17" Defiance - Tips for reducing fan noise?

[Fuzzball]

Hi everyone, I've got a new 17" Defiance with an i7 Eight Core 10870H and RTX 3080 Max-Q (will post full spec below), and I've been struggling to set it up due to my anxiety issues over getting used to new pieces of technology. (Plus it had a screen hardware issue which I had to send back to PCS twice to fix.)

I've almost got it all there, but the thing I've noticed bothering me recently is that the fans sometimes run VERY loud. (Loud enough to hear elsewhere in the house!) I've yet to try running any games on it, so this is just when the CPU is under load (e.g. installing Windows updates or Steam games). I've looked at the temperatures in the Control Center 3.0, and they seem to be at around 80°c at most (which I understand is within normal tolerance for CPUs these days), but still the fans come on very strongly.

The laptop is sitting flat on a desk, and I have the CC3.0 set with the "Entertainment" profile and the fans set to Automatic. I also found out from other threads that I should set Windows' power plan back to "Balanced", so as not to have the processor trying to run at 100% all the time.

Still the laptop is very thin so it can obviously easily heat up. The heat is only physically noticeable when I touch the underside of the laptop, which is better than my previous laptop (which was much thicker) where you could feel heat on the same surface as the keyboard.

So I'm looking for some tips to help reduce the fan noise while obviously still keeping my hardware safe.

1) What is the "Offset" meter in the CC3.0, shown when fans are set to Automatic? Am I right in thinking it's a setting to set a minimum percentage for the fans? I take it there's no way to set a maximum fan percentage?

2) There is also the option to set custom fan percentages at two temperature points. Has anyone found a good set up with this that keeps fans effective but quiet? What if I try having the fans set to moderate strength at low temperatures (say, 35-40% at 30°c), to be on top of things before they really heat up, but then only have the fans increase a little bit as temperatures rise (say, 50% at 80°c)?

3) Are laptop cooling pads just seen as a necessity these days? I'd rather not get one if I don't have to, as I prefer to have the laptop just flat on the desk.

4) I've also come across (though not yet tried) something that seems to be an effective solution for reducing temps. People have suggested setting the processor's maximum power state to 99% (in Windows' advanced power settings), so that it doesn't Turbo Boost. This apparently reduces temps by 20°c, but obviously has some effect on performance. My i7 CPU says it has eight cores at 2.2GHz; and 5.0GHz when Turbo boosted. Will the eight 2.2GHz cores, combined with the strong GPU, still give me good game performance, even in CPU-heavy titles like the Total War games? I'm happy to have my max FPS set to just 60, as that's what I'm used to, but would like to be able to use my GPU to run things at top settings.

Will reducing the CPU to 99% have any noticeable effect on other day to day activities?


Sorry for all the long-winded questions. I'm just trying to get it set up in a way I'm comfortable with, and so was wondering what other people have done to help them.

FULL SPECS:

Chassis & Display	Defiance Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD 240Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)	Intel® Core™ i7 Eight Core Processor 10870H (2.2GHz, 5.0GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)	32GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card	NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 3080 Max-Q - 16.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive	250GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 2300MB/W)
2nd M.2 SSD Drive	2TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
Memory Card Reader	Integrated Micro-SD Memory Card Reader
AC Adaptor	1 x 180W AC Adaptor
Power Cable	1 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf UK Power Cable
Battery	Defiance Series Integrated 3 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (73WH)
Thermal Paste	ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card	2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless	GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ Wi-Fi 6 AX1650 M.2 GAMING + BLUETOOTH 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options	1 x THUNDERBOLT 3 PORT + 3 x USB 3.2 PORTS
Keyboard Language	17" DEFIANCE SERIES UK KEYBOARD
Operating System	Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language	United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media	Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software	Microsoft® Office Home & Student 2019 (1 Digital License)
Anti-Virus	NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser	Google Chrome™
Notebook Mouse	INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam	INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty	3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee	30 Day Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs

 

[djsubtronic]

The built in Clevo fan control is kind of garbage, you can try this if you want: https://github.com/djsubtronic/ClevoFanControl

It's a fan control app that lets you set custom temperature based fan curves, I've been using it on my 15" Defiance so far, if the 17" is also a two fan system (not three) then it should work without any problems for you as well. Though I am using it as my permanent fan control solution, I would keep an eye on it while using it to make sure it's working correctly for you.

 

[JakAttack]

Thanks for your post Fuzzball.

1. The offset feature lets you just bump it one way or the other when it is in automatic mode, but usually more emphasis on the boost, the fans don't like being restricted which is why they tend to follow a power profile, they are quite well-tuned to react to different usage levels so they are quite intermittent.

2. I would look at the program DJSubtronic posted, although we don't officially recommend 3rd party apps like this so use them at your discretion.

3. For gaming I really do recommend cooling pads, as you've noted yourself the higher the temps the lower the frequency as the system balances itself out, if you have a lower high temp the speeds will gently increase and it does help it last a bit longer as modern laptops tend to get quite warm during this usage.

4. Reducing the system speed can be a very effective way of reducing temps, as you said most of the temperature gain on the CPU comes from Turbo mode, you can use apps to reduce the turbo amount and timing of the boost to help out, if you are worried about performance I would run 3D Mark (free version) and get yourself a score, then rerun the benchmark with your newer power settings and see how it impacts the gaming performance, if its not too bad and you're happy, then we're happy. But if it's not working for you let us know and we'll look into different solutions.

 

[Slinky69]

I second the cooling pad, something I have noticed with mine is it catches dust hair etc that might otherwise end up in your laptop.

 

[Fuzzball]

Thanks for your post Fuzzball.

1. The offset feature lets you just bump it one way or the other when it is in automatic mode, but usually more emphasis on the boost, the fans don't like being restricted which is why they tend to follow a power profile, they are quite well-tuned to react to different usage levels so they are quite intermittent.

2. I would look at the program DJSubtronic posted, although we don't officially recommend 3rd party apps like this so use them at your discretion.

3. For gaming I really do recommend cooling pads, as you've noted yourself the higher the temps the lower the frequency as the system balances itself out, if you have a lower high temp the speeds will gently increase and it does help it last a bit longer as modern laptops tend to get quite warm during this usage.

4. Reducing the system speed can be a very effective way of reducing temps, as you said most of the temperature gain on the CPU comes from Turbo mode, you can use apps to reduce the turbo amount and timing of the boost to help out, if you are worried about performance I would run 3D Mark (free version) and get yourself a score, then rerun the benchmark with your newer power settings and see how it impacts the gaming performance, if its not too bad and you're happy, then we're happy. But if it's not working for you let us know and we'll look into different solutions.

Thanks for the detailed response. I appreciate it. I guess I my issue is I just have to face up to my anxieties and actually get down to regularly using my laptop and testing it out.

A couple of questions for now:

I'm afraid I don't understand your explanation of the offset feature... Is there another way you can describe it?

Trying to understand this Turbo mode... Turning it off would mean that each of the CPU's eight cores could only run at a max of 2.2GHz. But if there are eight cores, is that actually an issue? Surely modern games and programs, if they need more GHz, can just use multiple cores and add the numbers together? Or do CPUs not work that way?

 

[JakAttack]

Good morning FuzzBall

Regarding the offset, the value you select should add RPM to the existing fan curve, so if the fan curve says it should (for example) run at 40% fan on 40°C and you add an offset of 10% it will run at 50% at 40°C and so on so forth as the scale goes up. Hope that makes sense.

Most modern games will utilize cores effectively so you are correct in saying most games will take what they need from available CPUs, it depends on how well optimized and made the game engine is, so AAA titles should always run well whereas less refined indy games may not. As mentioned in my previous response, I would benchmark the system with turbo on and turbo off for a real-world figure to show the difference.

 

[Fuzzball]

Thanks again. Is turning off Turbo Boost likely to have any noticeable effect on day to day Windows performance (not intensive games)? As I said, when doing Windows updates and installing Steam games the fans would sometimes run very loud (although I didn't look at the CPU usage or temperature), so I'm guessing Turbo Boost was being used.

But I'm guessing modern CPUs are powerful enough at just the base speed to be more than enough for simple Windows usage? It's only intensive games where the CPU power is really an issue?

Thanks again for answering all my questions. I'm just trying to understand things as best as possible.

 

[JakAttack]

For general day-to-day usage, you should be fine, with Intel's management these days you tend to find the CPU speed often gets no-where near max when using standard run-of-the-mill apps.

Only gaming/rendering/editing/high level processing would be affected as a rule.