Modifying fan controller for E6400/E6500

Where can I download the A03 bios?

 

Tell me about it! I opted not to keep my Latitude XT since my undervolted Pentium M tablet was absolutely silent; even at full load the fan doesn't stay on all the time!

http://drivers.softpedia.com/progDownload/Dell-Latitude-E6400-System-BIOS-A03-Download-71347.html

 

The download page for the current BIOS has a link for Other Versions.

I need to be in a quiet room in order to hear the fan of my E6400 running at 3000rpm, and it only comes on for about 1/3rd of the time during light usage (I have the Intel GPU).

John

 

About the same here with nVidia GPU.

GK

 

Thanks, John. I had an E6500 before as mentioned in this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=326397

I'm generally much more satisfied with the E6400, it's more compact and more handy, but still with a great 1440x900 LED screen. I love the backlit keyboard, this is a great feature which I think will be standard in a lot of notebooks in the future.

I've now tried the A03 BIOS on the E6400, but no luck with less fan noise, so I'm running the A11 BIOS again.

My fan is on most of the time (~3000 rpm), still docked though and running an external monitor via DVI. Since I'm using my E6400 in a quiet room the fan noise is somehow annoying compared to my desktop PC. If it was possible to get the fan below 1500-2000 rpm I think the noise would be much more tolerable, and I don't think machine will overheat since I don't have the NVIDIA-GPU. Dell must have programmed the FAN to run a bit faster than necessary, playing safe with lots of users with lots of configurations.

Anyway, it would be great to be able to control the fan without the BIOS solely controlling it. I've tried to remove the powercord for the fan for about an hour, the machine gets quite hot... to risky to my taste. I would really like a compromise at about the half speed of 3000 rpm; ~1500 rpm. This should be slow speed in my opionion, 3000 could be medium and above 4000 fast.

 

Ah! The dock problem.

It appears, from other threads, that Dell have set the fan rules to operate more and/or faster when docked. Perhaps they consider that mroe active cooling is needed when the notebook is closed. Some heat gets dissipated by radiation and convection when a notebook is open.

Whether the dock also helps to amplify the noise is another consideration.

John

 

I initially thought the fan rules were different when docked but after numerous tests I am quite sure that the fan rules are exactly the same when docked.

However the laptop seems to get slightly warmer when docked and I believe this mainly is because (1) heat builds up with the lid closed and (2) attached devices like external monitors consume more power. One more possible reason is that more air is being drawn directly into the fan instead of through the other openings when the laptop is slightly elevated in the docking station and this may decrease the airflow on some components like chipset and memory.

If you are very close to the threshold when the fan will start (chipset 45 C) undocked it will be enough with a small increase in temperature when docked to cause the fan to start running.

Örjan

 

The infamous Fan/Dock combination as stricken again.
To the OP: Orjann and I (with much help from John above) have been trying to figure this problem out for months now.

My final conclusion?

Dell did a lousy job designing the dock. It simply does not dissipate heat well, period. They should have somehow elevated the laptop within the bay so air can circulate/escape.
Couple this problem with existing fan/heat issues within the GPU (specifically nVidia's) and you have the recipe for a relentless fan.Oh-and dont add a second monitor-you'll have a 4000 rpm fan all the time.

 

The dock base should be aluminum and/or have a large silent fan to circulate air.

 

I have a E6500 with nVidia docked with two monitors connected. The fan would be on all the time at about 3K - 3.5K.

I have downloaded the I8kfanGUI 3.1. I set the "Main operating mode" to "Automatic temperature control".

Under Options->Temperature Control I set:
Enabled Enable CPU temperature control
Enable first fane
35 - 20 = slow
45 - 35 = slow
55 - 45 = fast
65 - 55 = fast

Under Options->Display Options->Sensor updates
Internal sensor reading: 1 second
Fan setting enforcement: 10msec
Hard drive temp reading: 1 min.

My system now runs the fan at about 2.5K and is silent. Sometimes it goes up and immediately down. The BIOS tries to kick it into high every 3 seconds or so, but the software brings it down.

I am running usually between 40 and 45C for the CPU and 50 - 60 for the GPU. The difference in noise made it possible to use it without headphones.

I use it for MS Office, Web, Visual Studio Dev, etc. I don't play games on it.