Warning for Notebooks running Boinc 24x7
30 Jul 2007 14:00:41 UTC
Topic 193013
(moderation:
I bought a new HP Pavilion dv5163cl notebook (Intel Core Duo T2300) last February, installed Boinc and put E@H running continuously, because it run so smooth that you didn't even note that Boinc was running at all. A college of mine did the same thing for Roseta@home for a slightly different Pavilion....
Everything was fine, until both notebook's fans started to make grinding noises, two weeks apart.... That two similar notebooks had the same problem almost at the same time made me do a few tests, and using a software to monitor the fan use, discovered that a normal user would use an equivalent of 5 minutes of full speed fan per hour (the fan has multiple speeds)... while Boinc uses 60 out of 60... Applied to a 45 hour working week, means that a regular user uses the fan less than 4 hours a week, while that a Boinc running one uses 168 hours, 42 times more!!!.
So, if both fans lasted 5 month in continuous use, they would had lasted 20 years for a regular user... So, it looks like that the HP engineers didn't have continuous use in mind when they designed the fans... and I am afraid that other new notebooks may develop the same problem running E@H.
Did anybody had the same problem, or it is only HP related?
Warning for Notebooks running Boinc 24x7
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My work laptop is a D600 with a Pm-1600, it has lousy thermal management and probably runs the fan full speed for 4 or 5 hours every weekday. I've had it since April of 05, and it's still running fine.
My personal laptop is an acer C1D-1733. It's fanless and cooler at full load than my dell is at 20% with the fan at max so I don't have any worries there.
I have an HP dv6000z with an
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I have an HP dv6000z with an AMD Turion X2 TL-56, and it has been running almost nonstop for a year. You do have to take extra precautions in keeping the air intake vent clear, and it helps if it's off the surface a little, as HP, in their infinite wisdom, put the intake vent right next to the exhaust ports, so if it's not suspended a little or hanging slightly off the edge of the desk or table, it sucks hot air back in. I agree that HP's engineers should be kicked in the crotch a few times for that, but you'll also need to make sure that you buy some canned dust removal and blow the ports out once every couple of weeks or so as those tiny little vents with that much flow through them tend to get constricted quite rapidly, even in a relatively clean environment. With 2 dogs in my house as well as it being summer and more dusty than normal, mine needs quite frequent cleaning, but so far, no grinding fans.
RE: That two similar
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Wow, two identical cases would be almost enough for a lawsuit in the US, one might think :-). Seriously, this is a quality problem. The expected lifetime of quality fans is many, many years of continuous operation, I think 75,000 hours is nothing unusual. I'm running BOINC on a notebook and a Mac mini (basically a notebook in a different case) with variable fan control, the fans are running 24/7 and I expect them to last until the end of the economical lifetime of the computers.
To phrase the whole affair more positively, I think BOINC is an excellent burn-in test for notebooks to detect low quality parts before warranty expires :-)
CU
BRM
RE: To phrase the whole
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Agreed! I've been running BOINC on a laptop with Turion processor for over a year without problems. The only issue is that I have to set BOINC at 70% CPU use in summer/hot rooms or the thermal 'throttle' kicks in and the CPU drops to min speed/voltage for a few seconds a couple times a minute. I'm sure it could have been engineered better to avoid this, but overall, I'm not complaining.
Heck, if they can come up with one more, I'm sure there's an attorney ready to make it a 'class-action' suit! :P
Same here. I have two laptops
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Same here. I have two laptops running 24/7 - one AMD 64 3700+, other one Core2Duo 1,66. No problems for more than year (ofcourse dust cleaning every month - or so). It's always possible to buy laptop cooling pad, but it generates more noise than laptop's original cooling. Also You can lubricate fan bearing (i personally use silicone grease for 2 years on many different fans) every hmmm 6 months. Sorry for my poor english.
Greetings from Poland
Mhhh sounds bad. My several
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Mhhh sounds bad. My several Thinkpads are still running fine. They crunch 24/7 for two years.
Mfg sightus
Same here too. I put a
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Same here too. I put a laptop cooler under mine about a year ago, and I'm convinced that is the difference between a longer lasting laptop and a shorter duration unit. But the point is well taken from the original poster: laptops run pretty hot, and this is certainly not good in the long run. :-/
(Click for detailed stats)
RE: I bought a new HP
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Snip ..
As many others I too have quite good experience running BOINC 24/7 on my laptop. It's a HP compaq nw8000 with Pentium-M @2GHz. This one is a 'workstation' laptop and a pretty heavy one too. I'm using this laptop for two and a half years. Fan tends to run full speed most of the time and is quite noisy. What I had to do is have CPU cooler cleaned three times by now as dust tends to clog it quite quickly.
I'm using MobileMeter to monitor CPU temperature and I usually have it cleaned when CPU throttles itself down due to too high temperature which is 95°C for this type of CPU. When dust bunnies are clean, CPU temperature is normally just above 60°C and fan tends to spin a tad slower.
I can imagine that if a laptop is not intended for heavy use, then any moving parts (fan, HD, ...) would last a bit shorter. But then the price tags tend to differ too.
Metod ...
I've been running E@H on my
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I've been running E@H on my Alienware M5550 laptop 24/7 for close to a year now, w/o any problems.
I have had E@H and others -
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I have had E@H and others - Rosetta, SETI; Spinhenge; QMC - running on 1. FujitsuSiemens Celeron (1G) and 2. presently running on a Ecos with AMD Athlon (900 KB). On both I had no Problems with the Fan, although the FujitsuSiemens Fan was running "only" 3 Days a week. The Ecos ist running 7 Days a week. Outside of E@H or other Programm, I have had heared of Fan problems by a friend: he has had a HP from Work and has changed to a Dell Latitude becaus of the Fan Problems: the Fan became very noisy.