Disclaimer

The content of this blog is my personal opinion only. Although I am an employee - currently of Nvidia, in the past of other companies such as Iagination Technologies, MIPS, Intellectual Ventures, Intel, AMD, Motorola, and Gould - I reveal this only so that the reader may account for any possible bias I may have towards my employer's products. The statements I make here in no way represent my employer's position, nor am I authorized to speak on behalf of my employer. In fact, this posting may not even represent my personal opinion, since occasionally I play devil's advocate.

See http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcxddbtr_23cg5thdfj for photo credits.

Saturday, September 05, 2009

Making lemonade with my Toshiba M400 Tablet PC

I have blogged in the past about my Toshiba M400 Tablet PC. I so much loved my older Toshiba 3505 Tablet PC, but the M400 is just plain and simply a lemon. It has sat unused for the almost two years since I bought it, because it was simply too loud to be used at home.

Not just my PC, but apparently the whole M400 model line. Googling finds many people with my complaint: fan too loud, hangs. One fellow even went so far as to void his warranty by installing an on/off switch for the fan.

Several sites discussed how the fan noise was a bigger issue in Japan than in the United States. Apparently the Japanese are less tolerant of unnecessary noise than are Americans. Yet another thing I have in common with Japan.

Having a bit of free time, I decided to try to make a go of it again. Reinstalled from scratch. Tried using various utilities to tune CPU performance and fan speed: RM Clock, Notebook Hardware Control, and, most usefully, SpeedFan. However, although the latter accomplished some tunings, they were insufficient to make it tolerable.

"When life gives you a lemon, make lemonade..."

The M400 is too loud to use at home. However, we have a cottage near the ocean, filled with the roar of the surf. The M400 is, barely, tolerable here. The M400 is louder than the surf, especially when it goes into what I call "Hyper Fan" mode; but it may be okay to leave the computer at the cottage. Heaven knows I am getting no other good use out of it.

Annoyingly, the M400 is the first machine I bought a multi year warranty for. Expires next year. If there was any hope of it being fixed. But past attempts were vain.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Since I have started spending the work week in Bellevue, I have been able to use my Toshiba M400 Tablet PC, at nights in my rented apartment downtown. There is enough background noise to make the Toshiba fan noise tolerable.

I still find it loud, but relatively much less so.

Also note: it's not just the nouse that is annoying. It is the variation in the noise, as it goes up and down.

9/22/2009 12:07 p.m.

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