Setting my mind at rest with fans and temps

[Animal_79]

Hi,

I have had a new laptop for Christmas and on the whole I am very happy with it and gaming performance, however I have noticed that the fans go absolutely mental as soon as any game starts up, to the point that headphones are pretty much a necessity to be able to play.

I think the most likely answer to this is "That's just what high spec gaming laptops do", however...

I have played around with the fan setting s a bit and at first, reducing the fan settings a bit using the control centre seemed to significantly reduce fan noise and didn't appear to have any impact upon the temperatures reported in the control centre.

However, whilst playing today the machine has shut down on me - seeming to go to sleep mode (so games etc are still running when I boot back up), rather than just a full switch off (which is what my previous Windows 10 machine would have done).

This made me think I should actually double check what is going on.

Using the default (jet engine), fan settings I had the results below after just a few minutes.

I know very (very very) little about hardware or PCs in general. I know that CPUs are designed to run hot, but the fact that some numbers below are red worries me.

Should it?

I also notice that (based on Alt-tab to the control centre and then using the reading there), as soon as the game isn't the open window temperatures seem to drop off very quickly. Is this normal?

My pc specs are:

Chassis & Display
Defiance Series: 15.6" Matte QHD 165Hz WVA DCI-P3 LED Widescreen (2560x1440)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 14 Core Processor 12700H (4.7GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 4800MHz SODIMM DDR5 (1 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 3070 Ti - 8.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 7000MB/R, 5000MB/W)
AC Adaptor
1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre Cloverleaf UK Power Cable
Battery
Defiance Series Integrated 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (80WH)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless Network Card
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX201 + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x THUNDERBOLT 4 PORT + 3 x USB 3.2 PORTS
Keyboard Language
PER-KEY RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10/11 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MP FULL HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Welcome Book
PCSpecialist Welcome Book - United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland


Many thanks in advance for any thoughts.

Ben

 

[Animal_79]

I should add that the gpu temps are running 6-12 degrees cooler than the cpu even when the fan speeds are matched - although I didn’t save the hwmonitor data for this.

I had expected the gpu to be the hotter component but maybe this is just my ignorance.

Is there another test that that I should run?

 

[SpyderTracks]

I should add that the gpu temps are running 6-12 degrees cooler than the cpu even when the fan speeds are matched - although I didn’t save the hwmonitor data for this.

I had expected the gpu to be the hotter component but maybe this is just my ignorance.

Is there another test that that I should run?

That's about right for Intel, they run crazy hot.

I think HWMonitor reports anything over 100 in red.

GPUs target temp is around 84.

You can apply an undervolt to the CPU to try to lower it, unfortunately that's rather expected on intel, they should really do it at the factory.

 

[Animal_79]

That's about right for Intel, they run crazy hot.

I think HWMonitor reports anything over 100 in red.

GPUs target temp is around 84.

You can apply an undervolt to the CPU to try to lower it, unfortunately that's rather expected on intel, they should really do it at the factory.

Many thanks.

I think I should be able to do this from the control centre.

So effectively play a bit with the under volt and fan speed until I find a balance that I am happy with?

Am I correct in thinking that the cpu under-volting (within reason) shouldn’t have too great an impact on gaming as this will be more focused on the gpu?

At the moment I have everything maxed on the 2560 resolution - which is glorious

 

[SpyderTracks]

Many thanks.

I think I should be able to do this from the control centre.

So effectively play a bit with the under volt and fan speed until I find a balance that I am happy with?

Am I correct in thinking that the cpu under-volting (within reason) shouldn’t have too great an impact on gaming as this will be more focused on the gpu?

At the moment I have everything maxed on the 2560 resolution - which is glorious

The fans react to heat, they're irrelevant really, it's undervolt related to performance. So you lower until you get instability and dial back again to last known good config as with any overclock.

The fans react to temps, if it's hot fans will be loud, there's nothing you can do with that other than try to lower temps.

 

[Animal_79]

The fans react to heat, they're irrelevant really, it's undervolt related to performance. So you lower until you get instability and dial back again to last known good config as with any overclock.

The fans react to temps, if it's hot fans will be loud, there's nothing you can do with that other than try to lower temps.

Thanks!

This isn’t the first thread that you have helped me on and I am sure that it won’t be the last.

Do you know where I find the settings to under volt? In the control centre I can find preset power options (“quiet”, “performance” etc), but can’t seem to find anywhere to customise anything

🤔

 

[SpyderTracks]

Thanks!

This isn’t the first thread that you have helped me on and I am sure that it won’t be the last.

Do you know where I find the settings to under volt? In the control centre I can find preset power options (“quiet”, “performance” etc), but can’t seem to find anywhere to customise anything

🤔

I think you need to use something like Intel XTU or Throttlestop

There are various tutorials on Youtube to guide you through, it's an incremental process, same on any device, just a case of lowering step by step until you experience instability and then roll back to the previous good setting.

Remember, any piece of silicon is unique in it's electrical properties, so what works for one person, may not work on your CPU, so you really do have to go at it incrementally to work out the limits of your specific chip.

 

[Animal_79]

I think you need to use something like Intel XTU or Throttlestop

There are various tutorials on Youtube to guide you through, it's an incremental process, same on any device, just a case of lowering step by step until you experience instability and then roll back to the previous good setting.

Remember, any piece of silicon is unique in it's electrical properties, so what works for one person, may not work on your CPU, so you really do have to go at it incrementally to work out the limits of your specific chip.

Ok, great. I'll give that a go.

Thank you again

 

[Animal_79]

I think you need to use something like Intel XTU or Throttlestop

There are various tutorials on Youtube to guide you through, it's an incremental process, same on any device, just a case of lowering step by step until you experience instability and then roll back to the previous good setting.

Remember, any piece of silicon is unique in it's electrical properties, so what works for one person, may not work on your CPU, so you really do have to go at it incrementally to work out the limits of your specific chip.

Hi,

I've installed Intel XTU but get a message saying "The platform does not support overclocking... check Intel K and X series processors.

Also the undervolting options seem to be greyed out.

Am I missing something or is my processor just not able to be undervolted?

 

[Animal_79]

From a bit googling it seems that the processor voltages are locked by intel - no idea why - and so possibly undervolting may not be an option.

That said, the control centre is definitely dialling something back when set to "quiet" or "battery saver". If I could work out what it is changing and find a way to customise to a half way house setting then I think I would accomplish what I am after...

 

[B4zookaw]

Your CPU is not a 'K' variety, so it doesn't support overclocking/undervolting. There maybe workarounds but they'd come with higher risk I suspect.

 

[Animal_79]

Your CPU is not a 'K' variety, so it doesn't support overclocking/undervolting. There maybe workarounds but they'd come with higher risk I suspect.

Do you know what it is that the control centre does to dial back the thermals?

I have 4 settings ("battery saver", "quiet", "Entertainment" and "Performance").

"Entertainment" is jet engine fans
"Quiet" is near silent but with a noticeable (although not a huge issue) drop in performance.

I'm hoping to find a setting somewhere between the two but there don't seem to be an customisation options beyond these pre-set options.

 

[B4zookaw]

Sorry, don't have a PCS laptop as a reference. I suspect the settings either set different fan curves, apply different power settings or a combination of both.