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Just bought an HP 4530s from newegg. Laptop is great, but..

The FAN is always on. I did some googling, found it is a known problem, but no easily googlable solution.

Tried to:

  • Update BIOS to the latest
  • Disable "CPU fan always on when plugged in" BIOS setting
  • Installed Windows 7 Home (came with), Live CDed Ubuntu, Windows XP
  • Spent 2 hours with horrible HP support
  • Some other things that I can't already recall => spent too much time on it

Laptop is not refundable (learned it the hard way, after the fact, by looking at the NEWEGG clever policy that is hidden in "details")

I would really appreciate a workable solution / workaround / hack. The laptop is for my friend who will most likely be running Windows XP/7.

Hennes
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tolitius
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3 Answers3

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If the bios permits external control over the fans, then you could try speedfan

If the bios doesn't permit external control over the fans, then a fixed bios is your only option. If this is a fault, then you can get a replacement/refund regardless of newegg fineprint. Consumer law trumbs small text.

Paul
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I have heard that HP has deliberately forced the fan to be always on in some of their machines to avoid a hardware bug, which caused the fan to shut off too soon or too long — leading to heat damage.

I don't know if this applies in your case; but if it does, then you are lucky that the fan is on.

jpaugh
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If you are not having any luck with fan speed control even via a software the below might be useful..

I have a 4530s which started showing symptoms of a pulsating fan i.e. fan going to full RPM and back to normal in matter of seconds. After couple of months time frame it continously ran on full RPM and no tool would slow down the fan or stop it. Turns out that one of the fan cable (in my case blue one) had been crushed by the back cover and was possibly in a disconnected state. Fiddling with this cable immedietly slowed down the fan. I believe that over time the cable was continously pressed in its place by a plastic piece in the back cover which eventually caused it to break. I have sort of straightened the cable and placed the cover back and voila all works fine (even with out the HPFanControl). I did also get rid of the offending pieace from the back cover so that it can not damage the cable any more.

Hamid
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