acer aspire 1694wlmi mobility radeon x700 fan is always on

Firstly, x700 mobility does not have a dedicated fan.... This laptop has got only one fan, and that fan turns on when either:

1) graphic card temp gets to a certain temp (dont know which one, probably sixty-something degrees, X700 mobility does not have temp sensor) or
2) CPU temp gets to 68º (measured with centrino hardware control).

The default setting is "Max Performance" for AC Mode, and "Balanced" for battery mode (you can set whatever for either AC or battery mode). When in Max Performance mode, graphic card will get hot very quickly. It seems that simply working at high frecuencies (it doesnt matter if you are doing nothing) such as 357 MHz makes the card get really hot, and fan has to turn on to cool it ===>>> if you game or need graphic power, you will always have that annoying fan noise....

When in balanced mode or max battery mode, graphic card works at lower frecuencies (120 MHz in the second one) and it seems that card doesnt get so hot, since fan turns on later.

I have tested these situations with Centrino Hardware Control (measures CPU temp). When in Max Performance fan will turn on when CPU gets to 50º, but probably what makes the fan turn on is graphic card temp. When in Balanced or Max battery mode, fan will turn on when CPU gets to 68º (I think this is Intel specs compliant, so now probably fan is triggered by CPU temp and not by graphic card temp).

Now the CPU..... I found that even when in Max Battery mode if I just opened firefox and surfed the web CPU temp would go up to 68º quite easily. That didnt seem normal, because CPU load was quite low. I phoned Acer support, and they told me everything was OK. Obviously I did not get satisfied so I kept investigating and I found that it is possible to undervolt the CPU (some threads about that here), that is, lowering supplied power to CPU so it doesnt get so hot.

Results -> Idle temp is now 3º lower, but most important, when I surf the web o whatever, CPU will not get to 65º any more. With undervolting CPU will stay at 50-53º whatever I do (low load), and that means less heat dissipation, less battery consumption and less noise.

Now, 212121 you see what is happening: if you set up high performance frecuencies, graphic card needs cooling even if you do nothing..... And CPU needs cooling if you do barely nothing.... That means that laptop cooling (or laptop design, or ... whatever) is really bad.

I dont need graphical power since I am not a gamer or 3D software user, so setting up PowerPlay at "Max Battery" mode and undervolting the CPU I have got what I want: acceptable temps (~50º) and no noise at all.

The thing is:

1) Why does X700 mobility get so hot?? Does it happen in other laptops with the same GPU?? Is that an ATI x700 problem or an Acer problem??
2) Why does CPU get so hot when doing stupid non-CPU-loading tasks such as web surfing?? I should not need to do undervolting to get my laptop work the way it should by default.
3) Is all this Acer laptops problems??

In some threads Dell users get 33-37º idle temps (even less than 30º when undervolting), and high-load temps are quite low compared to Acer ones (i.e, Dell XPS with nvidia 6800 which is supposed to be very power consuming).

Does anybody have any explanation?? Any similar cases??

Regards,

thank u for this tip.

i was wondering why the fan is on all the time (90% of the time, even if i dont use the laptap).

after setting powerplay options on max. battery everything is working fine. fan is barley on.

when playing i have to change it manually, but thats ok.

thx again,
jido

ps: i use a acer aspire 1690 with a x700.

What is your CPU temp?? I mean, idle temp, low load temp...

I am quite suspicious about my cpu temp (idle temp around 48-50º) since I have read that some Dell laptops CPU idle temp is around 30-35º (XPS, Inspiron 6000).

Nobody with a laptop like yours has reported his CPU temp yet, so that is why I am asking you . I do not know if mi CPU temp is normal, and I want to compare before taking it to support.

thanks

my dell laptop idels around 32 c and the gpu is almost twice as fast as the x700 and it is a lot cooler running. Maybe becasue the acer design is cheaply made, which is modt likely casue the dell percision can cosr up to 4 grand