Dell Studio 1537 fan problems

Greetings people,

I have a Dell Studio 1537 (T5800 2 Ghz, Intel GMA 4500HD) bought 1 week ago as a brand new machine. I used to have Windows XP but once Windows 7 showed up thru MSDNAA (so it's totally legal, and have all the updates) I downloaded that, and using it since last September.

My problem is that, since I upgraded to Windows 7 (clean install), my fan is working too much I think. With XP I could even browse or do some minor jobs with the fan @ 0 RPM. Some weeks / months ago it became more worse, even when idle, the fan is working. I remember that at the beginning of my Windows 7 days, at idle state fan wasn't rotating.

I don't think my idle temperatures are bad (used the latest HWMonitor): right now 43-47 C for both cores, and the fan is rotating. Yesterday I disassembled the fan, cleaned the small dust from it, cleaned the processor, and used Arctic Cooling Silicone thermal paste. The temperatures became a little bit better, but fan is still working, so basically nothing changed.

Even tried undervolting via the NBR guide, without any serious effect. At max load I could cut off from 80C to 72C, yes it's a major difference, but nothing changed with the fan @ idle state.

Windows Task Manager tells me that CPU usage is between 0-2% generally at idle, so it's not a task using CPU, I think.

Does anyone have an idea why is this, and how can I fix it?

Thank you for your time!

Yours sincerely,
Adrian

 

Did you update your BIOS? Some newer Dell BIOS revisions seem to have more aggressive thermal tables that keep the fan running for longer periods of time...

You could also try messing around with i8kfangui (it should still work with the 1535/1537), though that can be a bit dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.

 

Yes, bios is the newest. I'm not sure if i8kfangui will work, tho I will give it a try (already tried SpeedFan and couldn't recognize the fan stuff. I can't even see a fan RPM in any program, like HWMonitor.)

Thanks for the reply. (A bit offtopic, what is your experience with SU processors? I was thinking about to buy a 13.3" Vostro with SU 1300Mhz, but it seemed too slow.)

 

SpeedFan isn't supposed to be able to control fans on anything but desktop boards. Even then, I think it only works on a very small selection. Usually it's just a monitoring program. Dunno if HWMonitor is actually supposed to read fan speeds either... it might.

Whether an SU processor is sufficient for your needs really just depends on what you're doing. In office work and media playback it's more than fast enough. Paired with an X4500MHD, it'll even play SCII at the lowest settings. If you actually need to do any processor-heavy work, though... it might be slow.

 

Which power plan are you currently using?

 

Tried Power saver and Balance as well. Setting the cooling policy to passive helps a bit. I just found out that setting the Intel GMA-s power plan to Maximum battery life helps a bit as well. If it's on Maximum performance, fan never stops, tho it's not loud.

My problem now is that you cannot link VGA's power plan to Windows power plan change. :S