M4600 fan noise "issue"

[frodell]

I too have the on and off fan problem my M4600 (M950 AMD firepro)
Dell replaced the motherboard - heatsink - fan - video card.
The problem persists so it's a feature not a bug ...

I find the on and off fan (20sec off 10 second on) quite annoying when working on a quiet environment.

The two only solutions I could find so far on this forum was:
1- re-paste the CPU with some special paste called ac3
2- use a cooling pad

Is there something else?

I want to have an Nvidia video card installed in place of the AMD firepro.

[frodell]

Thats why I i put " " around the word issue, because it is not necessary an issue for everyone and have a lot to do with user's noise tolerances and cooling conditions (room temp, use of cooling pad)

Beside, if you bothered reading, in OP I did mentioned this "issue" seems to arise for those with firepro or with optimus disabled units (hence ones with IPS screen).

There is a post on this thread Firepro M5950 GPU does not idle = poor battery life from Maverick0984 saying the fan cycling issue happens with nvidia card as well.

What do you mean by IPS screen?

[frodell]

disabling "PowerPlay" helps with the on/off fan noise problem.

As indicated by other members on this thread:
Precision M4600 Owners Lounge

Based on my laptop configuration to disable powerplay:
Start Catalyst Pro Control Center
Select PowerPlay from the "Graphics" drop down menu selection located on the top left corner of the window.
Un-check the "Enable PowerPlay" check box.

[frodoz737]

Followed this thread, so issue was on the watch list when delivered. Did initial updates incl. A10 BIOS, upgraded RAM, optimized boot, installed sw, and stress test all without incident. Guess I missed that bullet. Thanks for reporting.

[withershin]

Thanks for this thread. I was losing my brain.