Solved Sony Vaio EB Loud Fan Noise

[devenprasad]

Hi There,

I Have a Sony Vaio VPCEB24FD, I got it in September and it has a very loud fan noise, even louder than my old desktop pc! :banghead: . I am hoping that i dont have to under-volt my cpu. Also My Laptop gets so hot that i feel like its going to burn my lap :mad2: .

Thanks,
Deven Prasad :drool:


EDIT (7:54PM PST)
The Sound Has Gotten Better After I Ran Vaio Care and Installed Some Updates. But Still Loud

EDIT 2 (11:07PM PST)
Sound Has Gotten Worse (Cezna To A Bowing Plane lol)

EDIT 3 (7:14PM Next Day)
Factory Reinstalled Windows 7 But Still Same Problem, Leaning towards hardware issues, will file claim with sony support and take over to local sony repair center.

 

[gregrocker]

Let us know what happens with Sony. You should RMA the machine if still under warranty.

 

[devenprasad]

Hey Greg,

I called up sony they gave me a rma number, now i have to take it to the sony repair shop on the other side of town.

Hopefully it gets repaired quick!

Thanks
Deven Prasad

 

[marsmimar]

Hi There,

I Have a Sony Vaio VPCEB24FD, I got it in September and it has a very loud fan noise, even louder than my old desktop pc!

. I am hoping that i dont have to under-volt my cpu. Also My Laptop gets so hot that i feel like its going to burn my lap

.

Thanks,
Deven Prasad

I've got a Sony Vaio VPCEB47GM. The Quick Start Guide > Care and Handling Tips > Ventilation section says, "Place your computer on a hard surface such as a desk or table. Proper air circulation around vents is important to reduce heat."

If it feels like your lap is getting burned then possibly your Vaio is overheating which usually results in maximum fan operation which leads to much higher fan noise. Even if Sony does find something else wrong that was causing the excessive fan noise, I'd recommend a cooling pad especially if you're going to keep placing the comp on your lap or on top of the bed, etc.

 

[gregrocker]

Correct, if you place the laptop on your lap or irregular surface like a bed or sofa it can easily block the small intake vent underneath so that air is cut off. This will cause it to quickly overheat.

Try running it on a flat surface, or with the back end propped up 1/2 to an inch to see if it helps. If not then insist that Sony fix or replace this as well as the loud fan..

 

[devenprasad]

Well I got back my laptop today, the guy said he got alot of these in for the fan noise, also he put a new fan in and heatsink. Already Sounds somewhat better. Also I do have a usb cooling pad but never thought of using it on my lap but will try it out

Thanks For All Your help

Thanks Deven Prasad

 

[jrenick1]

Sony fan noise

I blew mine out and it quit....dirty

 

[gajesh]

Fan noise in vaio

I am having sony vaio. It also started making too much FAN noise even thought it is not heating up !! And the great thing is when I use Win7 OS it is making noise while when I use Ubuntu it didn't make noise even after running for more than 12 hours ????? Need solution !!
I cant use it in my class anymore during lectures it cause disturbance to all the students.
Even I use laptop only on desks or other flat surface only for proper ventilation.

 

[jrenick1]

Most likely it is dirty.....blow it out.....it stopped my fan noise

 

[s5pitfire]

OP did you find a solution?

I have a 2 year old Sony VAIO VPCEB-390x. ($1300, Intel i5 2.53ghz, 500GB HD, 512mb ATI radeon, 8GB ram, windows 7 professional)

The first 6-12 months I had it, it was VERY quiet and the fan would come on only when I started opening programs, tabs, etc, then shut back off. Otherwise all I could hear is the hard drive thinking here and there.

My warranty was up after 1 year, and around this point it started to get very loud. Not quite as loud as some videos on youtube i've seen of VAIO's, but at idle, doing absolutely nothing (0% CPU usage, 20% memory usage), there is a constant humming or whirring sound, the fan. When I start opening tabs and programs, it gets about twice as loud and by this point I get a headache and put it to sleep to let it rest.

For some reason, it runs quite hot even when there's 0% CPU usage and only ~20% memory usage. I have a program that tells me the temperatures of my laptop, and it would stay in the green "safe" zone, then I open firefox, media player, etc, and it enters the "red" hot zone. I also can feel very warm air being pushed out of the side when it's just idling on the desktop.

About 6 months ago I took the laptop apart and blew air duster all around the fan, there was only a very slight amount of dust. Didn't help at all. I also got a large USB air-cooler that my laptop sits on now, and it might help a tiny bit, to where my laptop stays a few degrees cooler and is less likely to get loud.

I bought a $40 internal fan from China, looks identical to the current one, and am going to install that and let you know how it goes. My last sony that I bought in 2006 and used for a few years eventually got VERY loud too, but made less of a smooth whirring sound like my current VAIO, and sounded more like the fan bearings needed oil badly (grinding sound). My HP laptop I got in 2004 had a similar grinding sound too.

It's frustrating mostly cause i've seen 2-3 year old $500 Lenovos, all the way to $2000 Macbook pro's that make absolutely no fan noises unless you start taxing it and opening lots of programs or playing videogames. It's unfortunate that either the VAIO design is bad for airflow and cooling, or the fan is just really cheap and gets loud and obnoxious after little use. I have a feeling it's not even my fan but probably the computer itself just running hotter and hotter.

edit: one final thing.. even when its running loud and hot, it runs very quickly.. i recently went from 4GB to 8GB ram and that helped it move much quicker. I also use labor-intensive rendering programs like Revit and AutoCAD, and it moves along well.

 

[ggrant]

Yep

I have a Sony Vaio VPCZ119GX. It's my 3rd sony vaio, I was happiest with the first one, the second one was ok, this one is really giving me problems. It wasn't cheap at almost $4000. It runs so hot, burning hot, and the fan is so loud and rattly, you can hear it across a large conference room, as such I cannot use it at work or conferences as I need to.

Aside from this, the screen broke off twice. It's only attached with two small hinges. Both times were within the three year warranty so I didn't have to pay. But by the time I sent it in the second time the fan was so ridiculously loud I asked them to fix that too. I got it back Friday and it wasn't fixed, it's as loud as ever if not worse. So I'm sending it back AGAIN.

Furthermore, I find the thing very often wakes itself up in my backpack, after I put it to sleep, with the screen closed and all. Sometimes by the time I get home from work it's so hot in my backpack, I feel like it's going to start a fire. How did Sony laptops get so bad after they used to be so good? I dug deep for this one and now I feel like I wish I could replace it already. When I do, it won't be with a Sony, I'm sorry to say.

 

[windude99]

I have a Sony Vaio VPCZ119GX. It's my 3rd sony vaio, I was happiest with the first one, the second one was ok, this one is really giving me problems. It wasn't cheap at almost $4000. It runs so hot, burning hot, and the fan is so loud and rattly, you can hear it across a large conference room, as such I cannot use it at work or conferences as I need to.

Aside from this, the screen broke off twice. It's only attached with two small hinges. Both times were within the three year warranty so I didn't have to pay. But by the time I sent it in the second time the fan was so ridiculously loud I asked them to fix that too. I got it back Friday and it wasn't fixed, it's as loud as ever if not worse. So I'm sending it back AGAIN.

Furthermore, I find the thing very often wakes itself up in my backpack, after I put it to sleep, with the screen closed and all. Sometimes by the time I get home from work it's so hot in my backpack, I feel like it's going to start a fire. How did Sony laptops get so bad after they used to be so good? I dug deep for this one and now I feel like I wish I could replace it already. When I do, it won't be with a Sony, I'm sorry to say.

When was the last time you cleaned out your computer? Have you tried using compressed air in short busts into both vents?

 

[syrous]

Quick fix

If you have a noisy laptop then you can use this quick fix:
Go to Power Options> change plan settings > Change Advance power settings > Processor Power Management > Processor Maximum state (change the value to 90% and/or 80% for battery.
This should help with the noise. Of course this is not ideal solution as you actually reducing the speed of your computer, but I doubt you will even notice the drop in speed.

I've seen on youtube another fix (Sony Vaio SZ CS B TZ series fan noise solving method - YouTube) for some models, where you can tape the fan's power wire to prevent it from rattling at higher speeds. It requires taking the cover off though.

 

[cale]

Bad Thermal Compound = Loud Fan

The loud fan is caused by bad thermal compound on the CPU/GPU. On my laptop, a mouse button on the track pad broke (happened on previous Vaio laptop too.), and so I took it apart, and notice that the people who assembled it left out some a screw on the GPU heatsink, and also, there were some other screws missing that caused the motherboard to slightly separate from the trackpad, dislodging the button. The GPU heatsink being half off caused the thermal compound to not be connected to the heatsink. The "thermal compound" that was on it was hard as a rock and I had to chisel it off. After replacing the screws, the fan volume is normal and the mouse button works again. I would highly recommend getting some thermal compound remover and high quality thermal compound, as this will make the fan quieter.

 

[dgregory]

Sony Vaio EB series: CPU overheat loud fan

I know this thread is old, but wanted to report my solution to this b/c this post popped up first for me when troubleshooting this issue.

I have a 7 year old laptop that I have maintained and upgraded over the years. I began having troubles with overheating and extremely loud fan noise. I fixed this issue by cleaning out the laptop case and mobo manually by scrubbing out all dust with cotton balls and cue-tips soaked in isopropyl alcohol. I tested and the fan was still going nuts. Ended up taking off the fan and scraping off (and cleaning with same method above) the heatsink paste from the cpu. I applied new past and put everything back together. I ran multiple cpu stress tests and now the cpu is running way under temp and the fan is running normally.

I believe that this issue is the result of the thermal paste going bad and turning into a dried crust. from aging.

There is no documentation that I have found that reviews all of these steps. I believe that if the computer was sent in to sony, these are the steps they would likely go through. I hope this will be of some help to those of you with similar issues (especially with vaio laptops).