Alienware 17 fans

I'm noticing that the fan on the left side of my Alienware 17 seems to turn on and off again for a few seconds every few minutes, sometimes more frequently, even when just browsing or doing something that's not demanding. It also seems to go from a higher speed to a lower one, like a kind of whirring, when it does this. Anyone else get this? It works fine and runs smoothly in games but I'm concerned about this.

 

I've found that to be a sign the fan cooler needs cleaning out on my AW. The CPU temps jump quite dramatically when a background task requests full power so the fan becomes super sensitive, even this new machine I have does it, I keep looking in Task Manager to identify what is going on but it's brief and only of interest as an unknown.

You can open it up easily. Remove the fan and look below. You'll probably see a mouse-nest in there . You can use a can of compressed air to blow it out but it might be time for a repaste?

 

It could well be the SupportAssist Client that's causing the active checks on your fans. Can you please confirm f you have it installed?

 

I've uninstalled the SupportAssist Client and problem persists. Even when Idle the fan kicks in for a few seconds then off again, over and over. Not at full speed but it's still annoying.

The machine is only 2 months old so I don't think it's dust at this stage.

 

Is it possible that installing my OS on an 80GB mSATA, which was originally intended to act as a caching drive for my 5400RPM HDD, could be causing this?

 

What OS are you running? Also what CPU and are you overclocked? Download CPUZ and see if at idle your clocks are dropping, your power plan might need some tweaking. If you're running Windows 8 or 8.1 you can open up task manager and look at "Speed" under the "CPU" area on the Performance tab.

 

^ this, or use hwinfo to monitor temperatures and frequency.

 

That would have nothing to do.
But you can wipe out the OS and install it on the mSATA.
As Dave stated, please go ahead and check the temperatures to see if the system is overheating or if it is just spinning it's fans for no reason at all.

 

The system gets up to 49-50 on idle, fans kick in. Then it goes down again in a constant cycle. Sometimes they kick in for no reason seemingly. Again it's and the lowest RPM but still annoying to hear it over and over

 

If you want, I can go ahead and take that Service Tag via Private Message, I'll be able to help you from there.

 

I'm having the exact same issue. My CPU fan kicks in for no reason. The laptop is idle, temps at 50C or below, and the fan kicks in. Same thing every now and then for the GPU. I have cleaned out the heatsinks, and re-pasted with some Gelid GC Supreme. I have the latest BIOS flashed (v14) and all updates installed.

Even under full load (Intel XTU) the fans are way too loud considering the temps. I had under-volted the CPU, and in the XTU stress test temps stayed at 70C or below, but the fans sounded like they were running at full blast.

This CPU is rated for far higher temps than 70C, I don't see why the fan profile is set to have the fans spin so fast at a relatively low temp of 70C. I'd fully accept temps under the stress test load of XTU to be 75C, if it meant quieter fans.