Fanless Aspire One

What model is that then and where from? We might as well still try to find a pattern...

 

I think i found the pattern. All fans are the same, it's just the person who is different.

 

This is most likely true. I have noticed fan noise is subjective. Some people it irritates, others hardly notice it.

 

no, you're wrong. I had two A1's at home and the fans were different

 

Some people are just deaf?

Well, I've decided, I'm not going to muck about with soldering and resistors and base-level electrical components. I can build PCs and swap out components, but the more I read about it the more I know that this kind of tampering is beyond my ability and inclination, frankly.

I suppose I have to hope a bios update comes along that's going to make it possible to bring fan control into the software domain, where I'm comfortable. That's the correct fix, but it's up to Acer, and I'm not too hopeful. :-(

 

Rachel, In next 10 days I will be able to register images with oscilloscope and then we can thing in what we can do. Look at this image, an example of what I can show after:


Here is one image of Sunon fans, how this one should work, IMO:


If I will measure a PWM signal between Red and Black wires, I will use the Average the PWM signal idea - I think that the hardware should have that circuit or it my not have it to be cheap.

So, does anyone found any application note of that embedded controller from Winbond? - we can found a typical circuit to drive the fan!!

And Rachel, don't try to wire nothing before we see what signals are on wires!! Or will probably blow anything :-(

 

not doing anything else with it. i've put it back together, and although i've said this before, I don't intend to take it apart again. I might, for a proven easy-to-install hardware fix.

pretty fed up of the whole thing now tbh. I've basically thrown a week of my life at this thing. Not to mention the waste of money buying it in the first place.

It is seriously not subjective, people. I'm sitting with it right now in a room that also has my server with 6-HDDs, 3-case fans, cpu fan, psu fan; right next to me is the little keyboard i've been using to test when it was taken apart; it has an electroluminescent backlight which itself buzzes quite loudly. There's also a UPS with a fan and, oh yeah, and the door's open to my kitchen, with a fridge, a freezer, a gas boiler, and a cat's drinking fountain. The noise from the AA1 is the loudest thing I can hear, and the most obtrusive sound, and that's at its lowest speed, with the cpu idling at 800MHz. Any one of those other things should drown out any fan noise it shouldn't even have to be making anyway. I *bought* the SSD model because I wanted silence, not even the noise of the tiny HDD.

One of the most annoying things is that, with its innards spread out on my desk, but running, I can pretty much make it silent. Quiet enough that I do have to lean in close to hear it; quiet enough that the whine, even when present, is quieter than the air moving. There are resonant frequencies in the fan cowling, and they can be pretty much dampened down by, for instance,touching a small screwdriver to parts of the cowling. Also quieter when I take one of the screws holding the heatsink tray down (the one closest to the battery when assembled). That's the state it was in when I started putting it back together just now. But, once back in its case, it's immediately as loud as ever again. The case is a factor in this. In fact every screw I put back in made it louder.

I just want to turn the damn fan OFF. If it kills the CPU so be it, I'll feel better about buying a different netbook if this one's actually permanently dead, and at least before it dies I might get some use out of it.

Talking of whether turning the fan off would kill it - my earlier observations with it running happily while the outflow from the fan was blocked should probably be disregarded. I took the fan assembly off again this evening and found I'd misremembered where the Atom was under it. It's under the fan itself (not under the centre of it, but under the blades). So all during my test it was after all still getting some airflow. It would have been *reduced* because the direction the fan tries to push the air was blocked, but it would have got *some* benefit.

 

I also do not want to being always open my AA1, so, I am thinking in soldering 6 wires. I will cut the cable that goes to fan and use 6 long wires, 3 for each going side, from board to fan and others 3 from fan to board - I will have that wires outside, they will came out in the space of fan metal case.

With wires outside, I will be able to see what signals are there and hack them, without need to open the AA1 to much times. And again, I will use oscilloscope, I will just do safe hacks -- I had blown a lot of things in past, but that makes a knowledge, I think

With luck, Acer will update the BIOS while that.

 

That sounds like a good plan. I'd run them out into the space under the hatch for the 3G expansion thingy, so you can still close it up nice and neat for real-world use.

Yeah. Best thing. I wonder if they haven't already because they can't, or because they won't.

 

What about older BIOS?? -- I just tested the v0.3109 and the v0.3114... I would like to find older versions to see If fan is different...

 

found the register where the current temperature seems to be stored: 0x58.

reports around 49°C in idle state..

 

GOOD!! Can you please add it to wiki page? - because here information get very dispersed

Rachel, since you were doing tests with stressing CPU, can you please verify this information and confirm?

 

0x55 has something to do with the fan.. setting it to 0x00 will speed up the fan.. setting to 1f will lower it..

someone can confirm this?

Code:

# as root
perl acer_ec.pl := 0x55 00
perl acer_ec.pl := 0x55 1f

update: i managed to switch em off.. but how??

 

I did as root

Code:

perl acer_ec.pl := 0x55 1f

an the fun stopped, or at least that noisy -- I am building the kernel... fan was very loud... -- I think I am having something on my ears... oh, it's the silence!!! I can enjoy it now - you are my hero Sc2k

Register 0x58 gives me 0x40 now... I will see if it goes higher or low with fanless...

Hey Rachel!! are you happy now??

 

seems to be the right track we have to research deeper now.. 0x56 is also involved somehow..

take care about the temperature.. seems like the fan never turns on.. even when cpu is at 55°C..

btw: 0x54 looks like some "avarage" temperature.. updates every few seconds..

 

Confirmed! 1F stops the fan completely. The behaviour is not very consistend on other values it appears, sometimes the same value makes the fan spin at different speed.

 

Can be a 16 bit value... like need to update 2 registers of 8 bits...

Can someone deduce a formula to get the temperature by reading that register?

EDIT: I updated the wiki page with this info
http://wiki.aspireone.net/index.php/How ... _noisy_fan

 

I guess that you guys are gonna be bored now

I am lucky to have a very quiet One, but I have watched this thread with interest, it confirms to me that if a fix is out there, then someone will find it.

Now all that is needed is some code to allow GUI adjustments and measurements. I bet that won't take long to appear.

Great stuff.

 

I can confirm that setting 0x55 to 0x1f reduces the noise.
The temperature rises to 50 degrees. Is not to hot, but needs to be watched.
(0x54 reports 47 here.)

I might write a small program to read out the values.

edit: I noticed that when playing with values, for the fan speed. (setting it to f.e. 0x1a) turns off the fan, and 1/2 a minute later turns off the laptop.

 

1F makes my backlight flicker when i leave it idling for a while.