I'm considering an HP nc6120:

http://www.emag.ro/Notebook/HP_nc6120_Centrino_M_750_1_86GHz_15_DVD-RW_80GB_XP_PRO--pPG825EAABB

and everything looks peachy except there are scattered mentions on the web of the fan running all the time:

http://www.notebookreview.com/price/default.asp?productID=13051&productFamilyID=541&display=opinionDetail

Does anyone here happen to own one? I've held my ear closely in every store that sells it, never heard a whisper. (But the CPU is always at 0% or so; can't tell what happens under load).

Any directions to a distressed consumer appreciated.

There was a particular flavour of Toshiba laptop that had a permanently running fan recently, but they released a BIOS update fairly swiftly and the problem vanished. Not particularly helpful to your specific question, granted, but if the HP machines are suffering a similar problem then there will probably be a similar solution...

I've got an nw8000 and the fan does spend rather too long on sometimes.

The fan does seem to run all the time. But it's not too loud.

Almost any modern notebook is gonna have serious heat problems. It's something laptop owners are learning to live with.

Thanks for the input; also, apparently the more annoying behavior is that the fan turns on for a few *seconds*, then back off, etc.

I think I'll just upgrade my desktop.

I haven't noticed the off and on thing.

Hmm... thanks for that, son of parnas.

Here are the (quite discouraging) links.

http://www.notebookforums.com/archive/index.php/t-81416.html
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=853249