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V2020 fan beeping on idle

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V2020 fan beeping on idle

Postby danielo » Sun Nov 01, 2009 1:15 pm

Hi!

I have a 5 yrs old Amilo Pro V2020 that makes a quite annoying beeping-sound, which I think comes from the fan/cpu-area, easpecially noticable when the fan is not active. Sometimes it is a continuing sound, sometimes it is more staccato, like a modem sound or something, but it is always the same tone/frequency. Not very loud, but still, very annoying!

Any idea what this might be, and what I can do (if any) to prevent this? please?..

-Daniel
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Re: V2020 fan beeping on idle

Postby hikaru » Sun Nov 01, 2009 7:34 pm

So the sound disappears if you put load on the CPU?
Most likely it's the CPU's voltage converter that causes this sound. It's a known problem and unfortunately there is no reliable way to solve it. Sometimes it helps to play with the voltage settings for the CPU.
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Re: V2020 fan beeping on idle

Postby danielo » Mon Feb 15, 2010 10:59 am

Hi again!

I bring up this post again, hoping to get some more spesific answers, as I give some more spesific info :)

If I for example read a PDF-file, the fan won't spin, as the CPU is not working very hard. But, this beeping will be present (continously). Then if I scroll a bit up and down in the document, the beeping disappears as long as I keep scrolling, and then comes back immediatly as I stop the scrolling..
If I scroll up and down until the fan goes on, and then stops, the beeping comes back, but is of course less audible because of the fan-noise..

hikaru wrote:Sometimes it helps to play with the voltage settings for the CPU.

-How can this be done? Any specific program you would recommend?

-Thanks for all your help :)
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Re: V2020 fan beeping on idle

Postby hikaru » Mon Feb 15, 2010 11:29 am

Your PDF example confirms my suspection. As long as you only read it there is no need to power up the CPU. When you start to scroll through the PDF there is some load on the CPU which means that the voltage will be increased. This stops the noise or at least shifts it to an inaudible frequency.

Assuming that you use Windows I would recommend to have a look at this post for changing the CPU voltage:
http://www.amilo-forum.com/post,7473.html#p7473

If you use a unixoid OS, PHC should do what you're looking for:
http://www.linux-phc.org/
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Re: V2020 fan beeping on idle

Postby danielo » Mon Feb 15, 2010 6:36 pm

Again thank you very much :)

Now I have downloaded and installed NHC, but I haven't dared to adjust the voltages yet.. One thing that worries me is that it states on the Status tab that my CPU has a temp of 11 degrees Celsius!.. (and it is 20 something in my room). What is wrong here???

By the way I am running Windows 7, and my processor is a Pentium M 1600MHz.. (original that came with the PC)

*edit:
Now I've tried just to adjust the voltages, and hit the "Full CPU stability check"-button (haven't yet dared to hit the "set"-button), and when it runs the test it comes up with error upon error stating that my CPU will not be stable at the selected voltage. This occurs even if I leave the voltages at default, and then run the test! seems a bit strange to me.

-Can I choose any voltage I would like, slightly lower than the default ones, and just try? Or is there a formula for which one I should choose? Now I am not thinking about how to find the lowest possible or anything, just thinking about trying 1 step down from the default or something.. should that be ok?

(Thanks againg for answering my less smart questions!)
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Re: V2020 fan beeping on idle

Postby hikaru » Tue Feb 16, 2010 12:53 pm

I'm not sure what NHC reads there. 11°C is obviously wrong. I would expect something between 45 and 55°C after some minutes. Also I can't tell you what the stability check does. I would expect that it crunches some numbers and checks if the results are correct.
If you only decrease the voltage step by step it should be safe. The notebook will not hang up immediately if you went to far but it will first start to compute false results under high load. You can use Prime95 to test if the CPU still works correctly. If Prime95 is still ok after some hours you might decrease the voltage by another step.

But since your goal is not to save energy you should go in the opposite direction and increase the idle voltage a bit. This will not cause any instability. In the best case the beeping sound will stop before the CPU temperature reaches a level where the fan kicks in.
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