M11x Fan "always on/stuck" Behavior Discussion

Ok so everything else on this beast works perfectly, but even when Im not touching it, there is a little hovercraft. Its on 90% of the time and I think its affecting the battery life as I cant seem to get mroe then 5.30 hours out of it with no brightness bars , no bluetooth and doing nothing other then keeping the screen on.
I would just like to know what your experience/observations are with the m11x fan and if I should accept it or start making calls.

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AW Mod Note:

Also see this short lived thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=465933
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Make calls, jonjonk said he got 7.5 hours with 1 or 2 brightness bars + word and internet .

 

That is not the point of the OP. He is asking if others have the same loud and continual fan issue.

 

But regardless, his fan is reducing his battery life by a large amount.

 

Can not wait to get mine. I am hoping the fan is not like a hovercraft, but with a 335m and not much passive cooling, how can it not be? I still suggest most here are blinded by the pretty lights, so do not yet notice the noise I hope that is a joke.

 

I know I have to expect some noise, but even when Im not using the 335 :S or anything for that matter.

 

Yea, dude, make some calls. Either you do that or wait for a bios update. My laptop is virtually silent while not doing demanding tasks. Actually, my fan IS silent because it never comes on (for undemanding tasks that is).

 

Is that with the 335m on and the SU7300 OC'd?

@ impruv = hovercraft mode fan would take a bite out of the battery for sure.

 

most people have said the system is silent with the 335 off. I would call. You probably have poorly-applied thermal goop which is preventing proper heat transfer.

 

@rushmore
Nope, it's with the integrated. Might be different for dedicated, I'll check when I get home.

 

Is this with 335m on or off? I would not expect much fan action unless playing a 3D game or a hidef movie.

 

My Fans are quite loud under load.

 

Its more quiet on integrated graphics obviously. but when its on the 335 the fan is on all the time. From my tests so far when ever I have the OC on it also seems to be hovering more.

 

I kinda have the same problem but I kinda figured it out (maybe), at least on just battery mode. take it for what its worth.

So when you start the laptop up without the 335m (OC or not doesnt seem to matter) its pretty quiet, the fan doesnt come on if your just web browsing or what have you. Now when I do decide to switch to the 335, the fan does kick in pretty much regardless of what im doing, so when I decide to switch back to the integrated chip the fan still either stays on or comes on and off every ~30 seconds. Its like when you turn the gpu off, the fan doesnt know how to match it or something (?).
The only way to stop the fan (if you need to, say in a lecture class or something and you need it practically silent) I HAD to restart the laptop, making sure the GPU was off before I shut it down.
Once i restarted it, its quiet again.
SO I mean if you HAVE to shut it up, this worked for me...
sorry if this sounds confusing.

 

Nice one SKMTIM , yeah if I stick to integrated the only noise or movement is from the hard drive. Closing the lid after changing graphic cards and opening it again also works as someone else posted. So at-least I'm not subjected to the hovercraft all the time. That leaves a question as to is the fan meant to run all the time loudly with 335 enabled ?

 

Nice set of headphones or speakers + As Blood Runs Black = problem solved.

Game on -_^

 

Yeah if your gaming it doesnt matter at all really, but I would still love to have my 335 enabled and it being quiet, provided im not doing anything too intensive. I know it sounds stupid, but I dont see why they couldnt fix this easily.

 

Yeah, im not sure if its the norm as we really havent gotten to see for ourselves. Hopefully its something Dell can address in an upcoming BIOS update.

 

I was planning on using the m11x in bed too. IF the fan is a hovercraft, my wife will not tolerate it. Mine comes in tomorrow, so not long to find out. I would be more likely to return it and wait for a proven bios update, depending on how loud it is. Then again, my guess is still that when playing 3D games or high res vids, there is no choice but a hovercraft, since the M11x does not have much in regards to passive cooling for the GPU- unless you count the vent holes

No exaggeration, you can hardly tell the fan is on even in a quiet room with the CW27FX when playing games, since it has a very robust passive copper cooling pipe system to assist the fan. A recent review was accurate in regards to heat and noise. It is a cadaver- scary cool & quiet. Still, easier to have better passive cooling with a 14" lappy.

 

Wow. Is this typical? Anyone else seeing this? Sounds bad.

Tim, is this with the Balanced Power Profile or Performance or both? AC Power and Battery - same?

 

Aeonix I am having the same exact problem. I also hope Dell will release some kind of update to fix this.

 

Well, since I didn't design it, I cant answer however I can guess... I would imagine the fan would be active and should be active when you have the 335M enabled. The GPU is going to produce the most heat, so its to be expected and desired for the fan to go active. What I do not believe is normal (again, I could be wrong here) is the issue Tim pointed out -

Switching from the 335M to Integrated does not disable the fan or causes the fan to continually cycle on/off every 30 seconds or so.

IMO, this may not be normal or expected. I am also curious - does the Power Profile change this behavior or is it the same with either setting? Is this also unchanged based on AC or Battery?

 

I doubt it is the power profile.

Making more sense to my mind is that it is BIOS controlled, and when components go over a certain temperature the fan toggles itself to a high speed, rather than a gradual increase.

Something you could try is modifying your power profile to set the fans to passive, but I doubt that will help much.

 

not so sure, but mine is nearly always quiet, and I'm 99% of time with the 335M on and OC'd. the fan noise is barely noticible even when it is pinning

 

Makes sense the fan would be loud since hardly any passive cooling (no room for it). As soon as I saw the "giant" intake on the bottom and the pictures of the M11x broken down (with little passive cooling evident), I figured the device may sound like a hovercraft (as posted three weeks ago). My HP2010 does as well, when the GPU kicks in. I was hoping this unit would be about half as loud, or I will return it and wait for an update.

Some report the problem some do not, so either some are deaf, or some have super-hearing Both?

@virtue = Is that with performance profile?

 

I have the same problem with my fan. I did register the problem with AW tech support. I suggest you all do the same. If Dell only gets a few complaints they will do nothing. If the group complains they will adjust the fan threshold parameters and adjust the fan speeds to reduce noise and unnecessary throttling.

 

^^ I think they got a little lazy and rushed the units out...

 

Yeah I totally agree, this is a real problem, not the biggest deal in the world, but when you consider what this unit is intended for, I would say is fairly important. I mean you NEED loud power and quiet note-taking (etc), but not both.
EVERYONE COMPLAIN TO DELL!!!!
Hopefully they can fix this, doesnt seem hard to do.
Im in love with my m11x, this is the only compliant that I have, and if they can fix this, it will be my first product i have ZERO problem with.

@Batboy
I always tend to keep it at balanced unless im gaming, which I keep it at high.
Like I said, I dont know what the heck im doing, just doing trial and error.
But at balanced what I said is true of my system.

I love this forum and think its really helpful to everyone, as not the biggest enthusiast in the world Im sorry I cant offer more, so I hope this helps anyone.

 

Mine seems to slow down/stop when i stop using it for media intensive stuff

 

For the most part that is my case as well, but occasionally it will crank to full power then cut out. What it should do is slowly spin up the fan and if the temps do not go down then gradually increase the RPMs to increase the CFM. What is does now is go from lets say 500 RPMs to 2500 RPMs with no gradual increase. Again it seems like a rushed (lazy) bios programming.

 

i will make it simple then no loud fan here, only on during intense gameplay

 

I have issues with the fan on my M11x as it seems to have a mind of it's own.

If I switch to the Nvidia GPU, the fans comes on almost immediately and turns on and off on a regular basis
If I switch back to the Intel integrated GPU, the fan also comes on and off on a regular basis.
If I reboot and keep it on the integrated GPU it behaves better

I've raised a support ticket with Alienware and they have suggested the following:

1) Reinstall the Intel chipset drivers - got an error while attempting this
2) Reflash the BIOS - wouldn't let me as the BIOS was the latest version A01
3) Uninstall the Command Center - apparently this is causing issues

None of these helped and now they suspect the issue is something to do with the Image and have suggested that we make sure it's not a software problem before diagnosing it as a hardware related issue

If it is indeed hardware related, they have suggested replacing the motherboard or the laptop itself.

From reading through various forums, it seems that alot of people are experiencing similar issues with the fan. They need to rush out a BIOS update asap to correct this issue.

PS: Anyone exeriencing issues with the Facial recognition? The picture was fine the day I got it, but after rebooting, all I see is a fuzzy picture!

 

my early suspicion the issue with fan is with default windows install, people who don't have that issue most likely reinstalled Windows which what I am doing right now.

can some people with fan noise post videos?

 

I'm having issues as well. My fan was staying on for 15 minutes+ when I was on integrated and no over clock - and this was after a fresh reboot and bios reset. I've had other times where it has been pretty reasonable. It is very inconsistent. I'm running the default install that was imaged over to a 640GB WD. I love the M11X other than this issue - the only problem is that to me this issue is huge.

 

Just after I thought I had it figured out, im back to square one.

So i figured out ok on the 335 fan is nearlly always on.

on integrated not so much hardly ever if its from boot, untill on powersaver and the integrated I watched a hardly intensive youtube video and after that the fan went on, 15 minutes later cpu usage is still 0-3% and laptop is cold but damn fan was still on...

 

so the real question is what is the difference between people who dont have this problem, and people who do?

individual tolerance for noise levels?
applications running (AlienFX on/off supposedly drops you from 15% idle to 1%)

any others?

 

To better diagnose this behavior its also important to note what your system temps are during these periods of prolonged fan time. Might I suggest attaching screencaps of HWMonitor along with notes on behavior? In Aeonix's case it would've been helpful to know what the temp was after he was finished with the vid and after the system was closer to an idle state.

Point to this is, is the fan continuing to run even after the system has 'cooled down'. Follow?

 

I have yet to have a really loud fan, but I am used to the VERY loud HP2010

1. With gpu off, the fan rarely comes on unless playing a heavy cpu load game in MAME.

2. When the gpu is on, low fan, and medium level with 3D gaming.

I also shut down the suggested processes and services (Alien FX , windows search and the face recognition stuff).

 

Update on my fan issue:

Initially fan was going like crazy, so I installed clean version of Windows with all drivers. Then after playing all day with the laptop I noticed that fan was kicking in less and less. Eventually, it stopped kicking in during basic browsing. When it does kick in, it's loud, but at least that only happens during some intensive tasks. Battery now reporting 9:21 hours with 95% left, as before it was reporting 3-4 hours. So, I guess there was some kind of burn in period. The only issue left with the fan really sometimes when it kicks in it wouldn't stop. The workaround I found was to put the computer in sleep and bring it backup.

If I switch to GPU fan is always on, which is probably normal

 

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/8623/fancpucorrelation.jpg
I experienced that there is a strong positive correlation between the CPU load and the fan noise. By the time the CPU load goes up (e.g. downloading or installing a program), the fan kicks in.

On the other side, the CPU temperature always stays at around 39-40°C - not really a reason to turn on the hairdryer, right?
There should be a lag time between CPU load and turning on the fan! The system should neglect such peak values...

 

If we all have M11x's, this should be easy to diagnose:

Use your laptop's speakers, unplug any headphones and external speakers. Now, turn your laptop's volume to 40%. Watch the video below and turn YouTube's in-video volume control to 100%
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFOeJBS9cjo

That's what my fan sounds like. How about yours?

Now turn the volume in Windows to 100%, and keep the volume in YouTube at 100%. This is what my laptop sounds like from 2.5 feet away:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftt6WO0yT4c

This fan sounds no different from any other computer I've used. And yes, the fan is on almost constantly when I have the CPU OC'd and the GPU enabled.

 

So it there any chance to:
- Increase the CPU temp limit for the fan from 40°C to maybe 45°C ?
or
- Lower the fan speed so that it's not so loud?

 

Dell should modify the fan properties to do the following:

1. When the temp of the machine reaches say 38C-40C the fan should turn on but at a significantly lower speed than at present. One app showed the fan running at > 3000 RPM at the slow speed. Ideally the fan should run around 2000 RPM until the unit cools down to say 28C-30C. Even at the slow speed the unit will cool fairly quickly unless under heavy load or the discrete graphics are enabled. At the slower speed the fan will be very close to inaudible even in a very quiet environment.

2. If the temp continues to increase then at say 40C the fan should increase in speed to what is now the current slow speed to quickly cool down the CPU/GPU.

3. If the temp continues to increase then at say 50C the fan should increase in speed to the high setting and run until the unit cools down.

The other alternative is to do like Apple and run the fans all the time just at a very slow speed and then increase the fan RPMs to keep up with the temp increase, but to do it correctly would require Dell to actually use more expensive fans/fan control circuitry.

 

my fan likes to stay on IGP also.. a bit annoying. I will be applying MX3 to see if it helps keep the fan off at all during IGP use.

 

So, did anyone else notice that fan would get "stuck" in cooling mode, even after the cpu has cooled down?

 

^ I think that's what mine is doing.. I haven't tried putting computer to sleep or rebooting while in IGP though, but fan is constantly on still in IGP. I do notice when it goes off though cuz it's dead silent, but other than that, it's pretty aggressive cooling even with temps just at 39C =(

 

Yes, mine does. It even survives a reboot. Putting it to sleep seems to correct the problem. I don't see the issue any longer since my fan doesn't turn on now after replacing the TIM. Discrete video...that's a different story.

 

ok, so if yours gets stuck again, put it on standby and bring it back on, it will disable the fan.

 

What do you mean by that? So your M11x is completely silent with Intel GMA turned on?

 

Since I replaced the TIM my fan usually doesn't run at all when on integrated graphics and overclocked SU7300. If I push it hard then yes the fan will spin up for a few seconds every once in a while, but I can watch Hulu, Youtube, etc. without the fan spinning up. This was not the case before I did the TIM swap.