Laptop fan questions/issues
Hi everyone, got a question about laptop fan speeds.
Recently picked up an ASUS G60VX-RBBX05 laptop over at Best Buy. It ran fine for the most part. In particular, its fan was very nice. It ran at a constant quiet level, exhausting the warm air. When I started a game, it kicked up as necessary, but otherwise it was fine.
Laptop started to act up with other issues, so I exchanged it for a new one. This new one fixed the issues I exchanged it for, but its fan is bugging me. Instead of running at a nice constant whisper, it stays virtually off for about 15 seconds, cranks up to full blast for 10, then repeats this.
It's driving me nuts, and is extremely distracting. Is this "normal"? Can this be alleviated? Because I sure as hell hope so, I can't work with a laptop that calls attention to itself every 15 seconds.
I'd hate to swap it out again since this was the only one they had in stock, and exchanging is such a hassle. Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.
Edit: Also, is there a CPU/GPU temperature reading app you can recommend? I've heard of a few like speedfan and motherboard monitor, but I wonder what out there reads both of them and are Icrontian-approved?
-Bandrik
Recently picked up an ASUS G60VX-RBBX05 laptop over at Best Buy. It ran fine for the most part. In particular, its fan was very nice. It ran at a constant quiet level, exhausting the warm air. When I started a game, it kicked up as necessary, but otherwise it was fine.
Laptop started to act up with other issues, so I exchanged it for a new one. This new one fixed the issues I exchanged it for, but its fan is bugging me. Instead of running at a nice constant whisper, it stays virtually off for about 15 seconds, cranks up to full blast for 10, then repeats this.
It's driving me nuts, and is extremely distracting. Is this "normal"? Can this be alleviated? Because I sure as hell hope so, I can't work with a laptop that calls attention to itself every 15 seconds.
I'd hate to swap it out again since this was the only one they had in stock, and exchanging is such a hassle. Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.
Edit: Also, is there a CPU/GPU temperature reading app you can recommend? I've heard of a few like speedfan and motherboard monitor, but I wonder what out there reads both of them and are Icrontian-approved?
-Bandrik
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Also, did a few tests myself. First tried Furmark to see how hot it actually can get. GPU went up to 102 C which wasn't unexpected but still an unwelcome amount of toasty.
I also tried SpeedFan 4.40 to check and track CPU and GPU temps. Not surprising, the chart easily shows where the fan stops and starts again. It stays almost completely off till the GPU scorches up to 90 C, then kicks on full blast to cool it down to about 72 where it turns off again. Repeat. See chart below for visual.
NOTE THAT ALL OF THIS IS DONE TOTALLY IDLE. NO other apps are running aside from SpeedFan itself.
Any thoughts? How out of the ordinary is this? I don't know if this is typical, or if this is a sure sign of something seriously wrong in the way this laptop is handling cooling (personally, heating something to nearly 100 C and back down to 72 and back every 30 seconds can't be good for the internals...).
Edit Update: after that graph was created, it settled down to a constant 63 C for about 45 minutes straight. Now it's returned to the exact identical pattern you see above, going between 72 C and 90 C in a very annoying cycle of blasting fan and odd silence. So very aggravating.
That should keep the fan running all the time and not let the computer turn it off to 'save power' only to have it turn on again 15 seconds later and blast it to cool it down for 10 seconds repeat. On lenovo's you have to make sure that both areas are setup correctly to just let the fan run normally.
Kryyst is right, there are bios features that 'power save' with the fan, at least on desktop mobos. I can't imagine a laptop being very different. I typically disable the power save feature on my motherboard and set the fan speed normally.
Try to find a comfy RPM for the fan that isn't too loud for you, but fast enough that it's doing its job. Force the speed so that it stays constant, ensuring proper cooling without the stop/go performance.
This is how I have always tweaked my desktop PCs. I have very little windows laptop experience, so I could be off my rocker - depends on the amount of strain a small laptop heatsink can take. I use aftermarket coolers on my desktops, so I know they can go the distance.
Took a look through the BIOS. Combed through the entire thing, there wasn't a single bit about cooling preferences. Hell, the entire BIOS was rather bare-bones. Didn't see much of any advanced settings (to my dismay, as I prefer to tweak those).
I'm heading to Best Buy now to see if they can do anything. I may just request to swap it out (again) and not deal with repairing it. 1-day-old laptops shouldn't need repair jobs, dammit.
Also almost every laptop these days comes with some kind of power software that lets you tweak out various options.
And these temps are being read WHILE burning a DVD backup of its clean install.
So far, so good. I'll add an update to this post after it's run for a few hours to see if it holds true. *crosses fingers*
It's an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M. I didn't realize that ATI has a fan speed control setting. I looked around and couldn't find anything like that. There may have been something for the Nvidia but I didn't spot it.
Though sadly it's kind of a moot point now. Laptop started doing exactly what the other one was doing. Makes me thing it's "normal" for this laptop series, but tech support told me this was an issue and the cooling system is not performing properly, causing it to overheat.
Took the third one back to Best Buy and received a full refund. I asked if there was anything else they could do to help offset my inconvenience, and the manager replied that he's not allowed to give me a new one at a discount, upgrade to a better laptop for the same price, or even give me a "we're sorry" gift card. He was apologetic and did everything he could to help give me advice so I'm not upset - he did the best he could with what corporate policy gives him to work with.
Still, can't help but feel a little disappointed. Yeah, it was probably something fixable, but out of principle I won't accept a new laptop with abnormalities right off the bat. I'll wait a few weeks then try the search for a new laptop again.
Case closed.
^^This is the key. The previous laptop probably had an imperfect heatsink installation and the cooler was not able to keep it at a constant temperature while running at lower speed. Thus, it was periodically speeding up to keep up with the heat. I have seen this on my Latitude D630, again with Nvidia discreet graphics. But I have fixed it myself by reinstalling the heatsink with Arctic Silver 5.
Since this has repeated in three different computers, it was a design problem by ASUS. They have probably chosen an inadequate cooler for that laptop/GPU.
Very much possible. Though the only thing that really boggled my mind (and was really the heart of the problem) was that during the times of "overheating", there was NO air coming out of the vents at all. Between the different laptops I found a common cooling pattern that goes like the following:
Boot laptop. Fan turns on, goes constant at a low speed, warm air exhausts going for about 30 minutes.
Then, the fan turns off completely and allows the GPU to increase to 90°C. Once the threshold of 90 is reached, the fan turns on again at an unplesantly loud roar to pull it back to the 70's, only to TURN OFF AGAIN. Repeat this 5 cycles, then re-activate the fan at a constant low hum for 20 minutes. Repeat this paragraph indefinitely.
So my personal problem with this is twofold: first, the fan on-off-on-off is annoying. Second, I don't like the idea of my GPU going from 70 to 90 every 15 seconds when it's zig-zagging.
But I haven't read this anywhere else about this issue, so either I'm unlucky or I'm too much of a cooling nitpick.
Your thoughts though on the strange pattern above?