Fan is Loud

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How do we quiet the fan? 

Some say:

Option "RegistryDwords" 
"PowerMizerEnable=0x1;PerfLevelSrc=0x3333;PowerMizerLevel=0x3;PowerMizerDefault=
0x3;PowerMizerDefaultAC=0x3"
Option "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "True"

Original issue reported on code.google.com by Jason.Donenfeld on 10 Nov 2010 at 10:15

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That's just part of the problem, GPU runs at max power without powermizer fix; 
other problem is CPU idle state, which requires 2.6.35 or higher kernel to 
apply grub patch mentioned elsewhere in current issues list.

Sony is not known for producing quiet laptops, so I'm skeptical that upgrading 
to Fedora 14 and latest kernel with cpu idle patch will do much of anything -- 
would be great if it did, obviously, this is far from white noise....

Original comment by sit1...@gmail.com on 18 Nov 2010 at 3:31

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I sent my computer into sony. They updated the motherboard and replaced the 
clogged fan. Things are marginally better now.

Original comment by Jason.Donenfeld on 18 Nov 2010 at 3:51

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@Jason : Where are these lines supposed to go ? (xorg.conf?)
I have VPC12C5E and it's incredibly noisy 

Original comment by mohaalig...@gmail.com on 3 Dec 2010 at 8:24

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I have a VPCF11Z1E and I sent it to Sony. No fix. They did nothing. Sent it 
back to dabs. They sent me a replacement. Slightly better. 

Sony sent out a patch to stop overheating. I applied the patch and it is now 
much worse.

The PC is fab but the noise is ridiculous for something that expensive.

Now I just live with it!

Any improvement would be good. 

Original comment by sdd.dav...@gmail.com on 3 Dec 2010 at 5:45

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@sdd.davies :  what do you mean DAB, FAB and ridiculous ?

Original comment by mohaalig...@gmail.com on 3 Dec 2010 at 6:46

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I recently bought a Vaio F Series VCPF1390s, and the fan noise is still there 
FYI. Any advice?

Original comment by jef.zap...@gmail.com on 9 Dec 2010 at 4:23

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My Vaio has been quiet and wonderfull for a year and now suddenly started 
blowing like mad! What is there to do?

Original comment by erikvans...@gmail.com on 14 Dec 2010 at 5:21

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The fan noise in my Vaio F Series 1390s is worst under Ubuntu 10.10 thatn 
Windows7, sadly... So is there a guide anywhere to undervolt my CPUs on Ubuntu? 
This is the only solution I see.

Original comment by jef.zap...@gmail.com on 28 Dec 2010 at 3:46

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I also had loud fan noise with linux, however the fix is super simple. Most 
likely it's just a run-away process taking up all cpu power - firefox is often 
guilty of this.

Just fire up a terminal and type the command 'top' and see which process is 
using 100% cpu and noting the number of process, type kill -9 [# of process]. 
You may have to be root to kill some processes.  

Of course, anyone w/ any experience at all w/ linux already knows this but a 
lot of new users don't know about this. Hell, I've been using it for years now 
and just recently found out about it. Anyway, the fan should automatically 
subside after killing the guilty process.

Original comment by flupwat...@gmail.com on 7 Jan 2011 at 9:25

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I have two problems with my VPCF11Z1R: loud fan and occasional shutdowns due to 
the overheating. The latter happens when notebook works under load for long 
time staying on the same spot on the table. Must be because of intake sucking 
air not cold enough.

Also, sometimes fan just stops at maximum spinning rate, then gradually regains 
full speed. Scares me every time it happens. My imagination shows melted CPU 
and burnt plastic.

To sum up, it seems like cooling system is too weak/buggy for such "hot" 
laptop. Not sure it is a Linux problem, under Windows 7 things are not much 
better. Maybe Core i5 models are better.

Original comment by WFr...@gmail.com on 10 Jan 2011 at 6:43

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désolé pour le français (je vous laisse traduire)
mais pour plus de silence, il faut que les cores du i7 soit le plus possible en 
mode C6, vous pouvez voir celà avec l'utilitaire I7z 
https://code.google.com/p/i7z/

pour passer celà, il faut utiliser le driver "intel_idle" inclus normalement 
dans le noyau et en écrivant la mention "intel_idle.max_cstate=4" dans 
/etc/default/grub sous ubuntu.

on oublie pas d'updater son grub grace a la commande sudo update-grub2 et on 
redemarre le laptop

il devrait etre nettement plus silencieux apres

Original comment by lacsebas...@gmail.com on 10 Jan 2011 at 2:28

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@lacsebatien:  Je crois que tu tiens quelque chose de solide, je ne sais pas si 
cest l'effet Placebo, mais jai essayé ton truc et ça semble fonctionner, cest 
beaucoup plus silencieux!! Wow! Est-ce que tu en as d'autres comme ça des 
suggestions? je suis prêt à les suivre... Merci encore!

Original comment by jef.zap...@gmail.com on 11 Jan 2011 at 3:40

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@lacsebatien le solution marche pas pour les kernels moins que 2.6.35, 
intel_idle n'est pas disponible, donc ca fait rien de faire les mods de grub.  
J'ai fait plusierues essaies, et rien sur Fedora 13 (2.6.34.7-56.fc13.x86_64 
sur Sony F12 i7 920)

For we anglos, the proposed solution by lacsebastien will not work unless you 
are on kernel >= 2.6.35. From what I have read in other threads in this group, 
max cstate of C2 is what one wants to achieve true quiet with these i7 power 
houses (but maybe C6 works as well).  I'm in Hawaii, with windows open, birds 
chirping, etc., so can't hear the fans, but when I head back to France in the 
spring I'm sure I'll go nuts again without a fix -- the fan noise in a quiet 
apartment really gets in your head, even with the machine off it seems the fans 
are still running ;--(

Original comment by sit1...@gmail.com on 17 Jan 2011 at 5:51

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Unfortunately I've tried cstate 2, 4 and 6 on my Vaio VPCF13S0E and they don't 
seem to make any appreciable difference to the fan noise. 

I'm using a Liquorix 2.6.37 kernel on Mint Debian Edition.

Original comment by phillclarke@gmail.com on 4 Feb 2011 at 11:57

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peut etre que le driver intel_idle n'est pas inclus dans le kernel par debian 
car il est possible que ça soit un driver propriétaire 

@jef, oui je sais celà, je ne l'ai pas précisé, met a jour ton kernel sinon 

Original comment by lacsebas...@gmail.com on 4 Feb 2011 at 5:43

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intel_idle is enabled in the Liquorix 2.6.37 kernel I am using.

$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuidle/current_driver
intel_idle

Original comment by phillclarke@gmail.com on 7 Feb 2011 at 5:33

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@phill

did you try the powermizer options? That helped quiet the fans for me (still 
loud when doing cpu intensive ops). Have not yet tried intel_idle, I'm on Fed 
13 2.6.34 kernel (intel_idle available in >= 2.6.35)

Original comment by sit1...@gmail.com on 12 Feb 2011 at 5:47

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I presume the powermizer lines at the beginning of this thread is supposed to 
go in my xorg.conf "Device" section?

Anyway, I did this, added the lines, but there was no appreciable difference.

I guess I'm stuck with the noise.

The one thing I can say, if I open Terminal and hold down a key such as right 
arrow, the fan noise drops quite a lot, to almost nothing in fact.

Original comment by phillclarke@gmail.com on 16 Feb 2011 at 9:03

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I think I've made some progress on this. The fan is not yet silent, but it is 
certainly quieter than before.

What I needed to do was make some changes with regard to CPU Frequency Scaling 
governor

First I installed sysfsutils on my Debian system. Then using cpufreq-info I 
looked at what cpufreq governers were available. In my case cpufreq-info looked 
like this:

> cpufreq-info
cpufrequtils 007: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2009
Report errors and bugs to cpufreq@vger.kernel.org, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
  driver: acpi-cpufreq
  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0
  maximum transition latency: 10.0 us.
  hardware limits: 933 MHz - 1.73 GHz
  available frequency steps: 1.73 GHz, 1.73 GHz, 1.60 GHz, 1.47 GHz, 1.33 GHz, 1.20 GHz, 1.07 GHz, 933 MHz
  available cpufreq governors: powersave, conservative, userspace, ondemand, performance
  current policy: frequency should be within 933 MHz and 1.73 GHz.
                  The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
  current CPU frequency is 933 MHz.
  cpufreq stats: 1.73 GHz:0.10%, 1.73 GHz:0.00%, 1.60 GHz:0.00%, 1.47 GHz:0.00%, 1.33 GHz:0.00%, 1.20 GHz:0.00%, 1.07 GHz:0.00%, 933 MHz:99.90%  (4)

This was repeated 7 times for each CPU I have.

I wanted to change my governor from ondemand to powersave. To do this I edited 
/etc/sysfs.confo by adding the following:

devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor = powersave

I did this for all CPUs, so added the above line 7 more times changing cpu0 to 
cpu1, cpu2, cpu3 etc

Then reboot.

cpufreq_info now looks like:

> cpufreq-info
cpufrequtils 007: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2009
Report errors and bugs to cpufreq@vger.kernel.org, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
  driver: acpi-cpufreq
  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0
  maximum transition latency: 10.0 us.
  hardware limits: 933 MHz - 1.73 GHz
  available frequency steps: 1.73 GHz, 1.73 GHz, 1.60 GHz, 1.47 GHz, 1.33 GHz, 1.20 GHz, 1.07 GHz, 933 MHz
  available cpufreq governors: powersave, conservative, userspace, ondemand, performance
  current policy: frequency should be within 933 MHz and 1.73 GHz.
                  The governor "powersave" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
  current CPU frequency is 933 MHz.
  cpufreq stats: 1.73 GHz:0.10%, 1.73 GHz:0.00%, 1.60 GHz:0.00%, 1.47 GHz:0.00%, 1.33 GHz:0.00%, 1.20 GHz:0.00%, 1.07 GHz:0.00%, 933 MHz:99.90%  (4)

I have now found that when CPUs are idle the fan is much, much quieter, 
although of course it still spins up under load.

Also, I tried changing the intel_idle.max_cstate between 2,4, and 6 after 
making the above changes. I found that 6 produced the quietest fan.

Unfortunately, the high pitched whine (described in another thread here) while 
now less frequent (it seems to increase repetition with higher fan speed) is 
much more noticeable because of the quieter fan.

Original comment by phillclarke@gmail.com on 8 Mar 2011 at 7:49

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I would take a noisy fan over my 140deg F computer.  

Has governing the cpu's helped with heat at all?  Right now if I run a game or 
something intensive I'm almost reaching the critical temperature.  Normal 
everyday computing has it sitting at 140deg.

Original comment by earthme...@gmail.com on 29 Mar 2011 at 9:30

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Just to complete a previous successfull attemp to slow down the whole thing, 
which was adjusting in my grub file the max intel_idle cstate, I've change the 
scaling frequencies of my cpu to conservative, and wow! Now it is very silent!

Have a look at the two post below, it helps to make persistant change to freq. 
scaling. You have nothing to loose, try it ;)

http://superuser.com/questions/179329/disable-frequency-scaling-ondemand-daemon-
on-ubuntu-10-04

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8790599&postcount=11

Original comment by jef.zap...@gmail.com on 31 Mar 2011 at 12:35

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hi 
Comment 21 worked for me with ubuntu 10.10

but now i'm on natty and it doesn't work anymore. after a restart its still on 
"ondemand"

any suggestions?

Original comment by domin...@gmx.com on 21 Apr 2011 at 12:43

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@philclarke, your solution looks to be the one; however, I believe that it 
requires the BIOS to have been updated to R1120Y6, which is impossible if you 
are not dual booting, or have Win7 XP 64-bit running on a USB key (i.e. you 
need windows to update the BIOS)

Before tossing provided HD with Win7 I applied BIOS patch, but that was in 
September 2010; BIOS update R1120Y6 was released in November 2010 so SOL until 
I get a copy of Windows and run off USB key.

For those of you lucky enough to have the latest BIOS, do you see C-state 
management option in the BIOS? Also, does powertop show C-state info (and not 
just P-state as is the case for me)

Great machine, love it, and I have reduced fan noise to an acceptable level, 
but the subtle background up & down whining noise, how much better life would 
be without it!

Original comment by sit1...@gmail.com on 25 Apr 2011 at 9:12

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I went trough trouble to update R1120Y6 to my VPCF12S1E and yes there is now 
option for enabling/disabling C3/C6 states. Disabling this makes all those CPU 
related high pitch whines go away. I've also managed somehow to get rid of 
screen related whines and mic related whines so this computer is starting to be 
usable. 

This is what the powertop tells me:

Cn                Avg residency       P-states (frequencies)
C0 (cpu running)        ( 0.0%)       Turbo Mode     0.0%
polling           0.0ms ( 0.0%)         1.74 Ghz     0.0%
C1 mwait          0.2ms ( 0.0%)         1.60 Ghz     0.0%
C2 mwait          3.3ms ( 1.3%)         1466 Mhz     0.0%
C3 mwait         17.2ms (98.8%)          933 Mhz   100.0%

The fan is constantly running but mostly low rpm so I think this is the best I 
can get on this laptop. 

Original comment by obimeis...@gmail.com on 27 Apr 2011 at 8:15

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@obimeis, great, glad to hear the BIOS update is the key to C-state whining 
issue -- now to get a copy of Win7, arrggghhh, should not have tossed the HD 
when I replaced with SSD ;--(

btw, if you have not already done so, try the power miser option for the video 
card; that reduced fan noise considerably on my end.

In France, will have to wait until I get back to States in a couple of months.

This laptop is absolutely awesome, btw, so much happier having left Apple for 
Linux ;--)

Original comment by sit1...@gmail.com on 12 May 2011 at 3:33

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@obimeis, hmmm, my powertop is the same re: C-state display, odd.

Your P-state line looks like CPU has been totally downclocked, which may be why 
the machine is running quieter (since CPU is not generating as much heat)

Is the laptop still quiet when viewing flash movies and other CPU intensive 
activities? I suspect not, but curious.

Don't want to update the bios if it gets me nothing in terms of getting this 
thing as quiet as possible....

Original comment by sit1...@gmail.com on 12 May 2011 at 3:45

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I think the bios update is aimed mostly to solve cpu whining problems. I had 
powermizer permamently put to lowest freq because adaptive mode always put 
video card on 100%. And yes even just running firefox raised fan rpm.

Later on due all kind of minor annoying issues I installed Windows back. I feel 
noise levels to be quite same on both OS. 

Original comment by obi-...@kenou.biz on 12 May 2011 at 7:27

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Hi,
I updated the bios of my F11Z1E, but the refresh did not calm down the fan. For 
this model Sony provides the R0280Y6 bios and suggests the upgrade in order to 
avoid overheating. Well, apparently the upgrade to R0280Y6, that does not offer 
the option for enabling/disabling C3/C6 states, did not change anything.

In the meantime I discovered that I can reduce the temperature of my pc 
changing the "Preferred Mode" of PowerMizer in Nvidia X Server Settings from 
the default "Adaptive" to "Prefer Maximum Performance". The fan is still always 
on, but now is quieter and, moreover, in normal working conditions, the 
keyboard is cold...  

Original comment by kilo...@gmail.com on 15 May 2011 at 3:01

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@kilo, well yah, you discovered this post which says to downclock the video 
card ;-) That made a huge difference (between going insane at the noise and 
tolerable), but it can be better based on other posters in this thread re: CPU 
states + new BIOS + kernel >= 2.6.35.  I have Win 7 on a bootable USB key, 
would be great if it were a live CD so I didn't have to install to my HD just 
to update the BIOS! Oh well...

Original comment by sit1...@gmail.com on 15 Jun 2011 at 6:16

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OK, back to the States; got Windows 7 in place and updated BIOS to latest (i.e 
thermal management support c3/c6). Swapped back in SSD with Fedora 13 and 
upgraded to Fedora 14 (to get kernel 2.6.35 and intel_idle support).

So, have all the ingredients, right?

Experimenting:

1) enabled c3/c6 in the BIOS and put my ear to the laptop: same as before cpu 
noise going up & down = BAD.

2) disabled c3/c6 in BIOS and cpu noise more consistent (i.e. not going up and 
down) but loud.

3) for both enable/disable c3/c6 in BIOS, I tried intel_idle.max_cstate 2,4,6 
and all more or less the same in terms of noise "volume".

Conclusion, in updating to sony thermal managed bios and intel_idle supported 
linux kernel (i.e. >= 2.6.35), no real benefit gained other than perhaps making 
the cpu noise consistent through not switching c-states (assume that battery 
life will be even worse by preventing cpu from going into c3+ power saving 
states).

Was hoping for pure quiet, but reality with quad-core cpu is high heat, which 
at the least means fan blowing 24/7 to keep cool.  For the curious, my father 
just bought a quad core Macbook Pro and the fan on that runs pretty loud (does 
not have the cpu noise problems that vaio quad cores do, however).

So, seems like the best you can do is to downclock video card (via powermizer 
solution in this thread) + disable c3/c6 state in bios + perhaps set 
intel_idle.max_cstate (not sure if this does anything when bios c3/c6 disabled).

I guess the best thing is to work in a freezer and then the fan won't turn on 
;-)                                                                         

Original comment by sit1...@gmail.com on 4 Jul 2011 at 4:11

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Does anyone find it odd that sony and other manufacturer's solution to the 
noise problem is to disable power saving c-states? I mean, ideally we would 
have a powerful, yet quiet quad core machine.  Pinning c-state to < 3 means 
non-stop max power consumption, which means fan blows loud even at idle. 
Downclocking the cpu to the point of cutting speed in half also seems 
ridiculous, a fast dual core would be better in that case....

Original comment by sit1...@gmail.com on 5 Jul 2011 at 4:17

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After two months fighting against overheating and fan's noise I have to 
surrender: the "leather" cover of my Vaio (the plastic band around the 
touchpad) began to warp and to peel off. 

I send my F11Z1E back to Sony and I had it repaired in "only" twenty days... 

Now the cover is ok and the noise problem seems solved. Apparently they only 
changed the cover and made some tests. The BIOS (R0280Y6) is not the original 
one, but I had installed it by myself previous to send the pc to Sony. So I 
can't say if upgrading the BIOS is the solution or not, but for sure the 
working temperature is now lower, from an average of 63.0/64.0 C to an average 
of 53.0 C. and, when the Vaio is not working, it falls further to 47.0 and the 
fan turns off. 

Concluding, if you have some specific subset of VPCF11 and VPCCW2 series (you 
can check this here: 
http://genesis.sony-europe.com/instranet/ccil_sony/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=
47558&l=it_IT&m=VPCF11Z1E_BI) I suggest to upgrade the BIOS to R0280Y6 and, if 
this solution doesn't work, to send the pc back to Sony for a hardware check. 

Original comment by kilo...@gmail.com on 5 Jul 2011 at 3:08

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I've been working on this for a while now with little to no succes, I'll share 
my findings though.

Info:
- VPCF11S1E Vaio, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 720  @ 1.60GHz / 6GB RAM / GeForce 
GT 330M
- Kubuntu 11.04, 64bit / Windows 7 Home Premium
- Kernel 2.6.39.2 custom with full vaio patch

I initially tried out the settings as in comment #21, while this did seem to 
lower the temperature a little, there was virtually no change in fan speed or 
sound. This had the device temperature around an average of 65c, this with my 
CPU limited to 933Mhz and the fan blowing steadily.

A while ago I bricked my Windows 7 installation and today decided to take a 
look into restoring it to compare temperature and settings as well as do the in 
comment #34 mentioned BIOS update. I restored the partition, ran the BIOS 
update and checked HWiNFO64, the average temperature in Windows is also 65ish.. 
End result being, 65 seems to be the steady temperature for my device.

I re-enabled 'ondemand' as the governor for my CPU frequency and the average 
temperature is now closer to 69ish. So in the end, sadly nothing really makes a 
big difference.. after the BIOS upgrade I do feel the fan is less obtrusive in 
the noise it produces. 

The only thing I haven't been able to try or do is the things comment #32 
mentions. Enabling or disabling C3/C6 support in the BIOS, I have no such 
settings available.. I can change the time, date and boot order but have no 
advanced settings what so ever.

I'd never had a Sony laptop before this and if these issues persist, I never 
will again.

Original comment by rian.o...@gmail.com on 6 Jul 2011 at 1:08

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Only noticeable difference has been downclocking the GPU, that was significant, 
instant relief.

My CPU temps are in the low 50s, and when under load (e.g. running virtual 
machine(s)) in the low-to-mid 60s.

Post BIOS update I am not sure if disabling c3/c6 states a whole lot, perhaps 
the tinnitus ringing up/down sound is less, but the fan may blow even more now 
(since c-state is pinned to max consumption).

At least I have some options to experiment with now; on 2.6.34 with old BIOS I 
was completely powerless.

Good luck to everyone, great machine, overall I'm very happy with it ;-)

Original comment by sit1...@gmail.com on 6 Jul 2011 at 8:49

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How exactly did you downclock your GPU? 

I've also found another interesting thing today, PHC, 
http://www.linux-phc.org/. I'm not entirely sure yet if it applies, or how it 
applies.. but if it does what it promises, that's a very interesting path to 
explore as well.. Anyone have any insight here?

Original comment by rian.o...@gmail.com on 6 Jul 2011 at 8:52

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Just to say that I tried PHC and after a lot of effort and getting the patched 
PHC kernel, the CPU voltage doesn't accept the reduction that I wanna do. It 
seems to be locked.

Someone know if there is something special to do to get PHC working with a 
damned Vaio? :P

Breaking news that I forgot to tell: After a CMOS reset, my fan are much more 
silent! Temp are between 45C and 53C in normal use ( a C compilation with make 
bring the temp to 70C max.).

---------------------
VPCF1390S

Original comment by jef.zap...@gmail.com on 6 Jul 2011 at 9:01

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Shame about PHC, was really hoping that would make a difference.. but if the 
frequencies are locked, bleh. 

I'm doing 61c now using KDE/Openbox doing some minimal browsing with chrome and 
netbeans open. Fan is reasonably quiet.. I've got some magazines propped under 
the battery to slightly lift the laptops back up, this decreases the temp by 
about 4c or so.

One thing I've been wondering, and I might be totally off here, but does using 
a SSD decrease the temp at all? Has anyone noted a significant difference from 
this?

Original comment by rian.o...@gmail.com on 6 Jul 2011 at 9:31

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@rian

SSD should run cooler as it consumes less power and has no moving parts. The 
heat generators are of course the CPU & GPU.

Pick up an iRizer for a decent cooling solution (I'm @54 degrees C with windows 
VM, IntelliJ, Chrome, and Skype running)

Original comment by sit1...@gmail.com on 9 Jul 2011 at 1:24

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Actually, I stand corrected: disabling c3/c6 in the BIOS + downclocking GPU via 
Powermizer + perhaps grub entry "intel_idle.max_cstate=2" will make your 
machine very quiet.

The problem is, when running your machine for days & weeks on end without 
reboot (in my case, just suspend/sleep), then it will get progressively louder. 
 Why is this? Powertop is your friend here, just look at the top causes for 
wakeups and you'll see the source of the noise.  For example, today I saw 
Chrome was top o' the list with something like 2,000 kernal ticks (compared to 
most other processes which are under 100), followed by VMware (my Windows VM) 
at around 500 ticks.  The end result is 10% of the time I was in C1 when idle, 
which means, arggghhh, noise. Shutting down Chrome and VMware brought wakeups 
per second down to 55 (before it was in the thousands).

I prefer Chrome to Firefox, but will go with the latter if Chrome continues to 
go nuts, and only run Windows VM when necessary.

So, to sum up: if you have done the necessary fixes and still experience a 
noisy machine, go to powertop and see what's causing the machine to wakeup from 
idle state (relatively idle, I should say, since ironically, we can't even get 
into true power saving idle state by disabling c3-c6).

Good luck, silence is beautiful!

Original comment by sit1...@gmail.com on 28 Aug 2011 at 12:40

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It seems that we all found different solutions to lower the fan noise on this 
thread, so I post my complete workaround below (which worked perfectly after 
some hours of tests and attempts) to turn my Vaio (VPCF13C5E) quiet on Linux 
(Ubuntu 11.10). Instead of just writing a straight-forward and setp-by-step 
method, I'll also detail some of my attempts, so you may find YOUR way, just in 
case some settings don't work for you. 

Until now, I was in a multi-boot context with most disk space allocated to 
Linux (Ubuntu 11.10) and a small partition for Windows 7.

On Windows 7, since I've set the power plan to "Silent" in Vaio Control Center 
utility (then Power management -> thermal options) that ships with the Vaio, it 
has always been very quiet, altough the fan speed tended to vary a little upon 
load. But on Ubuntu at least, the fan was VERY noisy all the time.

So I decided to follow the tips above on this thread, but the options I had to 
set are a bit different to make the fan stay quiet.

I'm not a gamer, so I don't need intensive CPU / GPU usage but I use a few VMs 
in VirtualBox, so you may adapt the following procedure according to your needs 
(make a copy of all the files you edit in case you want to roll-back)

--------------------------------------------
1. Check your Vaio's exact model

To find the exact model reference, I rebooted, then pressed F2 before GRUB load 
to enter the BIOS.
On the "Main" tab :

Machine name was : VPCF13C5E
BIOS version was : R0180Y9

--------------------------------------------
2. Upgrade the BIOS if needed

 -- Read this paragraph completely before following this step 
    As far as I know this step * CANNOT * be undone but it's always better to have a recent BIOS --

I couldn't find the famous c3/c6 option in my BIOS.
So I went to Sony Vaio support site of my country (I guess you could also go to 
Sony US / global site), looked for support related to VPCF13C5E and found a 
BIOS update (BIOS R0190Y9 instead of mine which was R0180Y9)
Downloaded the .exe file containing the BIOS update and the upgrade was done in 
less than 1 minute, rebooted the PC, pressed F2 upon boot and disabled the 
c3/c6 options in the BIOS.

Then I first tried to boot on Windows 7, to see if it was still quiet as 
before. IT WASN'T ! Now as loud as in Linux !

So I enabled the c3/c6 option back in BIOS.

As a matter of fact, after different attempts at the end of the procedure 
below, I HAD TO KEEP THE c3/c6 option ** ENABLED ** to make the fan quiet on 
Linux.
On Windows 7, the fan noise with c3/c6 enabled was as quiet as before with 
prevoius firmware, but now more stable, so upgrading the BIOS was stil helpful.

--------------------------------------------
3. Set CPU governor to Powersave in Linux

I first had a look to the method indicated in comment #23 above 
(http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8790599&postcount=11) but it seemed to 
be hasardous, so I decided to harcode
the values for each CPU like stated here : 
http://superuser.com/questions/179329/disable-frequency-scaling-ondemand-daemon-
on-ubuntu-10-04

My CPU is i7, so quadcore -> 8 CPU seen by the system (0 to 7)
In doubt, do cpufreq-info in command line (or apt-get cpufreq-info In Debian / 
Ubuntu if not installed), you'll se the IDs of each core.

sudo vim /etc/sysfs.conf

Then I wrote (like in comment #21) :

devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor = powersave
... in 8 lines (cpu1, cpu2...) until ...
devices/system/cpu/cpu7/cpufreq/scaling_governor = powersave

--------------------------------------------
4. Tweak your GRUB

sudo vim /etc/default/grub

Change the line : 

    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
To : 
    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash intel_idle.max_cstate=6"

It's true that the higher cstate you set (6) more your CPU will be 
"powersaving" and more quiet will be the fan...
as sated here : http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/611

Then save / close and still in command line :
sudo update-grub

--------------------------------------------
5. Downclock your GPU (NVidia CPU)

sudo /usr/bin/nvidia-settings

(If not installed, try to install a package like nvidia-settings or google for 
that)

Then go to the Powermizer section of Nvidia Settings GUI.
In the "performance levels" table, the active line may be 1 or 2

You have to set it to level 1, so that the GPU will use less power (thus less 
heat dissipation and the fan noise will be much lower), and remain stable for 
most use cases.

To change the max performance level you see here in Nvidia GUI / Powermizer 
section, you have to edit your xorg.conf file :

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

In the "Device" section in this file, find a line like (mine was like this) :

    Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1" 

And complete as follows (on a SINGLE line) :

    Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1; PowerMizerEnable=0x1; PerfLevelSrc=0x3333; PowerMizerDefault=0x2; PowerMizerDefaultAC=0x2"

Note :
PowerMizerDefault (battery) and PowerMizerDefaultAC (AC power) values in 
xorg.conf are actually ** MAX ** levels (not really default levels).

In other words, if you set level 1 as a default through xorg.conf, level 2 will 
never be reached in any case, including on GPU overload, but level 1 is 
sufficient in most use cases (while level 0 as default will cause unstability 
in some cases and level 2 will increase heat dissipation and therefore fan 
noise).

Here are the equivalences between maximum Performance levels you may want in 
the NVidia GUI / Powermizer -> "Performance level" table and the values for 
PowerMizerDefault and PowerMizerDefaultAC you have to set in xorg.conf :

xorg.conf     Nvidia GUI table

  0x3 :    Performance level 0
  0x2 :    Performance level 1
  0x1 :    Performance level 2

Those changes in xorg.conf will not take effect in Nvidia settings GUI until X 
restart or reboot (see below).

--------------------------------------------
6. Reboot and enjoy

So, after all those settings are done, reboot your Vaio :

    sudo reboot

Now you should have your device much more quiet on Linux, at least as quiet as 
on Windows with Sony proprietary drivers (Vaio control center -> power 
management -> silent mode ;-)

Of course, on Linux, as on Windows and any other OS, the fan speed will still 
vary upon CPU / GPU load, but at least you can now have the fan noise downgrade 
at best.

And remember that in Vaio F, like in most laptops, the only way to limit fan 
noise is to find the best compromise between heat dissipation and CPU / GPU 
performance according to your needs (in other words, there's no way to set CPU 
throttles directly on BIOS, like on some motherboards for destktop PCs).

Hope this helps.

Original comment by gle...@gmail.com on 3 Dec 2011 at 1:27