Laptop fan not on 24/7?

[tw0four]

I tried on but not much help. Ill try here. I bought one of thoes Gateway 450sx4 laptops along with my friend. We have both been noticing that the cpu fan is not always on. It only turns on when it gets REALLY hot or when we play a game or something 3d based. I checked the bios. Underclocked the CPU and turned everything down so it would use less power. Anyone know anything else or a way to keep the CPU fan ON? I'm going to buy a laptop cooler soon. I cant seem to figure out TM1 and it does have speedstep or something like that.

 

[MDE]

It'll only kick on when the system gets too hot because a constantly turning fan uses power. My laptop and every laptop I've used do the same thing.

 

[tw0four]

i know that I want it to stay on 24/7

 

[bearxor]

I'm not sure if it works on Gateway laptops, but there is a program called I8KFANGUI that lets you control the speed of your fans and such, and it will let you run the fan all the time if you want. Maybe an equivalent program exsits for Gateway notebooks, or maybe it will work for gateway laptop regardless. Worth the download to see I suppose.

 

[Trippytiger]

Why do you want your fan to run constantly? That's usually considered a bad thing by most people.

 

[imported_Kensai]

Originally posted by: Trippytiger
Why do you want your fan to run constantly? That's usually considered a bad thing by most people.

It will keep the system the coolest, enhancing the life of the components.

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: Kensai

Originally posted by: Trippytiger
Why do you want your fan to run constantly? That's usually considered a bad thing by most people.

It will keep the system the coolest, enhancing the life of the components.

Also makes the laptop louder and can cause premature fan death.

 

[Mike01]

Also makes the laptop louder and can cause premature fan death.

Which in turn will cause premature laptop death.

Laptop cases are small and tight. Even a small amount of dust can foul things up. The longer the fan is on, the mure dust is sucked in, contributing to eventual fan failure.

You do not want the fan on all the time.

 

[tw0four]

O well i tryed and the same thing happened at hard. I just wanted an answer not you b/s about my hardware or what you think. thanks bearxor for trying to help. It helped a little

 

[corkyg]

Laptop fans are well designed and controlled to only run when needed. Some brands do have downloadable programs that will over ride the terhmal controls and make then run - but really, that's not a good idea.

Most laptop owners complain when their fans run at all!

You might want to get a cooling pad to set your laptop on.

CoolEgg

 

[DaWhim]

I hate it when the fan runs.

 

[Mike01]

O well i tryed and the same thing happened at hard. I just wanted an answer not you b/s about my hardware or what you think. thanks bearxor for trying to help. It helped a little

Hey, that's cool. But next time, do me a favor, and prequalify your question with:

"You shouldn't care about my hardware, I'm an as@#&*^$ and I deserve whatever I get. Just answer my question directly and without qualifications, even if I ask 'what is the easiest way to electrocute myself with my laptop?'."

Otherwise, you may want to keep in mind that you are not the only one for whom this question is being answered. Many people actually search the forum for answers to previously asked questions, so an answer given to any individual is read by many.

I don't really give a damn what you do with your laptop, but a responsible poster will always provide a word of caution with an answer if the answer is possibly harmful to the equipment of anyone that reads the forum, so drop the attitude.

The following is not for you tw0four, but for people who actually want to know:

People designed laptop fans to cycle on and off for a reason, and one of them is power consumption. Laptop fans are not designed to run all the time, so must provide rapid cooling in a short period of time. They must be powerful.

A 12v micro fan (probably a lot weaker than most laptop CPU fans) will typically consume less than 100 milliamps per hour. That's about 1 amp every 10 hours, or 1/10th of an amp hour. Running the fan continuosly for 3 hours on a 4.4Ahr battery consumes .3 Ahrs, or 7% of your battery power, which is 12 minutes (based on a 3 hour battery life, which then become 2 hours 48 minutes).

Since some processror require more powerful fans, actual power usage may be considerably higher, cutting your battery life by 20 minutes or more (2 hours and 30 to 40 minutes).

The biggest reason not to run the fan all the time is fan life. Ball bearing fans are long lived, but a lot of manufacturers use cheap nasty sleeve bearing fans, which all fail with time (some of them within a few dozen hours of life). If your fan fails, your CPU overheats within minutes, and permament damage is likely. If it is not turned off an no safety device shuts it down (is there even such a thing?) you are out one laptop CPU (and maybe GPU and MB).

Leave the running of the fan the way it was designed (execpt you tw0four, you sould run yours all the time in the dustiest place you can find).

 

[KevinH]

Originally posted by: Kensai

Originally posted by: Trippytiger
Why do you want your fan to run constantly? That's usually considered a bad thing by most people.

It will keep the system the coolest, enhancing the life of the components.

I've owned 20+notebooks over 10 years. I've never, ever, ever haed an issue with stock note book fans not being able sufficiently cool a notebook to the degree that components will have premature deaths.

 

[jdiddy]

I owned a Gateway 450sx4 and those things sucked up dust more then any other laptop I have ever owned. Luckily its easy to acess the cpu fan. Its right under the keyboard nothing that some compressed air and maybe a qtip won't fix.