M11x R3 Fan ouch

After gaming on it for almost a week now and patiently ignoring the full blast fan noise, I've had enough! Even with headsets on, you can hear some kind of hairdryer like your gf is drying her hair near you.

Oh why oh why did i doubt my m11x r2. The fan on it is loud but didn't have that annoying hairdryer sound.

When idle or browsing it is quiet but the gaming part of it is too much. I now owned the r1,r2,r3 and if i have to give it a rating of 1-10 when gaming and full blast fan, 1 being min quiet and 10 being max loud, the R1 was 6, r2 is 5, r3 is 9 maybe even 10.

This one is going back to Dell.

 

I don't find it too loud personally. Depends on the location. But when I use it, it's usually not close to a wall, so the sound doesn't bounce back at me. It does what I want and need.

The only time the fan sound bothers me is when I try to sneak in some gaming at work, my cubicle does not absorb sound very well.

 

I dunno if you own an r1 or r2 before but if you didn't then I can understand why R3 is not sounding loud to you.

 

dont take it back, just wait til a new bios is released.. it should fix the fan issue.

 

Fixing the fan issue will most likely cause a throttling issue. I would rather have a higher performance with a loud fan than a quiet fan with sporadic performance.

 

that makes perfect sense, R1 and R2 have 335m at TDP of 28W vs 540M in the R3 that is 35W. The 2nd gen core I series is 17W vs 1st gen core I series is 18W. The fan has to keep up with a TDP of ~6W extra in the R3 vs the R2. One fan and one heat sink for GPU + CPU.

The R2 users even with the .95V mod will probably still have slightly lower fan usage while gaming. What I would suggest for the R3 users is investing in some adhesive feet that slightly raise the back of the m11x. I posted a picture of mine i got from radioshack that dropped max temps by about 5-7C. This is probably easier than changing out of the thermal grease and more newb friendly!

 

true, the fan noise doesnt bother me. its a shame to see a perfectly fine m11x get shipped back couse of fan noise.

 

What are the temps?

I would rather have higher performance with a quiet fan.

The TDP of the GT335M has to be less then 28W as the GTS 350M also has a 28W TDP with higher clocks and all shaders enabled on the same GT215 core.

 

yea i figured it should be lower but definitely not higher than 28W but for some reason there are no hard numbers online. this makes me believe that a larger volt mod than .95V should be safe

 

I'm willing to give this a chance, but will the bios update even reduce the fan noise or the rpm speed? There is already one for m14x where hwinfo32 is being use to control the fan rpm.

 

hwinfo32 has support for them11x also. i used it on my R1 with no problems.
and it should lower the rpm a little.
BUT- the reason the fan is running so high is because of the heat. if anything the first thing id do is redo the thermal paste.

 

As I was testing and monitoring the temps, as soon as it hits 65c, the fan goes full blast, gpu idle or not running anything intensive is idling between 48-51c

 

Where in hwinfo32 can I see the rpm or adjust it? Thanks

 

If there is a BIOS fix, it will adjust the fan table so the fan runs slower to reduce the fan noise.

The reason could also be to reduce throttling by forcing temperatures to stay as low as possible. I seen a user about 2 weeks ago reporting high fan noise despite decent temperatures at load (~65C).

 

I see it now on HWInfo32, the full blast fan comes on at 65c and the current fan speed is 7,100rpm.

 

Alienware apparently feels 7100 rpm is very attractive to hear at 65C.

 

Wow, That is not very appealing to me thats for sure.

I really wanted to get one of these as well. Hmmmmmm might have to rethink. I hate fan noise. I really wanted a change from my M17x.


Does the fan noise go up and down like some notebooks out there do?
Like does it go on and off every time or does the fan stay off if your not gaming or just spin really slowly always?




Cheers.

 

The fan is noicy only when during games, it is really quiet if you are not playing.

 

This is bunk. This is the third revision of this laptop. Dell didn't need to rush an untested unit to market to recoup r&d or start up costs.

The notion of consumer as beta tester sux. It will continue until people hold these companies accountable by spending their money elsewhere.

There's a reason almost every windows laptop ships with a poor display, and it's the same reason the r3 ships with a ludicrously loud fan. X

 

A few months of speculation drama and FUD never hurt anybody.

There are alternatives to the M11x but the general trend is consumer being the beta tester so it's now accepted into the status quo more or less with hope for fixes in the future. How did this get to release?

That or Dell needed a solution to fix turbo throttling.

 

Yikes that's bad!

 

I don't know why fan noise is such a big issue. My server power supply has 2 40mm fans that sound like a small turbine. I'm so used to it that it doesn't sound right in my room without them running.

 

exactly, having fan noise is part of owning a computer lol

 

Fan noise is OK, but the step from absolutely zero to full speed is stupid.
There could be at least 4 steps till full load and it would be much more quiet.

 

You obviously don't understand the fan noise I'm experiencing. You have an R1 and i still have my r1 and there is a huge difference. I explained it on my very first post on this thread about my rating of 1-10, 1 being min quiet and 10 being max. It's not just the high speed noise of the fan, the sound of it is like someone is using a hairdryer near you. The R1 or R2 didn't sound like that.

 

The fan noise to me is a 5 out of 10. And I do have a R3.

 

It's a lot louder than my R2 was (when gaming). I really don't mind, I have an old desktop with a loud fan, and a bunch of routers and switches humming away (CCNA lab) in my room.

I just worry when I take it in public that it'll bother people. If I am in the living room, it also bugs my roommate sometimes.

 

i understand, but fan noise is a non-issue no matter how loud it is. i dont really care about the noise. BUT, you could always try to swap the fan from your r1 and put it in your r3 and put your r3 fan in your r1 =P i bet there different.

 

Problem solved! hwinfo32, manual fan control, instead of 5,000rpm which is the same hairdryer sound and speed of 7,000, I managed to manually adjust it to 4,000-4,500 but I only use 4,000 and it is as quiet as my R1/R2. The only thing I haven't tested is the temps, but so far 45min of counter-strike source and even ran 3dmark06 w/o issues.

 

does the hwinfo32 lets you control the fan? I have a m11x r1 does not get any hot, but when im @library gaming I think the fan its just too mucho

so does that program lets me control the fan manually? thanks

 

Yeah if you could share how that is done, that'd be great. I have hwinfo32 and have been clicking around for 40 minutes, don't see an option to adjust fan levels. Googled around but the info I've come across seems to reference older versions of the program. They mention a 'manual' button somewhere but it's not in my version (3.73).

 

@aliengirl

build 1246 is what you need to see the fan control icon on sensor

Alienware Fan Control - Page 22

 

Ah! Brilliant. TY! +rep

 

sorry to hear about ya fan is loud. my fan noise on my m11x r3 is fine even when gaming the fan kicks in but its not really loud. i must be lucky to have a good fan build except 3 cons..... i guess all that wait was a bit worth the wait. lol... u guys should make a video of how loud the fan is while gaming.

 

Where are you from? Maybe the fan are more or less loud depends of the country?

 

Ah, finally someone doing something meaningful. Yes, you definitely need to report back on temps. If you could compare 4000 rpm temp with 7000 rpm temp for some games and stuff, that would be nice.

 

Doesn't depend on country... Yeah, Dell could use different fan brands, but fan speed is dependent on CPU/GPU temperature, which in turn is dependent on ambient temperature.

There are so many posts about people saying this and that about their fan and noise, but without hard numbers stating the conditions under which the fan was tested, it's all relative and rather pointless. And loud for someone, is probably quiet for someone else...

We are getting somewhere now with HWiNFO being able to set a manual fan speed. This means one can compare the noise of different fan speeds, as Colpolite did.

 

I was all set on getting an R3 until I noticed some reviews mentioning the fan noise. This is really making me have second thoughts as I HATE the sound of a loud fan.

Is this still an issue? If so, does the latest build (1385) of HWiNFO seem to fix this? (And what's the difference in temps if you lower the fan's rpm to 4000? Will I be slowly cooking my laptop?)

And in a related question - what's this thing like to set on your lap? Will this block the exhaust and overheat the laptop? (And fry my lap? LOL)

 

Was thinking about using a cooling pad such as the Targus Chill Mat. Do others find this keeps their R3's temps low enough so the fan doesn't kick on in high gear while gaming?

Would also like to hear some more opinions on how loud their fan sounds. There's an example of it on YouTube:

Alienware M11x R3 - Noise Level - YouTube

...but without any kind of point of reference (like someone speaking while the fan runs), it's a pretty useless clip. Still, it doesn't sound too bad (assuming I'm playing the video at the right volume).

I've read descriptions ranging from "not that bad" to "hair dryer" to "hair dryer on low speed" to "hair dryer in another room down the hall." Basically - would it be loud enough to disturb others watching TV in the same room? Or my wife sleeping in bed next to me?

Would love to hear some more opinions, as this is the only thing that's making me hesitate. If it sounds as bad as some reviewers make it out to be (assuming they're not exaggerating like reviewers sometimes do), this is pretty much a deal breaker for me. Thanks.

 

Dell need to make a new Bios Version. R3 fan noise is too loud.....

/rage

 

I don't get it... The fan is never noisy for me. Even on intensive games like skyrim, I never have a noise issue. I keep my laptop on a cooling plate though so I presume the fans kick in at a certain temperature?

I too agree that I'd much prefer performance over sound. IDGAF if my machine has a noisy fan (which it doesn't anyway) and has great performance (which it does.) :3

 

Well after i slapped some decent thermal paste on mine and cleaned the fan with heatsink when gaming keeping the laptop elevated (external HDD or my cooling pad depending on where i am) it stays at low-med speed... Not too bad, but even at max speed its not that bad...

Trust me i own an old fat PS3, NOW THATS LOUD. feels like a small aircraft is about to take off... m11x is loud compared to some other laptops, but totally not the end of the world

Though having said that, some BIOS update to make the fan speeds sensible would be lovely.

 

No, you are actually just blowing it WAY out of proportion. I've had both an R2 and an R3, and i can honestly say the max fan noise has never annoyed me. If anything, i wish it would spin faster because under heavy gaming i'm looking at 80 degrees and i'd rather have it running cooler.

I used my R3 from the US all the way back to Australia, on Taxis and buses and trains and coaches and planes... At hotels and airports and cafes. If I can game with the fan on max while someone else is sleeping next to me on a coach/train with minimal ambient noise, i think you'll do quite fine.

 

I've only owned my R3 for about 2 weeks but the fan noise never bothers me. Personally I'd rather have the fan a little loud and know that its keeping the notebook cool.

 

When the GPU is at 66C or less the fan run at 3800RPM Max, once the temperature hit 67C the fan goes 6800RPM. At 3800Rpm i can barely hear it.
If anyone saying the fan is not loud willing to do the test. I would appreciate it.

Program used for the test
MSI Kombustor(VGA BURNER)
HWINFO64 ( Fan RPM Sensor )

Just did a fresh windows install and its the same behaviour