The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Fan at full speed when gaming

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by agusman, Mar 17, 2009.

  1. agusman

    agusman when the going gets weird

    Reputations:
    440
    Messages:
    794
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Since I recently upgraded to BIOS A12, my XPS 1530 fan goes at full speed when gaming, even if the temps don't go too high...

    If I pause the game and go do something else for 1-2 hours, the fan will be at full speed those 1-2 hours... it is better to quit the game instead of just pausing in those cases?

    How long is it healthy for the laptop to be at full fan speed?

    thanks.
     
    agusman, Mar 17, 2009
    #1
  2. ahl395

    ahl395 Ahlball

    Reputations:
    3,867
    Messages:
    8,218
    Likes Received:
    72
    Trophy Points:
    216
    Its doing it to prevent your GPU failing. If you havent heard, the 8 Series nVidia Cards are defective and can fail. To try and prevent this, Dell has updated BIOS's to make fans run more, to in turn, keep heat down. Its fully healty and fine for it to do this. And yes, quitting a game is usually better than pausing. ;)
     
    ahl395, Mar 17, 2009
    #2
  3. Salty85

    Salty85 Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    1
    Messages:
    121
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    You can alt-tab or Cnt-alt-delete to put the game into the backround. Doing this usually will make the game pause without using the CPU/GPU. Note though, that some games may crash/have errors with alt-tabing.
     
    Salty85, Mar 18, 2009
    #3
  4. v_c

    v_c Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    124
    Messages:
    635
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Its perfectly normal for the fan to be at full speed when gaming.

    If you are worried about fan life, think of it this way - it is much easier and cheaper to replace a fan that has worn out, than a soldered-on GPU that has died..
     
    v_c, Mar 18, 2009
    #4