Fan Control Software for Windows XP and Vista

This is a great tool to keep the Acer quiet. I was wondering what you guys think is the safest temperature to use for when the fan should come on and when it should go back off at. Thanks guys for the help, I'm a very happy owner of my first netbook just purchased yesterday.

 

I'm glad its working for you all who have XP or Vista.

I sent my Linux "jet-engine" in to Acer for fan replacement, and discovered something. Turns out Acer will ship parts out if the customer "feels technically capable" (as it was explained to me). I asked if I could have it shipped out, and I was directed to a 2nd-Level technical support, where the tech service rep said the fan is soldered to the motherboard.

Dan

 

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I was also wondering about this. Something tells me anything other than the stock settings (fan running all the time) is potentially dangerous, since the engineers who designed the netbook felt they had to configure it that way. On the other hand, it does seem a bit overkill for a 2W CPU, plus the chassis isn't warm at all compared to some high-end notebooks that can physically injure you if you put them on your lap.

I've searched the net for info about Atom temperatures, and the max temperature it can take seems to be 83 - 99C (depending on which source you believe). Of course you never want the CPU to constantly run at maximum temp it can survive at, because that would reduce the life span of it. When I build desktop PCs, I feel very uncomfortable when the CPU core temp exceeds 55C but with laptops (and netbooks etc.), you obviously need to expect higher temps.

The CPU in my AAO seems to idle at about 49C with the default fan settings. However turning off the fan completely doesn't cause idle temp to rise much at all. Only when I put the CPU under heavy load does the temp begin to climb rapidly. This means that even with the fan off/on thresholds set pretty low (mid 50's range), the fan will be silent most of the time, while still kicking in and providing adequate cooling when you do some CPU intensive tasks on the machine.

My only concern is that the higher CPU temp might negatively affect other nearby components like the SSD or memory. Maybe that's why Acer designed the machine with such aggressive fan settings?

 

Thanks, it works great out of the box for me. Finally a silent netbook!

 

delete

 

Could be, though somehow I doubt it... My guess is Acer was just being conservative when it comes to temps. Maybe they just wanted the user to have a cooler running system overall rather than a hand/lap warmer. Have you looked at some of the other Atom netbooks when cracked open? A lot of 'em have a fan too, but more than a few them don't have any fan whatsoever, and on top of it, the heatsink attached to the proc is rather weak... Yet there hasn't been an outcry over temps or failures.

I've seen several netbooks, including Dell's, where the heatsink is basically just a metal plate bolted to the Atom proc and placed in under the keyboard... Literally a metal plate, no fins for increased dissipation, no heatpipes, no nothing. My AAO's fan hasn't bugged me yet but I just got it the other day and haven't used it in a particularly quiet environment. If it starts to bug me I'm downloading this ASAP and setting the threshold at something like 55C or 60C if that's borderline (I just don't want it turning on/off constantly, 'cuz that's even more obnoxious than a constant fan whirl sound).

 

The fan isn't annoying at all, but of course total silence (in the case of the SSD version) is even better than even a low whining sound.
At home, I can't hear the fan over ambient noise like the fridge, ventilation etc. (not to mention the fans in my desktop rig if I'm in the same room), unless I lean close to the machine. In a public location, eveen a library, I doubt you'd hear the fan at all. It's no louder than the harddrive in my old laptop.

 

Does anybody know if the fan speed can be altered so it wouldnt be as noisy.

At the moment with this great bit of software (thanks to the developer) the fan on my aspire on comes on at what sounds like max revolutions for about 10 seconds then switches off. Would it be better to say run the fan for 30 seconds but at half the revolutions of the max spin rate.

Thanks for any replies

 

when you disable the program through msconfig, will the default fan settings go back to normal?

 

Yes

 

Usage with 3307 BIOS results in a crash and reboot after ~15s. :roll:

 

But there is not official release of this bios in Acer's site! :?
Where did you find this??

 

Check the BIOS section on this board, under Drivers/Downloads.

 

If you installed A1Ctl fan control program then you will have a copy of acpiec_nolog.sys already in the system32 directory.

Just edit "ImagePath" to system32\DRIVERS\acpiec_nolog.sys and the acpiec errrors in the event veiwer (system) will e gome

 

ok so i have been running a1ctl for about a week now and its working great...but recently my temperature has been showing constantly above 52 degrees, but the computer is not at all warm to the touch, in fact its quite cool...does anyone know if this is just how it is? or if there is something wrong..thanks in advanced!

 

Hi Ralf,

I just ran across this post. I hadn't realized that the genial creator of the AA1 fan control was around in this forum so I take this opportunity to thank you warmly for this piece of software. I tried to make you a small donation through Paypal when I downloaded the latest version a few days ago, but it doesn't work. Please provide your Paypal address.

Cheers again for that!

 

+1 on that.

Ralf, PM your PayPal ID to me if you prefer, I would also like to donate.

Could you also please consider making AA1 Fan Control based around a Windows Service? This way we would also have the benefit of fan control at the logon screen, rather than waiting for the user to login.

 

Help!

I installed this on my one 150, and the fan was coming on well below the fan on threshold that I set.
Then, I turned autostart off. How do I get it back on the tray? Where did it go?

Thanks

 

Hello,
I installed this and it's working fine but has anyone contacted Acer about the loud fan noise issue? Are they going to launch a BIOS version that will have better fan control or something ?
Just curious what could Acer possibly reply to this.
Regards,
GvidoR