Laptop Fan Speed Control?

[dodger46]

Customer's Toshiba Equium, trying to find an intermittent freezing problem, left it running Mem Test for about 2 hours. Smelled heat, and it was running slow but successfully. Stopped test and allowed it to boot into Windows and quickly ran Speccy. Although it had been cooling down for a couple of minutes to boot, temps were sky high, 89degC or so. A few more minutes and they were back down to mid 50s. I always assumed fan control was automatically achieved by the mobo, surely not by Windows?? Someone put me right!

(Heat not the cause of the freezing as I left it running Speeccy earlier and it froze showing temps mid 50s...)

 

[anxiousinfusion]

The CPU fan is most certainly controlled by the motherboard. Unless, of course, you're using third party software (which would be unusual for CPU).

 

[dodger46]

That's what I thought, was merely running Memtest 86 from an old UBCD, so don't understand why it got so hot. I'm running a HDD test from the same CD and it's as cool as a cucumber....

 

[C12Friedman]

Laptop heat issues are far too common. There are a lot of videos on disassembling whatever laptop to clean the heatsinks real well (#1 reason for laptop overheating - dustbunnies) You can blow compressed air through the vents but it is usually not effective if the dustbunnies are larger. The best way is to disassemble and clean.
If, after cleaning, there are still heat issues, it may be that the fan has died and replacement of the HSF would be needed. I have found that laptop fans tend not to die in quite the same manner as fullsize fans, they tend to slow down becoming less and less effective - I think that is what is happening (again, that could be caused by dustbunnies also) since it is taking more time than it should to cool.
Summary: Take apart and clean (but replacing the HSF may be required)

 

[dodger46]

Laptop heat issues are far too common. There are a lot of videos on disassembling whatever laptop to clean the heatsinks real well (#1 reason for laptop overheating - dustbunnies) You can blow compressed air through the vents but it is usually not effective if the dustbunnies are larger. The best way is to disassemble and clean.
If, after cleaning, there are still heat issues, it may be that the fan has died and replacement of the HSF would be needed. I have found that laptop fans tend not to die in quite the same manner as fullsize fans, they tend to slow down becoming less and less effective - I think that is what is happening (again, that could be caused by dustbunnies also) since it is taking more time than it should to cool.
Summary: Take apart and clean (but replacing the HSF may be required)

Agreed, but, it's inconsistent! I'm well used to stripping and cleaning (esp HP TX2000s...) and this one did improve a little with the customary blow-out of the fan compartment, staying in the 60s under full load. Don't understand the overheating when running Mem test, can only guess the fan must have stopped, but the test carried on! Apart from the freezing it's decided to only boot when on battery, can't get my head round that one either. A/C adapter voltage perfect... Think i'll be advising a replacement...

 

[dodger46]

To add insult to injury it will boot on battery power and instantly freezes when A/C adapter plugged in... re-checked O/P volts from Adapter, 19.56 V and its rated at 19V 3.85A. Difficult to check under load though. Do I waste more money on replacing the adapter, or could it be some quirk in the charging cct. Aaaagh!

 

[dodger46]

Well, answered my own question regards the adapter, found an old Acer one with a similar DC jack, same result. Advice to customer - keep it well charged and don't use for more than a couple of hours or look for a new one...

 

[dodger46]

Best answer selected by dodger46.