*HP 2510p Owners Lounge*

Update: newmodeus caddy review with new contoured and texture matched faceplate. See

Comparison: ebay versus newmodeus 9.5mm sata-to-pata and pata caddy​

 

Great comparison, you do amazing work with keeping this thread updated and informative!


Right now, I'm trying to lower the fan noise. I'm sensitive, I used to have a completely passive Dell Latitude X1 but gave it up for performance reasons. My CPU temps are 52-56 centigrades as read by CoreTemp during normal use (browsing, messaging, mp3 playing in background) and this makes the fan speed up noticably. Fan goes to acceptable levels when temp goes down to 50-51 degrees.

Here's what I've done so far:
- Cleaned out all the dust and gunk from inside the fan (made a world of difference)
- Reseated the heatsink with Arctic Silver 5
- I have the laptop on a Zalman Notebook Cooler, though it's turned off it provides some more clearance and air
- Reduced overclock to 1400 MHz to allow for undervolting all multipliers to 0.962V (minimum) with CrystalCPUID
- Removed some (about half) of the bars covering fan intake and exhaust for better airflow
- Place for 1.8" HD is empty, no HD to add heat to CPU area
- Adjusted power settings (Power State 5-100%, Passive cooling policy)
- Adjusted BIOS settings regarding fan

Additional ideas:
- Increase clearance under laptop to improve airflow
- Try to find new, better thermal pads to use for the graphics chip (I re-used the old one)
- Perhaps research how to change the fan speed temp tresholds (bit out of my league)

Any more ideas?

(And a big THANKS to you, whoever you are, who gave me the rep power. It's really nice to know that it gets appreciated when putting together guides and stuff! )

 

INFO: Almost silent fan using a custom ACPI dsdt table

The fan can be quietened to almost silent operation for most normal admin activity with process below. This will also decrease power consumption and ever so slightly improve battery life.

I've had a look at the 2510P default DSDT table, my analysis finding a reason why there is unnecessary fan noise: - XP boots up, fan on between 0-30% rotation speed - When cpu temps hit 60 degrees fan goes into a noisy 50% speed - Once temps fall back to 50 degrees the fan quietens to 30% speed	dsdt_disassembled.dsl (original - 50% fan speed) fan_30pct.dsl (low load) fan_40pct.dsl (medium load) Name(C3A4, Package(0x6) // fan spd { 0x64, // 100% 0x5A, // 90% 0x46, // 70% 0x32, // 50% 0x1E, // 30% 0x0 // 0% }) { 0x64, // 100% 0x46, // 70% 0x37, // 55% 0x1E, // 30% 0x14, // 20% 0x00 }) { 0x64, // 100% 0x46, // 70% 0x37, // 55% 0x28, // 40% 0x1E, // 30% 0x00 })

The problem I'm seeing is with warm ambient temperatures my system's cpu goes > 60 degrees then temps never get down to 50 degrees for the fan to slow to 30% mode. They hover at 51-52 degrees with fan spinning at a loud 50%. One not so practical solution to quieten it down again is to lift the system to allow fresh cool air to enter in the fan vent.

The better solution? After experimenting with trip points and different fan speeds I found the simplest fix is to set the 50-70 degree fan to rotate at a slower 40% or 30% as shown in RED. Now 70 degrees triggers a 55% fan mode and dropping to 60 degrees goes back to 40% or 30% mode.

With a 40% fan the system will now sit around 56-60 degrees under same warm ambient temps doing basic web surfing in Win7. This is OK since the CPU tjmax=100 degrees and only a low hum can be heard. The slower fan speed also means less current draw providing a small battery life improvement.

XP/Vista/Win7 installation instructions for quiet_fan modified DSDT table

1/ Boot into your XP/Vista/Win7 OS you want to alter fan operation for.
2/ Download 2510P-dsdt-quiet-fan-V4.rar
3/ Extract to c:\dsdt
4/ 'cmd' into c:\dsdt
5. run 'fan_30pct' (30%) or 'fan_40pct' (40%) depending on your preferred fan speed. It will report "Table overloading succeeded" indicating this dsdt is loaded in the registry successfully.
5/ Reboot system and enjoy quieter operation.

-> Run 'unload.bat' to undo this change and revert back to original bios ACPI dsdt able. If you get a BSOD on reboot hit F8 and select "Last Good Menu".

Should I use 30 or 40 percent fan rotation?

- fan_30pct is for less loaded systems and will give a quieter system. Eg: WinXP or Win7 without Aero. I've set XP and Linux to use this as the default using a fan_30pct modded bios, both of which only run 2D graphics.

- fan_40pct is for more loaded systems with a slightly noiser fan to keep temps lower. Eg: Win7+Aero, or XP systems running multiple USB devices and a HDD. The Aero interface activates 3D acceleration which raises temps. I'm using this for my Win7 installation as it keeps the average temps lower so the noisier 55% fan at 70 degrees is triggered less frequently.

Linux instructions to install the same modified dsdt table are here.

Prefer to have an altered DSDT table in your bios instead?

Can flash a modded_bios with the same changes to the DSDT table as shown above BUT are in the bios instead. Means no need to do any Windows or Linux DSDT overrides.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Changelog

(10-29-10) V4: fan speeds altered as recommended by e&i

 

This is unbelievably awesome work. I'm at work now but will try this as soon as I get home! THANKS!

EDIT: Applied it and it works. Fan doesn't ramp up as eagerly and temps are still OK. I get 60 and some degrees if I stress the system, but temp stays well below 60 during normal use and fan keeps quiet. Great job and thanks again!!!

 

The link to 2510P-dsdt-quiet-fan.rar seems broken. I too would like to turn my fan down/off

TudorLaptop

 

I am being a bit dim now. I have (now) downloaded the 251-p-dsdt-quiet-far.rar file and know where it is. I do not understand how to load.bat. I did do cmd and run and load.bat. Can I have more explicit instructions? Do I have to put the path into the cmd line?
Thanks
TudorLaptop

 

Run CMD, go to the directory you extracted the files to, run 'load.bat'. It's final completion message will say "Table overriding successful" alerting you that the modified DSDT table is now loaded in the registry. Just need to then reboot the system and enjoy the quieter fan.

 

Sorry,

Went to run and then CMD, changed directory to the one containing the .rar file then typed load.bat after the prompt... I get the message that load.bat is not recognised as an external or internal command or batch file

Tudorlaptop

 

You'll need to install winrar to extract the files from the compressed 2510P-dsdt-quiet-fan.rar file to a directory. 'CMD' into the extracted directory and run 'load.bat' as described in my previous post.

 

I never bothered with going into command prompt, I just extracted the files, double-clicked load.bat and then rebooted. But I am running Tiny7 and I think this OS lets me run all processes as Administrator as default, without any nagging questions. One of many things I like with this OS, it assumes I actually knows what I'm doing instead of the other way around...

Nando4, when studying your modified table, I reacted to your last temp threshold. Assuming I understood the table correctly, 95 degrees seems awful high for the full-speed threshold, as original is 70 degrees. Maybe 80 degrees would be more safe? I know the tjmax is 105 degrees, but at this last point in the fan table I prefer safe rather than sorry... =) The difference would probably only be academic for us with healthy fans since we won't see those temps anyway, but for someone with a fan full of gunk it might be a life-saver. What do you think?

EDIT: Thanks for the update, feels safer now!

I cannot express how extremely pleased I am with this mod, it really made the 2510p quiet. Though I am sensitive, the fan is not disturbing any more. Both thumbs up!