Acer TravelMate P653 - noisy fan on bootup

I didn't use my laptop over Christmas as I was away. It was left plugged into the mains but powered down.

The first time I booted it after my return the fan suddenly started up when the Starting Windows message appeared. It then remained at near maximum speed long after everything had loaded. This has never happened before.

I have managed to workaround this by pressing Fn + F4 which places the laptop in sleep mode. After several seconds the fan powers down.

If I then press a key to wake the laptop up everything is fine and the fan doesn't run at high speed. I can hear it gently running in the background.

For the remainder of that session the fan behaves itself. But when I start the laptop up from cold the whole process starts again and I have to repeat the actions to turn it off.

I'm mystified why it's doing this. I have uninstalled and reinstalled Acer ePower Management v6.0 via the eRecovery Management utility but it has made no difference.

I've also checked the BIOS (F2 at bootup) and can see nothing there that influences the fan speed.

Any help to cure this problem would be appreciated.

Accepted answers

RayP

PROBLEM SOLVED!

In the end it was something simple but I really don't understand why this action fixed it.

With the laptop powered off I removed the battery then removed the power lead. I then reattached the battery and reconnected the power lead.

Powered up the laptop and the fan did not power up to full speed.

Thanks for your help laurent and I hope this may help others.

All comments

laurent_14

Hello,

Have you tried to load the "Default settings" or "Optimazed settings" in the bios setup utility?

RayP

Thanks for your answer. No, I haven't. As I said before I cannot see any settings in the BIOS that affect the fan speed so discounted that option.

Please remind me how I can do this if you think it will solve the problem.

RayP

I pressed F2 on bootup to enter the BIOS. I then pressed F9 to reset it to default and then saved and exited.

The fan still came on when 'Loading Windows' was displayed. This makes me think it's something to do with what Windows is loading rather than a BIOS setting. if it was a BIOS setting the fan would start immediately wouldn't it?

I've even used a vacuum to suck any dust out of the various grills on the laptop but to no avail.

This is an extract what runs via msconfig on startup. Perhaps it might help. Yes/No in the first column indicates if it's enabled or not.

Yes   HKCU:Run   CCleaner Monitoring   Piriform Ltd   "C:\Program Files\CCleaner\CCleaner64.exe" /MONITOR
No   HKLM:Run   Acer MotionProtect Tray Application   STMicroelectronics   C:\Program Files (x86)\ST Microelectronics\ST_ACCEL\FFP_Token.exe
No   HKLM:Run   AtherosBtStack   Atheros Commnucations   "C:\Program Files (x86)\Bluetooth Suite\BtvStack.exe"
Yes   HKLM:Run   AvastUI.exe   AVAST Software   "C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\AvastUI.exe" /nogui
No   HKLM:Run   BackupManagerTray   NTI Corporation   "C:\Program Files (x86)\NTI\Acer Backup Manager\BackupManagerTray.exe" -h -k
Yes   HKLM:Run   BCSSync   Microsoft Corporation   "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\BCSSync.exe" /DelayServices
No   HKLM:Run   cAudioFilterAgent   Conexant Systems, Inc.   C:\Program Files\Conexant\cAudioFilterAgent\cAudioFilterAgent64.exe
Yes   HKLM:Run   EgisTecPMMUpdate   Egis Technology Inc.   "C:\Program Files (x86)\EgisTec IPS\PmmUpdate.exe"
Yes   HKLM:Run   EgisUpdate   Egis Technology Inc.   "C:\Program Files (x86)\EgisTec IPS\EgisUpdate.exe" -d
Yes   HKLM:Run   HotKeysCmds   Intel Corporation   C:\Windows\system32\hkcmd.exe
No   HKLM:Run   HP Software Update   Hewlett-Packard   C:\Program Files (x86)\Hp\HP Software Update\HPWuSchd2.exe
Yes   HKLM:Run   IgfxTray   Intel Corporation   C:\Windows\system32\igfxtray.exe
No   HKLM:Run   IMSS   Intel Corporation   "C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IMSS\PIconStartup.exe"
Yes   HKLM:Run   LManager   Dritek System Inc.   C:\Program Files (x86)\Launch Manager\LManager.exe
Yes   HKLM:Run   Navigraph FMS Data Manager   Navigraph   C:\Program Files (x86)\Navigraph\FMS Data Manager\NGFMSAgent.exe -autostart
Yes   HKLM:Run   NvBackend   NVIDIA Corporation   "C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\Update Core\NvBackend.exe"
Yes   HKLM:Run   Persistence   Intel Corporation   C:\Windows\system32\igfxpers.exe
Yes   HKLM:Run   Power Management   Acer Incorporated   C:\Program Files\Acer\Acer ePower Management\ePowerTray.exe
Yes   HKLM:Run   ProShieldTSR   Egis Technology Inc.    "C:\Program Files\Acer ProShield\EgisTSR.exe" /run
No   HKLM:Run   StatusAlerts   Hewlett-Packard Company   "C:\Program Files (x86)\HP\StatusAlerts\bin\HPStatusAlerts.exe" /enum Smiley Surprised n /alertsn /notificationsn /fln /frn /appData&colon;on /tmcpn
Yes   HKLM:Run   SynTPEnh   Synaptics Incorporated   %ProgramFiles%\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPEnh.exe
Yes   HKLM:Run   USB3MON   Intel Corporation   "C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller Driver\Application\iusb3mon.exe"
No   HKLM:Run   WaveTSSW8UpgradePatch       "C:\Program Files (x86)\Acer Proshield\W8UpgradePatch.js"
No   Startup Common   Acer VCM.lnk   Acer Incorporated   C:\PROGRA~2\Acer\ACERVC~1\AcerVCM.exe

laurent_14

if it was a BIOS setting the fan would start immediately wouldn't it? yes it would.

Have you tried to reinstall the chipset driver?

RayP

"Have you tried to reinstall the chipset driver?"

No. I will need some guidance to do that please.

Have you discounted the programs that start with Windows being responsible? As the fan starts up when "Starting Windows" appears it does appear to be linked.

laurent_14

Look at this page about "HPStatusAlerts.exe". May be a virus.

RayP

A virus??? It's a very strange one if it is. I searched for hpstatusalerts.exe and ran Avast on it and it reported clean. The laptop shows no indications it's infected and I am careful about which sites I visit and never click on links in spam mail.