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NX6110 fan Q

post #1 of 20
5/9/05 at 5:07am
Thread Starter 
Hi, I just got an HP nx6110 laptop w/ 1.4 CeleronM processor. I noticed that the fan is constantly on, do you know if it's supposed to be this way?

ANy suggestions?
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post #2 of 20
5/9/05 at 10:41am
I think since it is a Celeron M(without the power saving and the Speedstep properties of a Pentium M) the fans have to run continuously.
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post #3 of 20
5/9/05 at 11:20am
Thread Starter 
I guess you're right.
What's strange though is that the fan starts right from boot up, and so the laptop doesn't even get warm, I see a lot of room for more relaxed cooling strategy. Even my desktop P4 based laptop turns off the fans about 30% of the time (but that one has a huge radiator inside hehe).
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post #4 of 20
5/10/05 at 1:43pm
Heck i would do anything to get the fans in my P4 3GHZ 800fsb laptop run all the time at full blast! (zv5240)... Also there is ALWAYS a factory service menu that can be accessed with HP products, yes even their PDA's... I have found most of the menus in my HP stuff but not in my zv5240...

Normally its like Fn+Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F* like on a PDA or like Fn+Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F*+Power on some laptops... they are almost all different! I havent tried to find it that hard on my laptop but need too...

In some service menus on laptops you have change fan speeds, cpu clock speeds, memory clock speeds, some will let you change serial numbers on the laptops BIOS but that normally requires a disk that HP has locked up (You run the disk in another computer to get a password to use in the service menu)... There are all kinds of nice options...

If you find the menu for your laptop let us know, its a rare thing for someone to figure it out on new systems...
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post #5 of 20
5/10/05 at 4:30pm
Thread Starter 
Hey, that's interesting, one problem though, I already did a clean installation of non HP branded WindowsXP and skipped most of their software (except drivers). I probably whiped out the service menu in the process. Unless it's a BIOS menu that we're talking about here?
But there is one fan setting in the BIOS right now: keep fans on when not on battery. Seems pretty useless in my case since that fan is always on no matter what
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post #6 of 20
5/10/05 at 6:16pm
The service menu is a lot like the bios and in fact in most cases its on the bios chip so can you cant really wipe it out...

The only difference is that the service menu is hidden and is something HP doesnt want end users in. There are a lot of settings inside it including ones that will run diag's on all parts...
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post #7 of 20
5/11/05 at 7:45am
Thread Starter 
It looks like my issue with the fan is a real problem indeed, I found this thread yesterday at the HP support forums.

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/f...hreadId=853249
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post #8 of 20
5/11/05 at 11:36am
I was reading all that and it did say that the trip points can be changed...

You may want to find out if you can change that...
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post #9 of 20
5/12/05 at 12:31am
Trip points can not be 'changed' by the end user.

They are hard-coded in the bios.

Andy (the person that said he was looking into changing them) works for compaq (hp) and is dealing directly with engineers who have the access to modify the hardcoded values in the bios and re-release them.

As such, the only way to get a resolution to this is to get the case escalated by Hp, or just buy a different system.

With the nc6000, Hp had problems with the fans -never- coming on (causing a few systems to burn -sticker on bottom of keyboard caught on fire on mine). As such, apparently they have become too conservative with fan opperations at this stage.

The celeron M -should not- require the fan to -always- be on except in poorly designed situations.

The temperature information posted over at Hp's forums should clarify that.
---
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post #10 of 20
5/12/05 at 2:14am
The trip points cannot be changed by most users... I think that it would be possible to mod the bios... I'm still looking into doing this on a laptop but i was able to it on an Intel desktop mainboard... I wanted the auto fan control to put the fans at full when zones 1/2 hit 38c... anyways it worked out fine but if i ever upgrade my bios i have to mod the bios again...
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post #11 of 20
5/14/05 at 9:32am
yes ,i'm from China. my laptop is nx6120 ,too.the fan comes on when i power on laptop.i think this bug need engineers mod the bios.
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post #12 of 20
5/14/05 at 11:47am
Well I will mod my BIOS because HP told me that they wont help me, (Even when i told them that the company i work for would stop buying HP products, and we buy a lot of them... They said they didnt think that would be my choice... (I'm the IT Manager Though)... Anyways they dont care...)

I can do one for my laptop but because i dont have others i cant make one for anything other than the zv5240 and select systems....
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post #13 of 20
5/14/05 at 12:55pm
StriderT, I own a NX6110 Celeron M 350, same problem here.

Either on battery or on AC power, the fan is always on, and the noise is very disturbing for me as I like working in silence. I only hope that HP will come up with a fix for that issue.
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post #14 of 20
5/18/05 at 2:09am
Is there any third party solution. AFAIK, Dell has a "i8kfangui" program written by a Dell fan. Does HP has similar programs?
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post #15 of 20
5/18/05 at 11:14am
I have never seen anyone be able to change the fan speeds in an HP laptop & I've been using them for years...

It makes me wonder if they are even plugged into the systemboard... Because for most HP laptops it has a fan assembly that has the sensors on it & everything + you cant read those sensors...
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post #16 of 20
5/18/05 at 12:30pm
have personally tested Speedfan and Centrino Control Center on the NX6110, and none is able to control the fan speed, nor has effect on the temp threshold where the fan starts.

Am following closely the thread on the HP official forum. Let's see what HP will come up with...
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post #17 of 20
5/20/05 at 5:46pm
Thread Starter 

My conclusion

As of yet HP has not released a BIOS fix, It may happen in another month or sooner, or we will see

I have identified TWO issues with the fan/cooling solution in the nx6110 / nc6210 models, here they are:
No 1.
The fan is always on.
Reason: for the fan to turn off, the CPU temp. must drop down to 40C. The actual achievable temp is 48C (accept just after you boot in which case it will start at about 45C).
Problem: trip point set too low (40C to turn off and 45 it turns on = always on).

No 2.
The fan will suddenly switch to higher gear.
Reason: you just hit 100% CPU usage e.g. you started a setup program , you smooth-scrolled a web page and so on. The fan will quickly cool the CPU back to 50C (from 55C), and continue at slow speed.
Problem: the thermal capacity of the heatsink is low, almost too low, any sudden intense CPU task will cause a temperature spike = second trip point for the fan.

That was just for the record. Now the good:
- The first fan speed is VERY quiet and pleasent to listen too. (HAHA but it's true ). It is impossible to hear it outside a totally quiet room. The second speed is OK too. The third (can be reached if you start a 3D game and play for quite some time) is not so bad (not a jet engine anyway )

- This model has many, many other good features going for it, which are not the topic of this thread.

Case closed!
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post #18 of 20
5/31/05 at 6:49pm
Case closed for you if you can bear the fan noise, but not for many other HP customers, see recent posts on the official HP forum.

Most people agree that the first trip point set to 40 C is too low.

BTW, still no fix as of today.
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post #19 of 20
9/2/05 at 4:38pm

no fan of the fan

Just to add to the noise in this thread, I am also driven to near insanity by the noise produced by the system fan on my two day old NX6110. Sure, not as noisy as my old Presario notebook, but even the fan on that old workhorse wasn't always on!
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post #20 of 20
2/24/06 at 3:35pm
Hello. Sorry to dig up this thread once more. I am currently considering to buy this laptop (HP nx6110) and I just wanted to know from you, the users which own such a machine, if there are other problems other than the fan.

The fan issue seems bearable to me and the price is more than acceptable. Advices, a quick review perhaps, please?
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