Hi
I have a Toshiba Satellite M35X laptop that has a very anoying little fan on it. When it idles it is fine but under load it will kick on and off very frequently. I have these two recordings right after I had done some searching on ebay for about 15 minutes.
http://files-upload.com/files/578018/m35x fan.wav
http://files-upload.com/files/578021/fancpu.wav
Is this normal for a laptop? I have only had a pent 2 laptop that wasn't ever as anoying as this one.

The fan is loud on that laptop. I also have one. You can select a quiet mode, but the CPU will run slower.

Hmm... interresting... as Tedster said... the fans in some laptops (like that one) are loud.
My compaq's fan goes nuts when playing an HD video file... it'll kick on and off and on and off and then finally give up on turning it off at all and just run.
(Although, i'd be much more concerned if the fan didn't run...)

How do you do that?

Weird story pyromaster. I had a satellite 1905 that I took apart to clean out the heatsink and when I put it back together the fan would only kick on when you start the computer for a few seconds then never turn back on. So I disasembled it again and just ran it with the motherboard only and the fan would turn on and off when it got hot. I put it back together and it did the same thing it would not turn on. So I took it apart again and of course it worked normal so I put the laptop together with no screws at all and it would work normal. For some reason the pressure of the screws would stop the fan from working. I only put about 2/3rds of the screws in and let it run overnight and it didn't shut down once, I even moved it around and shook it alot and it wouldn't affect the fan. Very strange that that would happen.

go to toshiba power management options.

oh ok I see it now it is under the advanced tab. other people told me to look in the max power icon's properties. I was like what the heck. It is alot more quiet and not anoying anymore. Like night and day difference. The air that blows out is alot warmer though.

Well the system will run a lot hotter. So it's a trade off. The laptop is very rugged. Mine's been in combat and back. I've maxed out the ram and put a 7200 rpm HD in it. I use it on the road a lot too. My desktop has been in storage for over a year as I move around a lot in the military.

Do you run yours in silent mode?

no. I have no problems with my fan and the noise doesn't bother me.

oh it is like a drill into my brain for me not to have it on silent