Hello All I have swapped out the stock HDDs in both my laptops for SSDs. On battery, the machines run silently except under load but as soon as I plug them into the mains, the fans kick off and stay on. I've updated the BIOS on both machines, changed the (minimalist) fan auto/low settings there and tinkered with the Windows power settings (min CPU state, system cooling policy) as per the instructions from elsewhere on the net, but this behaviour persists whatever I do. I've also checked the heatsink and fan for dirt on both machines. Is there anything else I can try? It's just interesting that this is on both machines but only with the SSDs installed - if I swap back the HDDs, the fans are far more passive. Toshiba Satellite with OCZ Vertex. Samsung Q330 with Intel X-25. Also - I now have the 'Consider replacing your battery' problem on the Toshiba (3 years old) and continual mis-reporting of battery time remaining on the Samsung (1 year old). Thanks philby
Perhaps there might be some troubleshooting steps revealed through the Windows 7 power efficiency report: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/7638/use-powercfg-in-windows-7-to-evaluate-power-efficiency/
Hi axial and thanks for your reply I've generated an energy report on the Samsung - no errors and I only get the warning about the wireless adaptor's power policy being set to max. Hmm...! Could it be that some power-related settings somewhere in the hardware of these laptops are optimised for mechanical drives and are inappropriate in some way for SSDs? philby
If I were having this problem I'd comb through the forums on SilentPCReview, as those folks are great at understanding how to keep stuff quiet and yet achieve good performance: http://www.silentpcreview.com I wonder whether your laptops need updated drivers and chipset information to deal with an SSD, I can well imagine that some power-related settings would be influenced by whether the drivers and/or O/S actually recognize that an SSD is installed, and if they don't recognize it they might set the fan speeds to max just as a default. aha -- I knew I'd seen a similar issue, it's probably this issue: http://superuser.com/questions/301078/ssd-interfering-with-fan-speed-control
Good of you to dig that up! I've been checking for Intel firmware releases frequently for the X-25 on the Samsung, and I'm current, with revision 2CV102M3. As far as I know, all other drivers are up to date, if Device Manager / Samsung website are to be believed... Not sure how I can find out what is driving the fans in order to lower some setting or other - there's absolutely nothing in the BIOS I can tinker with on this machine... I've been sitting here for 2 hours and fan is constant - pulling the mains gives me about a ten minute reprieve of absolute silence (maintaining only TBird and IE open) before the fan is constant again. philby
