previous level
# HIGH is the temperature at which to step up to the next level
# All numbers are integers.
#

#sensor /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal (0, 10, 15, 2, 10, 5, 0, 3, 0, 3)
sensor /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/temp1_input
sensor /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/temp2_input
sensor /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/temp3_input
sensor /sys/devices/virtual/hwmon/hwmon0/temp1_input
(0, 0, 49)
(1, 45, 50)
(2, 49, 65)
(3, 64, 67)
#(4, 56, 68)
(5, 62, 70)
(7, 69, 32767)

[xzhou]

The thinkpad is no longer the Thinkpad we know. Quality!!!??

[Mark_Lenovo Administrator]

antsh,

You say your system get's stuck at 4K RPM?

You have applied the latest BIOS and Power manager and are running Windows, right?

We just aren't seeing this on systems we are looking at.  I believe you.  But, the engineers are telling me that the samples we have now don't go above 1900 RPM on idle on the Intel GPU equipped models.  They have tested for several weeks in 20 min loops.

I'll go back and re-read the last dozen pages or so and see if everyone has noted whether they have optimus model or intel model.

The power manager under windows will affect this... not sure that Linux environments will allow us as much control.

Mark

[alexcriss]

@Mark_Lenovo:

I have an Intel only T420s and I am experiencing high fan speeds, even for very low temperatures (I've posted a screenshot some pages ago).

I am using Linux, if that matters, and I believe that the power consuption is even lower than Windows, since my battery lasts longer.

Can you ask the engineering group if they can at least try a Linux install? There are some tools to read temperatures and see that something is wrong also on that OS.

Secondly, how about my proposal of letting the fan spin at 3000 RPM, in addition to the 2000 RPM and 4000 RPM? Could you pass the suggestion along? Thanks very much!

Alessandro

[peednus]

@Mark_Lenovo:

Can you ask engineering group what their testing room temperature is?  Because if its ice cold, the temp will never rise.