T420s Fan noise Issue

[LinYu]

jglathe,

This is a little disheartening for me, to say the least. In fact, I own four ThinkPads, some from the glorious IBM times... I had really great experiences with IBM's support and customer service, the least of which was certainly not a keypad replacement, when I had called one evening for support on how to fix a loose key cap and was surprised to be offered, without asking, a free keypad replacement that I would receive the next morning! Believe it or not, I DID HAVE the part delivered to me before noon of next day.  It was awesome!

Now, to be honest, I never had any major issues with my machines, after the ThinkPad business was acquired by Lenovo. The relatively small problems I occasionally had, under warranty, were quite professionally resolved by a depot (run by IBM) in the country where I spend a sizeable amount of time, and I never had reasons for complaint.

So, based on my experience alone, I have no immediate reason to consider going to other brands in the future, but the incredible absence of response to this noisy fan issue that has been plaguing some and is being reported for so long by so many people, is one of those things that make you start having second thoughts.

Quo Vadis, Lenovo?...

Good luck!

[marcinm]

I was disappointed with fan noise because employing SSD 256GB has not only speed feature but also the lack of HDD noise. Everyone should expect T420s as very silent laptop if CPU is not very much stressed. So when I read this forum thread I started to panic because I had symptoms described here. After many downgrades and upgrades of Power Manager & BIOS I could not see the solution.

Finally I tried to use procexp to monitor CPU activity during idle state. It appeared that from time to time System process has fluctuating CPU usage. SO  when checking Properties->Threads of System process I found srtsp64.sys driver with high CPU usage. srtsp64.sys causes problems to many people:

http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-Internet-Security-Norton/SRTSP64-SYS-huge-CPU-usage/td-p/64449...

According to suggestions I disabled Autoprotect until System restart (Didn't touch the firewall option).

From this time my fan is working much better. In addition I checked temperature plot with openhardwaremonitor.org

and from historical data (1-2h before modification to Norton 360) it was clear that now volatility is smaller (smaller fluctuations) and less spikes are visible.

As I expect fan algorithm must take into account the stability of temp profile. When checking average temperature it is very hard to see spikes and fast fluctuations. So if software is causing such behavior we think that fan got stuck at 4000 RPM which is of course false. The algorithm is not fooled and trying to keep temp stable. Now I can increase temp by watching video and after stopping it the fan decreases speed quite fast.

Everyone which has problems with fan noise should check temp plot generated by Open Hardware Monitor and look for spikes and fluctuations during idle state. It is also very helpful to use procexp to monitor System Idle process if it is around 97% in Power Source Optimized plan.

When computer got stressed to very high temp around 80'C it took of course long time for the fan to get quiet. CPU temp dropped to 32'C when it decreased noise but as I understand CPU temp is not everything. Many elec devices get higher temperature when there is hot CPU & blowing air.

So now I am rather blaming system which causes fluctuations of temp.. not the hardware.

[David44]

I see everyone has given up hope of a BIOS update.

New slogan for the T420s support staff: Ignore a problem long enough and it will go away.

[peednus]

Ya bro, no one from Lenovo cares anymore....  Its one of those "brush it under the mat" type of deals and hope the t430s doesn't undergo the same fate...

[Helvetia]

I sent a PM to Mark_Lenovo in order to give us an update and of course he does not answer.

In the future I will no longer consider Lenovo products...

[dk90103]

Did anybody try out the new 1.33 BIOS that was released a few days ago ?

Does it make any difference ? The embedded Controller is flashed from 1.12 to 1.19 during this update.

[Julian_Think]

Hy yes I Intalled 1.33 right now and for me it is like 1.31. The testig with the mini dog and External Monitor commes later. 

But my Fan works with the 1.31 Bios  so that's not the same situation.

[pleon]

I do not see any difference after 1.33 update. But i have no fan problem anymore, this problem solved uninstal of Lenovo LCD driver on my device. Same on T420s of my coleague, uninstall solved the problem.

[Soduku]

I would like to say that the 'fan issue' has been resolved in the T430s, but we aren't happy.

See this thread,
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Quality-Control-Issues-Sticky-keys-sc...

This is my second DOA with Lenovo. I hope the next replacement is perfect and issue free so I don't ever have to deal with Lenovo again.

[David44]

Soduku - Ouch!  Looks like the T430s is off to a rough start.  That sucks (hope things get fixed for you), but reinforces my decision to stay clear of Lenovo after my T420s experience. I also noticed 2 pages of messages over there and nothing from Lenovo.  Mr Social Media only seems to like the tablets.

I'm looking at S_msung and D_ll for my next business laptop purchase.  What a shame - I'll miss the little red dot in the middle of my keyboard!  Come on Lenovo - right the ship please!