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FAN ON TM 8104 ALWAYS ON(except on battery)

post #1 of 16
5/21/05 at 3:15pm
Thread Starter 
Hi I am just wondering I have an acer travelk mate 8104 and i have two problems
-The fan is always on no matter the temperature of the cpu(normally 35),is not on at full blast but is very annoying,The noise goes away as soon as i have the laptop running on battery power.Is there anyway to solve this.
-Noise coming out from the laptop kind of high pitch noise whinning noise very annoying as well but i turn on the bluetooth and most of the noise goes away again please is there away to solve this?
Thanks for the help
Bye
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post #2 of 16
5/22/05 at 4:13pm

Fan noise

The fan noise on Acer is normal. The fan seems to turn off when on battery mode. The whinning noise seems to be a problem Ive read about under Acer section in laptops and reviews I think and it seems to be common although I havent encountered it yet. This is my second 8104 within a week.
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post #3 of 16
5/22/05 at 5:31pm
It seems like with 3C11 version of BIOS TM8104 has fan mostly off while on AC. Fan turns on only when CPU temperature rises above certain level (47 degrees, I guess) and then turns off when temperature drops below 42 degrees or so. When on, fan is working full speed.

That behavior changed in all subsequent BIOS versions: fan is always on about half-speed when on AC. Probably goes full-speed under heavy load. 3C17, 3C19, and recent 3C22 versions definitely work this way. This is exactly the reason I'm staying on 3C11. But if you use ezDock, you need to upgrade BIOS anyway - there were several fixes reagrding ezDock in latest BIOS versions.
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post #4 of 16
5/22/05 at 5:56pm

Fan noise

Can you please guide on how to change or upgrade BIOS. Above all how do I check which BIOS version I have
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post #5 of 16
5/22/05 at 6:56pm
Everest (former Aida32) or Sandra software will show you the BIOS version in Windows. Alternatively, just press F2 at the bootup screen and the BIOS version is shown on the first screen in BIOS settings.

If your laptop did not come with 3C11, you are probably out of luck - Acer have not put 3C11 on their FTP.

Flashing BIOS in Windows is done with WinFlash/WinPhlash - should be on the drivers CD or easily downloadable (together with new BIOS versions) from Acer support site.
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post #6 of 16
5/22/05 at 8:08pm

Fan

Thanks
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post #7 of 16
5/22/05 at 9:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by chusky
Hi I am just wondering I have an acer travelk mate 8104 and i have two problems
-The fan is always on no matter the temperature of the cpu(normally 35),is not on at full blast but is very annoying,The noise goes away as soon as i have the laptop running on battery power.Is there anyway to solve this.
-Noise coming out from the laptop kind of high pitch noise whinning noise very annoying as well but i turn on the bluetooth and most of the noise goes away again please is there away to solve this?
Thanks for the help
Bye
The ONLY fan of Acer 8104 cools down the CPU as well as the GPU. When you aren't gaming try setting the GPU on "Balanced" from PowerPlay. It should make a difference.

The temperature of your CPU looks incredible. Mine stays between 45 and 55 when I'm not gaming. Never seen it below 40 (except immediately after the laptop wakes up from stand-by).

Cheers,
_EnF_
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post #8 of 16
5/23/05 at 7:39am
Hi "If your laptop did not come with 3C11, you are probably out of luck - Acer have not put 3C11 on their FTP"
I believe it is possible to use the backup bios created by WinPhlash on the same laptop running the 3C11 version. I've done it successfully with my 1801 and upgraded the bios with version 3.70, also not available for download yet.
ChrisC
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post #9 of 16
5/23/05 at 8:15am
Please can you guid as im not too techno and dont want to ruin my system. The fan is annoying me also. Ive been to Acer website and looked at the BIOS downloads but cant figure out which one to download. IS IT AS SIMPLE AS DOWNLOADING THE BIOS AND INSTALLING
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post #10 of 16
5/23/05 at 4:32pm
Ok, you need someone who has this bios on the same laptop, then you get them to create and send you the backup bios that can be created by WinPhlash, you then use Winphlash to update your bios from this file.....
ChrisC
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post #11 of 16
5/23/05 at 5:46pm
Thanks chriscatt
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post #12 of 16
5/23/05 at 6:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by chriscatt
Ok, you need someone who has this bios on the same laptop, then you get them to create and send you the backup bios that can be created by WinPhlash, you then use Winphlash to update your bios from this file.....
ChrisC
When runnig WinPhlash to flash older BIOS, you need to go to advanced options and uncheck "Only flash BIOS if newer ..." or some such item.
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post #13 of 16
5/23/05 at 11:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by EnF70
The ONLY fan of Acer 8104 cools down the CPU as well as the GPU. When you aren't gaming try setting the GPU on "Balanced" from PowerPlay. It should make a difference.
I've seen this posted before and tried setting my Radeon to "balanced" to see if my fan would ever shut off and it didn't work that way, the fan still kept running indefinately. I'm on bios 3c19. The fan doesn't bother me, its just soft white noise in fact its fairly soothing. But, I just wanted to bring up that this "balanced" fix is not a cure-all.
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post #14 of 16
5/24/05 at 7:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThousandKnives
I've seen this posted before and tried setting my Radeon to "balanced" to see if my fan would ever shut off and it didn't work that way, the fan still kept running indefinately. I'm on bios 3c19. The fan doesn't bother me, its just soft white noise in fact its fairly soothing. But, I just wanted to bring up that this "balanced" fix is not a cure-all.
It definitively works for me!
I'm with the stock 3C17 bios.
I have Catalyst 5.4 with Control Panel. (the Control Center "balanced" option doesn't work and CC sucks big time anyway).

On "balanced" or "optimal battery", the CPU temp. goes up to 55C, the fan starts and when it reaches 45C it stops.
On "Optimal performance", same thing, the CPU goes to 55C, the fan starts but only manages to cool it down to 47C which is not enough for the fan to stop.

The CPU and the GPU are connected internally through the same heat dissipation element and the GPU temp. indirectly influences the CPU temp.

Now, I think it also depends on the ambient temperature.
Mine is pretty stable at around 24C.

And there is another thing. I have used MobileMeter and measured the battery discharge rate (idle CPU). On "balanced" is around 14-15W and on "optimal performance" is around 21-22W.
So, an extra 7W the fan needs to cope with.

Apart from this setting (PowerPlay "balanced") and the CPU running at 800MHz (ePowerManager "medium" - I think) I don't know what other differences are between AC power and battery mode.
So, the behaviour of the fan on AC power with these settings should be same as the one on battery.

Cheers,
_EnF_
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post #15 of 16
7/22/05 at 4:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by chusky
-Noise coming out from the laptop kind of high pitch noise whinning noise very annoying as well but i turn on the bluetooth and most of the noise goes away again please is there away to solve this?
I read about this high pitch noise problem and since people said it only started once they enabled bluetooth, I thought "well I just won't ever enable mine, unless I really need it". But then today I accidentaly hit the BT button, and as Murphy never fails, my notebook starting making a very annoying noise when BT is turned off. When I turn BT on most of it goes away, but not all of it (I'd say it reduces by 90%).

So, is there any decent solution for this problem?
Anything I should uninstall or disable, for example, so the notebook returns to the state it was before I enabled BT for the first time?
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post #16 of 16
8/25/05 at 6:49pm

Fan on

I had the same problem few weeks ago: when in AC mode, the fan would turn on when temperature reached 50º, and it would turn off after dropping to 40º. That was quite annoying, because the fan was nearly always on... In DC mode, fan was off most of the time.

After trying everything I found on the internet, I discovered PowerPlay: you can set up different configuration for DC or AC modes, and default config was "Max Performance" for AC, and "Balanced" for DC. When in Max performance, GPU gets really hot, so fan turns on earlier, that is why fan is always on. When in Balanced or "Max Battery", GPU consumption is lower, so there is need for fan...

That has worked for me, though I had to reinstall ATI drivers (with PowerPlay) because it got corrupted (dont ask me how...). I hope it is helpful for you.
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