Dell Inspiron 6400/1505 fan activity?

Hi there!

Since I am contemplating to acquire said Dell system but am undecided whether to get the onboard graphics option (GMA 950) or a discrete ATI solution (X1400) would greatly appreciate your help. A quiet system is everything to me. After I found a (German) review that vaguely suggests that in the less powerful system the fan constantly remains off while doing light office chores while in the more powerful system it constantly runs at a very slow speed, I am very much inclined to go for the internal solution IFF what they describe is true. It would certainly suffice to state which system you own and comment on fan activity. So, could you please comment on that? You would be of great help, indeed. Thanks in advance!

Henry

 

Oh, come on please. This is really important to me and someone out there must own such a system and be able to help me.

 

there's a lot of factors that come into play such as your level of activity, your internal specs, where you're using the machine, etc.

in all honesty, and not to belittle your concerns, but this really shouldn't be a deciding factor when making a computer purchase. there are so many utilities that you can use to control your voltage, your clock speed, your fan speed, your temperature threshholds, etc. that it's really a non-issue.

 

I have been working with computers for more than 20 years and have a condition that makes me very sensible to sound and noise. Please let me assure you that this a key issue for me and way more important than e.g. power. I was hoping to get real user experiences here since you cannot listen to a DELL system in advance. Instead I was told in a patronising way my concern was really "a non issue". What am I to make out of that?

Posting your experiences with YOUR systems while doing light work would totally suffice.

 

E1505, T2300, 1GB, 60GB HD, Integrated Graphics.

I can barely hear the fan using it for web browsing, office apps or playing simple games (Hoyle card games, etc.). I manually set the fan(s) to high with Speedfan and it was a bit noisy, but that was the only time I've ever hear the fan go that high.

Dave

 

hi
i have a dell inspiron 6400 with this specs:
cpu core 2 dou 2 ghz
1 gb ram
nvidia 7300 go
120 gb hard
when i play games like fifa pro evolution 6 the fan work high all the time and when i play nfs carbon it starts working with high speed in even main menus of the game and after a few seconds laptop automatically shuts down because of overheating.i wanted to know if it's possible to chaneg fan speed to a higher level.now it's shigher speed is 4100 rpm.
Is there any other way(except changing the fans speed)to reduce the extra heat?
tanx

 

The bottom can get a little warm. I got the Targus Chill Mat and it stays really cool even under high usage. Also the Chill Mat is extremely light. When I picked it up I wasn't sure if it was actually in the package. I highly recommend it.

 

What I think drumfu means, and not to put words in his mouth, is that you can adjust various voltages, speeds and fan settings so that the fan is not on as often or for as long. I owned an e1505 (with the x1400) for some time and did not really notice any issues, but I'm not very sensitive to such things, sorry. There is a program called i8kfanGUI which will allow you to adjust the temperature thresholds at which the fan comes on. You should consider reading reviews of the e1505, the ones on this site mention heat & noise concerns.

An integrated card will obviously draw less power, therefore generating less heat. How much less, and how much difference it makes is up for debate. If you don't need the dedicated card, go for integrated graphics, especially if this is such a concern for you. Where you plan to use the computer is also important, the fans will come on much more frequently in a warmer room, while in A/C they will rarely cycle on.

Please be considerate of other's opinions, we are all posting and helping out of the kindness of our hearts (no one is paid for this)

There are other options too, applying arctic silver can lower temperatures a little as can a cooling mat/pad. They generally have fans too, so a mat perhaps will not be your best choice.

 

In "normal" use, my E1505 with X1400 has yet to fire up the fan.

It's very quiet.

The E1505 only has one fan as I understand it, so, even when I forced it on using a utility, it was not what I'd call loud. Then again, my last laptop was a Pentium 4 with some sort of hairdryer up in there to vent heat... so, even the Concorde would seem pretty quiet in comparison. lol

 

Google & try out a program called i8kfangui, it will let you force the fan to high-speed all the time. You may need to clean your vents out, they are likely dusty. Use canned air and blow them out throughly. You may want to consider a chill mat/pad or AS5.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=60914 -cooling guide

 

In my experience with my E1505 w/ x1400 core duo 1.83, the fan will just randomly kick in during normal to light tasks, such as internet browsing, litening to mp3, and microsoft word. In my opinion, and if you are as sensitive to the fan noise as you say, it will probaly get rather annoying. even when its on low, it is definately noticable to me, even over the music im playing at times. Then it will just shut off at random too. Ive also had my e1505, AS SOON as I hit the power button to turn it on after its sat for hours off, the fan just goes on at Full Speed. I have no idea why it does this, and it is rare, but has happend about 3 times since ive gotten it. And that was VERY annoying as it is Really loud when it is going full speed.

I guess this is also dependant on your environment. Im usually in a quieter setting, so it would obviously be more noticable.

 

In the three weeks or so that I've had my E1505, the fan has yet to kick on high. Including gaming such as The Sims 2, GTA: VC, GTA: MW, SimCity 4 Deluxe for several hours. Not too demanding of games, but I have everything turned up as high as they'll go without the game lagging.

 

What BIOS? I'm on A09 and there's no fan, even while gaming.

 

Edit: ok, my bad. My fan does come on, but it's very quiet. I've been using my laptop near a desktop, and I could not hear the fan over the desktop.

It's coming on what I would consider to be low or normal speed, and I'd be hard pressed to say that it's "loud" by any means.