P4B fans stay on in standby,

  • Thread starter Thread starter Icebiker
  • Start date Start date
I

Icebiker

Hi,

Recently upgraded my P4B to XP from W98, and I'm experimenting with standby
mode.

In standby, both the CPU and the power supply fans stay on. I don't mind the
noise, but I wouldn't want the fans to wear prematurely, and I don't want to
suck more dust into the box when I'm not using it.

The CPU fan is plugged into the motherboard. Shouldn't there be some sort of
control of the fan speed?

There's a power supply fan power connection on the MB, but there's no
matching connector from the power supply. Does the power supply know about
standby from the power connector, or do I need a power supply that can plug
into the MB fan connection?

I had a look through the BIOS settings, I don't really see anything there
that applies to my situation.

Any input would be appreciated.

/Icebiker
 
"Icebiker" said:
Hi,

Recently upgraded my P4B to XP from W98, and I'm experimenting with standby
mode.

In standby, both the CPU and the power supply fans stay on. I don't mind the
noise, but I wouldn't want the fans to wear prematurely, and I don't want to
suck more dust into the box when I'm not using it.

The CPU fan is plugged into the motherboard. Shouldn't there be some sort of
control of the fan speed?

There's a power supply fan power connection on the MB, but there's no
matching connector from the power supply. Does the power supply know about
standby from the power connector, or do I need a power supply that can plug
into the MB fan connection?

I had a look through the BIOS settings, I don't really see anything there
that applies to my situation.

Any input would be appreciated.

/Icebiker
Click to expand...

There are a number of power states available on computers, and you
just need to pick the one you want. I don't know all the proper names
for these, so this is just a description of them.

First of all, your power supply has three states. Fully on (+12V, +5V,
+3.3V etc all powered), standby (+5VSB only, no PSU fan), and off (via
the switch on the back).

The fastest power saving state involves disabling the video card output.
When the video card stops sending Hsync and Vsync to the monitor, a
"green" monitor will go into standby, which saves power on the monitor.
The computer is still fully powered, and all the fans on the computer
will still be running. This could be the state your system is in right
now.

In the "suspend to ram" state, the power supply is in standby. All
fans stop, but there is still +5VSB powering the DRAM. The CPU and video
card are not running. When the system is awakened, execution picks up
where is left off, using the still maintained contents of RAM. This
state consumes maybe 5W of power on the computer, to maintain the RAM.

In the "hibernate" state, the contents of DRAM are written out to disk.
The computer doesn't rely on the contents of the DRAM. The BIOS has to
know about this state, in the sense that when the computer is started
later, the BIOS has to distinguish between a clean restart or restoring
the "image" in ram from the large disk file written out previously.

All of these states are defined by ACPI. When you install your OS,
you have to pick a matching Hardware Abstration Layer (HAL) to support
the features. Similarly, if the BIOS doesn't have ACPI support, then
only a subset of these functions will be available (if you had APM,
an older version of ACPI).

On some Windows OSes, the program "dumppo.exe" can be used to
query and set up some of this stuff. Dumppo.exe is useful if the
Windows install got screwed up - dumppo can fix it. The program
is available for download from a microsoft server (check Google
for the URL). Note that the BIOS ACPI features have to be enabled
first, before "dumppo.exe" can be used to fix up the Windows install.

I think you would want STR (suspend to ram), as this state gives
fast recovery, and the fans stop spinning.

HTH,
Paul
 
Hi,

Recently upgraded my P4B to XP from W98, and I'm experimenting with standby
mode.

In standby, both the CPU and the power supply fans stay on. I don't mind the
noise, but I wouldn't want the fans to wear prematurely, and I don't want to
suck more dust into the box when I'm not using it.

The CPU fan is plugged into the motherboard. Shouldn't there be some sort of
control of the fan speed?

There's a power supply fan power connection on the MB, but there's no
matching connector from the power supply. Does the power supply know about
standby from the power connector, or do I need a power supply that can plug
into the MB fan connection?

I had a look through the BIOS settings, I don't really see anything there
that applies to my situation.

Any input would be appreciated.

/Icebiker
Click to expand...

Do a google search on dumppo.exe. I had exactly the same problem.
Fans on during standby unlike my old PC which had them off. I got
this program from Microsoft and it allowed me to change the standby
states to where fans were off during standby. I don't remember
exactly what I did now but if you search, you can find it.
 
YES! that was it.

STR and dumppo.exe. Finding dumppo.exe was a bitch, but it works a treat.

Thanks a lot.
 
Back
Top