Modifying fan controller for E6400/E6500

The fan on my E6400 runs most of the time at about 3000 rpm, I would like it to run at about 1500 rpm instead, I think 3000 rpm is quite noisy, even though it's stated as "slow".

I have this fan controller for my desktop:
http://www.zalman.co.kr/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=206

It works great and I'm able to controll the fan-speed (and noise!) manually.

I'm wondering if it would be possible to modify this fan controller for the E6400 and other laptops as well?

The Zalman Fan Mate 2 has an input of 12V and can via the knob output between 5-11V, hence the fan will run slower if it is conncected to the Zalman controller. The problem so far is that the Zalman Fan Mate 2 is built for desktops with bigger power-pins, the one in the E6400 is quite small. Secondly I'm not sure about the voltage of the built in Dell-fan.

Anyway, if someone figure out how to modify a hardware fan controller for the Dell Latitude series, I think these controllers could sell like hot cakes...

 

Try using i8kfangui. I know for sure that it can read the fan speeds, but I'm not sure if it can do fan control on the E6400. Either way, there isn't a hardware fan controller that you can buy for the E6400 or any laptop for that matter. I mean, you could in theory mod a fan controller between the fan and some motherboard voltage source, but it probably wouldn't be pretty?

 

It will make the laptop run a lot hotter. Dell engineers designed it for a reason

 

Well, 1500 rpm should be better than the fan completely off. Since I don't have the nvidia-card and my E6400 generally runs quite cool, I think it would be possible to run a stable E6400 with the fan running very low about 1500 rpm. 3000 is quite fast imho.

 

Why not just unplug the fan? That would be very quiet!

GK

 

I've tried i8kfangui, it reads fan speed. But I'm not able to control fan speed very well, if I turn the fan off the bios will turn it on again almost immediately.

I have a RJ-11 port left with no telephone-modem in my E6400, this port could instead be equipped with a small knob controlling the fan. The cable from the fan-pin and the relatively small device converting higher voltage to lower voltage could be placed easily inside the E6400 I think.

 

Have you tried this, GK? 1500 rpm must be safer than 0 rpm...

 

I've tried it on machines other than the E6400... like on chips where you can actually drop voltage below 0.8500v *cough* Pentium M *cough*

 

Nope! My E6400 is quieter than any desktop I own so I'm not concerned about it. Can't really hear the low speed... and when it does blow faster, significant heat comes out the vent so I can't see restricting that process.

Speakers suck if that makes you feel any better!

GK

 

i miss the pentium M on my inspiron 8600

when doing office tasks it dosent even come on hehe....

anyway, did you try rolling back to bios A03? the fan runs slower on that bios