How can I set the fan speed to 100% on a laptop?

Question

I recently purchased a HP Pavilion dv7-4031. When it's cool, it works smoothly and efficiently. However when CPU and GPU temperatures reach 60c and above, the PC starts freezing up and stuttering. I can hear that the fan speeds steadily increase all the way up to 70-80c. This is what pisses me off: I want the fan speeds to run 100% all the time, perhaps preventing the high temperatures in the first place. The way it is now, fan speeds only increase to keep internal temperatures at above 60c.

I've searched all over for any sort of speed control, finding nothing. Any help appreciated.

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I have tried Speedfan. In "Fans" there is nothing listed. I took that as a bad sign. The BIOS is pathetic, and only has 4 or 5 changeable settings, including "Quickstart" and "Boot order"

Answer 1

Many people complain about overheating problem with the DV7, problems that sometimes are not even solved with cooling pads or additional fans.

The solutions range is not very comprehensive :

1. Overheating Problem on Pavillion dv7-1270ca blames HP for poor design
2. HP Pavilion DV7-2070eg fan noise & CPU overheating uses direct physical contact to cool the AC unit
3. HP Pavilion Dv 7, Heat Problems claims it is a driver problem that causes the CPU to overwork. This can be easily verified using the Task Manager. In this article the Sound driver is said to be the cause.

4. HP Pavilion dv7 notebook running way too hot recommends getting from Cool Master a 3-fan cooler that can be targeted on the hot spots, as well as another much more drastic solution:

   

Answer 2

Have you ever cleaned out the fan or air duct? Most times this gets so filled with dust that air cannot pass through it very well.

I would suggest then also seeing if there is an update for your bios, this might give you more features or controls

then I would consider updating drivers for your graphics card and possibly doing things like disabling aero, etc...

I have a compaq laptop that had Vista on it, the fan was always on full speed, I installed linux on it and something seemed odd and I couldnt figure out what it was until I heard the fan turn on for a few minutes and then turn off... It ran WAY cooler under linux where it wasnt constantly taxing the GPU and CPU.

If this still doesnt seem to do the trick for you, get one of them laptop fan pads that has fans built into the bottom of it that you can set your laptop on. Although bulky and not idea, it will help keep your laptop usable.

Answer 3

1. Check for any BIOS settings concerning the cooling, this is often very limited on brand computers but it's the best place to start.

2. In Windows 7, go to Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options\Edit Plan Settings and click on Change advanced power settings. Go to Processor power management\System cooling policy and make sure it's set to Active.

3. Try using a third party tool like Speedfan

Answer 4

It will depend on your computer, BUS type, and possibly the type of fan it has (some 2-wire fans, common in laptops, do not show up).

I would definitely download Speedfan here:

http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Then go to Readings tab>Configure>Fans tab. If your fan shows up, you can configure it, if not, I doubt there will be a way to configure it.

As you can see in the screenshot, I cannot configure my laptop's fans, so this is not uncommon.

This is probably because I have an unsupported BUS, as can be seen on this page:

http://www.almico.com/forumbuses.php

I looked for both of your BUS'es, but could not find details on them. You can find this using Software Information for Windows, run it, and look in the motherboard section, or you can simply install Speedfan, and see if the fans show up.

Answer 5

I recommend the following two fan control apps:

Notebook Fan Control

On github and written in .NET it covers a wide range of laptops/notebooks and allows you to easily edit the configuration and create your own (controlling fan speeds, temp ranges etc).

The other one is the legendary tpfancontrol (Thinkpad Fan Control) which I prefer, bit of a learning curve at first but great for power users:

tfpancontrol (scroll down to the download area and excuse the 1980s website)

Hope this helps someone.

Answer 6

I also have a DV2000 with a heating problem. I had my laptop repaired about 2 years ago acquiring a copper shim from Amazon and Arctic Silver 5 back then. I had the reflow done and the technician offered to hardwire the fan to the power socket so the fan runs 100% all the time.

He took a long wire as jumper and connected one terminal of the fan to it, and removing that particular fan connector from the original fan socket.

It worked for a while but it took out about 15-20% of my battery life, but the problem kept coming back. Now I had the jumper removed, updated my motherboard and processor, and devised a stronger cooling system with a 12v Intel desktop processor fan sucking the heat out of the whole bottom.

I still use my 6 year old DV2000 to this day without any problems.

Answer 7

• Before you try to adjust fan speeds remember to clean your graphic card and processor fans from dust. This is often the solution for crashing, overheating and fan speeds spinning on full blast. This means you have to detach the fans and coolers carefully and blow on it and in some cases use a toothbrush or something to get into those small openings such as q-tips with alcohol.

• Problems with overheating laptops are often due to accumulated dust in front of the suction. Clean that out and it ll be running nice and cool again. Don t forget to replace the cooling paste which you put on the processor and cooler that is on the graphic card so it wont get overheated. Sometimes it also helps to change the paste since a lot of the times the old paste tends to completely dry up and crack into powder.

• A couple of times a year I unscrew my power supply (though not on laptop) and take it apart to get all of the dust out of it. A lot of dust balls in there can cause it to short. I do this to my laptop and desktop computer every 3 to four months. I take the graphic card totally apart and really get in there carefully. It ll be looking like new again.

• Try not to touch the components. Use some kind of anti static if you can. If not...well try to be careful anyways. YouTube is loaded with tips on how to make homemade anti-static wristbands. Happy computer cleaning!

Answer 8

Don't scrap your laptop with a knife yet, there is a better way. I use to play diablo 3 at minimum graph, 800x600 and had like.. 3-10 fps depending of the action in the screen.. I opened my laptop to clean the fan because just by loading the OS it started to heat and even my hands were burning on the keyboard, despite the fact that I had what I call a heat sink (a card game under the back of the laptop..

So I opened it and was surprised to see that each end of the air way were blocked with a drying machine's dust compartment kinda pillow.. now that it's cleaned up, I can play diablo 3 at max graph and still get 20-26 fps stable, played 20 mins for test yesterday after re-building it

Here are picture of the problem I found inside my Hp hdx 16--1155ca

https://scontent.fymq1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/1072472_10151477549361881_1160444497_o.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=7f686f6054d3a46926668aba5472812b&oe=5BEB7E02

Hoping this will help you

Answer 9

All modern laptops will have fans which can be monitored for speed based on system usage and temperature. The fact that your system does not report the fans to other apps indicates either a software or a hardware issue.

Either way, you should update your BIOS and mainboard drivers and try SpeedFan again. Your BIOS, even with its limitations, may be able to show you what the fans are up to and the system temps. If it does, then it's probably a limitation in SpeedFan, it's not compatible with that chipset.

However, if the BIOS doesn't show the fans and temps, and SpeedFan cannot find a fan controller, you should contact HP support for this.

Answer 10

Try turning off FAN ALWAYS ON in the BIOS. It has worked for me.

Answer 11

HP Cool Sense works on select laptops. You can try it out (though it lags when you increase the fan speed).