M14x: Fan Discussion

Heres a vid showing the M14x running 3dMark. Check the fan noise as it steps up to maximum towards the end!

My M11x is quiet as a mouse. I hope an update can calm this down some.

YouTube - [HD] Alienware M14X - Nebula Red with Soft Touch Finish - 3Dmark Vantage (Stock).wmv

 

thanks, it was pretty loud, i wouldn't mind it. 98% of the time i have headphones in anyways. haha

 

thanks
I think I will pass this, I was planning to buy it till I see the m14x manual.
I found Dell is BIG fan of using VERY long pipes to transfer heat for their system, like XPS 15 and m14x.

I bet it's impossible to reduce the noise significant even Dell update the bios.
The pipe is way too long. Sad

 

I think so too. They can fix bad fan behavior via BIOS, but to fix the loudness when on load, I don't see that happen. That's part of the design to keep things cool, or choice of fan. Done is done.

 

At least in the video it is undergoing something akin to a major stress test. I'm most curious about fan noise when general gaming - even the M11x had some fan problems early on, some design based - some bios based.

Crysis 2 M14x Video

Can't hear the fan over the game's music/sound effects...interesting.

 

Yea basically any laptop under stress test would be quite frightening. Actually I would rather have the noisy fan than having the machine cooked itself
I will use m14x for a bit of bed side web surfing, hope it will be silent for the job.

 

And gaming right?

 

Yes, this is a pun. A lot of topics in this forum touch upon the fan of the m14x. Most indicate that the fan is pretty darn loud when gaming & some, albeit few, write that it's not that bad. There are a few questions that I think we all have & I'd love it if some of you lucky folks who have a m14x could chime in.

1. How loud, if at all, is the fan when a.) Surfing, b.) Playing a DVD, c.) Playing a movie (MKV, MPEG, etc.)? I hope the answer is that the fan doesn't run or, when it does, it's inaudible.

2. Several folks indicated that Alienware is aware of the extremely loud fan "issue" & will fix this in a firmware/BIOS update. Can anyone confirm w/ confidence that the fan issue will go away, or at least become considerably more quiet, in the not so distant future?

3. For those that don't need to squeak out every last bit of performance on this extremely well-spec'ed laptop, are there any settings, such as running the power saving features in "Power saving" mode, that could also lower the fan speed?

Well, that's about it. Any more comments are more than welcome. I, as I imagine others, are ready to pull the trigger (again, a pun) but want to make sure the fan noise isn't so loud to a point that when doing very casual activities is unbearable.

 

It's really not that bad. If you are a gamer, you won't care...because when you're not gaming - it's pretty quiet. When you are gaming - it can certainly get loud but that's what headphones or the sound of the game is for.

Bottom line: unless you game on mute - no worries.

 

It's loud(er), than any other laptop I ever owned, and the only other gaming laptop that I can compare it to is the m11x R2. First day I was installing games and software and I was like, man, this is one loud fan, today is day 3 since I got it and I don't relly have a problem with it anymore. Adds an effect of "wow this laptop even sounds freaking powerful", that was the first thing my coworker told me this morning.

 

Lets look over the existing threads before creating another on the same topic.

Two threads merged.

-------------------------------------

BIOS updates have (in the past, think M11xR1) addressed the fan table on other models. Will they roll out a similar change for the 14x? If Engineering confirms there is an issue with noise level and fan output, then we'll see a change.

Why dont you folks document actual fan behavior?

1. Describe 'loud'?
2. When is it 'loud'?
3. Is there a change when on battery or AC only or is this 'loud' behavior present regardless of power source?
4. Is this with a default 'Balanced' power profile in Windows or with 'High Performance' - meaning, does this occur with any power profile?
5. Are you seeing behavior where the fan will idle and suddenly ramp up for no apparent reason then throttle back?

Put together actual details and lets see what we can come up with. I'll pass our findings to AW.

 

Batboy, at 07:16 of the video, the noise level is like a hair blower/dryer on crack. My god that is loud lol. I mean I thought it was going to be loud but with low pitch loud sound, but that is high pitch like the fan is going to explode kind of loud lol.

 

WOW! That is one loud fan.

Coming from the ultra silent G series and average Sager speed/noise, this will be my loudest fan ever!

 

Yeh it does sound loud. I just ran 3dmark 06 on my i7 M11xR2 and the whole time could not hear the fan in a quiet room. I have to put my ear to the side of the machine to hear it. It is extremely quiet.

I want an M14x but that noise puts me off a bit. My guess is the new hot CPU's needing to be kept cool.

The max temp I saw on the CPU for my run was 76 deg. GPU 67 deg.

 

Don't worry Voodoo, firmware/bios update should probably fix it.

 

When?
5char

 

Man that is one loud jetengine. I guess that is the price you pay for housing a high end GPU and a Quad core inside a chassis of this size..

 

Wow.. If they don't fix that fan (don't know how much they could) then there is no way I could take that thing to class or study in the library. It sounds like a jet taking off and i'm used to loud fans.

Might have to go to plan B: Build another desktop and get a MBA or Vaio SA for school.

 

If you dont play Battlefield 3 in library or lecture it should be fine. The video shows the maximum fan noise level in extreme situation. Just opening a few firefox tabs and running powerpoint should be much more quieter.

 

My thoughts exactly. Its portable now but so loud you need to isolate in social settings. This loud fan would not work in my classes.

 

It's fine for classes if you don't game. Do you plan on playing Battlefield during lectures or something?

The fan only goes on high speed when you're playing current games.

 

No but I can notice my m15x fans at times during 2 hour lectures. Hoping someone that owned a m15x can compare it to a m14x.

 

I've also noticed my M15x's fans during longer lectures. However, it's not loud enough to be particularly disturbing. Nothing like the jet engine I hear while under full load or briefly at startup. I was very pleasantly surprised by how quiet this thing is during rudimentary usage. Usually the lights are quick to distract people's attention, and so sadly they must be tempered...

While performing basic tasks, I've got to think that the fan shouldn't be too much of a problem. I'm simply parroting what others have already stated. Take my baseless subjectivity with a grain of salt, because I haven't actually decided to pull the trigger yet on an M14x.

I'd also be curious to see an audible noise comparison between the M14x and M15x.

 

It seems the fan is really noisy when you play games or do some complicated programs. But it's nice for the quiet when do some internet stuff. So taking it to the class will be ok for students.

 

Also, do have a look at the temps it shows in the video (somewhere at 9:00)

Temps for GPU were very good, just 62C.

But temps for CPU are not that good. The man shows that one core had a temp of 77C, others were 79, 81, and 85C respectively.

Though CPU had a bit bad temps, so he advised not to OC the CPU. But GPU seems to have a potential to overclock to a FLYER!

 

Btw I'm assuming a big big drop in GPU temp if we apply an AS5 or a better thermal compound! Maybe 50-55C would be the load temps for the GPU if even a stock paste is able to keep temps at 62C!

 

Think we'll have to wait for a review by something like Notebookcheck or NBR. They might give a detailed info about the fan noise in decibels (dB) value.

 

Yes, NBR should hopefully review the M14x and M11xR3 and comment on fan noise on them both. Should increase the pressure on Alienware. With no Alienware rep on this forum anymore, all talk about "heard that Alienware will fix this" is nonsense. If lucky, a BIOS update may pop up a couple of months later, and it may or may not do anything with the fan.

 

today i recieved my m14x.

And untill now the fan hasnt begun spinning while surfing and checking mails.

The only thing making "noise" is the harddisk and it is almost dead silent.


Currently im installing dawn of war 2 retribution and ill check how much "noise" it will make when gaming.

I bought the 555m gt 3gb version. what i was told by the reps in Denmark was that the 3gb version has another motherboard than the 1,5gb version. If this is true it could be that this version also has another bios and maybe also another fan management system? because untill now i am positively surprised about the fan level but lets see when i start gaming

does anyone know anything about this?

 

Correct. For AW engineers, its a do or die situation.

Either they'll have to take the fan issue in consideration, else they'll lose a lot of sales.

To fix this issue, the engineers most probably will keep the fan speed on low unless and until the temps go real high.

But I'm sure that they'll do almost nothing about the fan speeds, as it'll lead to severe overheating problems.

As all of us know that a laptop of this size and form factor of AW M14x has very sophisticated cooling system.

Though I really wanted 2 silent fans instead of single loud fan.

 

No, the BIOS for both would be same. And since the BIOS is same, so the fan management system would be same, too (in terms of fan control).

Dell uses the same type of fan in each model. So be it an i3 or i7 in the M14x, it will have the same fan.

It has a different motherboard as the GPU is integrated into the motherboard, and they can't make changes to the memory in the same one as the GPU in the M14x is non-removable (soldered to the motherboard). So, 1 set of mobo's are of 1.5GB, and the other one is of 3GB. So, thus they've differing motherboards.

One more thing, do post the temps you get while gaming.

 

Will do, what software will be the best to monitor my cpu and gpu while gaming?

 

I can tolerate if a laptop fan is loud during high load but if the fan noise is as loud as a hairdryer, this is too much.

I wonder why Alienware engineers didn’t notice about this fan issue during M14x product test period? BIOS won’t fix the fan noise. We need a new fan/cooling system.

My XPS M1530 (first batch!!) original fan (version 1) was quite loud with high pitch sound. About 6 months later, new M1530 users reported that their fan/heatsink was difference (version 2). Then, I requested version 2 fan/heatsink change and this version 2 is much quieter.

I just hope Alienware will do same with M14x.

 

I agree. 10char

 

ok i have tried to game dawn of war on the machine and it ran it fluently in ultra quality 32 fps average 63 max and 11 min

I did some monitoring of the cpu and gpu

the gpu was 70 degrees MAX whereas the 4 cpu cores were between 80-82 degrees celius. When tabbing out of the game the fan quickly readjust it self. it is rather loud when it starts to perform. has anyone tried to add new cooler paste to the cpu or "underclock" it and see if it affects the noise level?

 

From my impression, I don't think the Alienware team has matured enough to actually put laptop noise high on their list. They are probably still a rather small team, and their job is to crank out powerful gaming laptops in different sizes, and making such laptops quiet isn't their priority (or requires design research, more costly parts, etc). They also know gamers are more tolerant to fan noise.

But laptops with fans that sound like leaf blowers, or has bad fan behavior, just isn't attractive (in my opinion).

 

So I tried Crysis 2 today(one of my first games to test it)...wow. The fan is louder than my main desktop computer...well almost louder. The game was fairly laggy too. I guess I will use this laptop for games as a last resort.

 

too bad...i want this lappy

I like this laptop, but many people have been talking about how loud is the fan and how hot it gets...probably is normal, have much power in a small case so maybe need it a fast and noisy fan

 

Can the fans be easily replaced with a fan of choice? As long as you watch the temps it could be an option?

 

Every engineer should know that having a desktop 30 centimeters from the ears isn`t the smartest thing to do. Atleast with a real desktop you have it several feets away

 

Here I made a video of the fan during in-game Battlefield Bad Company 2.
Read the description to get the best out of the video.
YouTube - Alienware M14x Fan Noise ( Battlefield Bad Company 2 )

 

How long are we going to have to wait for a Bio's update to fix this jet turbine fan? I had a M11x R1 but had it after they fixed the fan and never noticed a fan noise. Didn't the M11x when it first came out have a loud fan? How long did it take to get a update to fix it?

 

Bios update A05 on the r1 never reduce the fan noise. The issue with the r1 was the fan was getting stuck after switching from nvidia gpu to integrated gpu, 2nd, the fan will sound like it is running a game even when only web surfing and will come on randomly.

I do not think a bios update will fix/reduce the fan noise on the m14x unless it is blowing at full force while running on integrated card. So m14x users will either get use to it or sell it if it gets too annoying.

 

I was actually expecting the M14X to have duo-fans on each back corner. I'm surprised they only added 1 fan, to be honest.

Here's hoping to a BIOS fix soon!

 

IMO they should have ditched the optical drive in favor of another fan and more heatsink space!

 

Agreed.

What computer manufacturers don't understand is that the general population of gaming laptop owners have their gaming library in digital form and only truly use the DVD drive in the first week of ownership. Sure some are movie fanatics, but that's nothing a 30-40$ USB DVDRW can't fix.

In the span of 6 months, I only used it 5-6 times to instll a classic game.

They should just offer a DVD/RW External and a Bluray Reader/DVDRW External as our two options when customizing IMO.

 

Not necessary to have two fans.
Look at dv6 2011, only one fan solve everything.
Quiet and cool.
I play the same game on XPS 14 and dv 6

Xps 14 is running like a hair dryer.
Dv6 is as quiet as I use xps 14 to watch flash video.

If you take a look at hp thermal desgin, u will find why dv 6 has excellent cooling with 11890 points 3dmark 06.
I just received mine today, it's so impressed me beside the screen..
It's very bad, black=gray

 

@Yun: The XPS seems to be quiet, though I do agree that it doesn't have a good cooling design.

But the fan on the XPS seems to have a great intake capability, but due to the poor thermal design the laptop's not able to utilize it, and remains hot at all times while gaming.

 

Perhaps XPS is much much quieter than the M14x.

 

If they maybe switched the location of the GPU with the CPU, the fan wouldn't go insane considering it can reach 90c while gpu only at 60c.