XPS 410 fanspeed problem

[Major7up]

I have a Dell XPS410 at work that seems to keep ramping up the cpu fan speed at times when tehre is low processor load as indicated by the taskman. I looked in the BIOS to see if there was a setting to say just use xyz speed but it only allows auto or 7500rpm which is quite noisy. Anyone have any ideas how I can either A) determine why it seems to go up and down when there is no apparent load or B) force it to be lower which I realize could be dangerous?

 

[aford10]

speedfan can control fan speeds.

 

[Major7up]

Is it free?

 

[aford10]

Yes
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

 

[Major7up]

After installing speedfan I began to experience seemingly random restarts. I am guessing at this point that I have some defective hardware somewhere and will have to test everything. At no time has there been more than 50% processor usage and everything else looks fine. I have already re-installed windows xp 4 times and keep having this same kind of problem.

 

[Major7up]

I forgot to mention (and it is important) that I was having random restarts previously but with an occurrence level of once per week or less, speedfan installation seems to have increased it to 3 times per day but I only have today's restarts to back that statistic up.

 

[aford10]

You've reinstalled windows, so speedfan was wiped out. Is it still restarting frequently now that speedfan is gone? Or did you reinstall it?

 

[Major7up]

I re-installed WinXP again and it is not restarting as frequently, but still did this morning once already. I'm not convinced it was speedfan, maybe just a bad day for the computer? I still think there is some defective hardware. Going to try another PSU, then RAM sticks and see what happens.

 

[Major7up]

Seems like it was one of the ram sticks causing the reboots. Replaced that but still have occurances from time to time where the fan speeds up when there is no usage at all. Speedfan seems to have no effect on this occuring.

 

[aford10]

Keep an eye on your task manager system processes when the fans kick on high. There may be a background process that's utilizing them.

What do your temps look like when the fans kick on higher? Idle?

 

[Major7up]

I have already done the first part...watching taskman (been keeping it open) and when the fan kicks up (usually lasting 10 seconds or less) and there is no visible spike in CPU usage. I will have to get a thermal sensor from home and bring it in to measure temp, but I would imagine that it would be nominal given what I see in taskman. I am thinking though that the best solution may be to replace the fan with one that is manually adjustable. That does make be somewhat leary though given that I do initiate processor intensive tasks from time to time (namely when I need to convert a video to flv etc). The other thing that occured to me is that maybe this could happen in response to a power spike? Since this is a work machine, we must have our machines attached to a 15 min UPS. I have noticed my mons and lights occasional flicker just for a split sec, but never at the same time as the fan thing. I doubt it but it was a thought...

 

[Major7up]

So I can end this topic, I am going to choose you as the best answer (being as you were the only one). I replaced the fan altogether and it seems to behave much better! So between that and the ram stick I think it's good now.

 

[aford10]

Glad to hear it's worked out......Thanx for the vote.