Z1 fan question

If I don't mind the noise of the fan (i don't, see below), would it not be better for the machine to keep the fan setting in Vaio Control Center to Performance Mode even though my Windows power profile is a modified Balanced mode? I work in a room that has other machines whirring and I don't really mind the hotter exhaust coming out of the side vent if it is keeping the internal components cooler. Is it keeping the internal components cooler?

 

A while back, I did a comparison between Balanced and Performance. Performance was noticeably noisier at both idle and while the CPU was under load, but the CPU did not run noticeably cooler.

As you know, the fan runs 24/7 so as such I wouldn't be looking forward to it if the fan was ever to fail. Anyway, I keep mine on Silent as I don't notice a performance difference and due to CPU throttling the CPU is kept about 10C cooler under load in this way.

If I wanted to keep Turbo Boost(e.g. lots of video encoding), then I would go Balanced.

 

The Thermal Control Strategy and Windows Power Profiles are two completely different things. One is controlled by the BIOS of the Z and the other is controlled by windows 7. TCS set to silent will vary the processor clock so that it does not exceed 80c, which will depend on the kind of cpu you have and current ambient temps etc. TCS Performance and balanced are more or less the same with my setup, with the exception that performance ramps up the fan delta less since it's default to spin at a higher rpm at idle, and heat quickly rises on this laptop, so balanced is actually more noisy on a wave graph for me...

You could set your power scheme in windows to anything you want and it will not affect the cooling, unless you have the max frequency set to 99% which will disable turbo boost from being achieved and keep your cpu cooler even at max load. that's what i have to do when i'm rendering something in 3d, because i have the 2.8 ghz i7 which ramps up to 3.2 and the z gets pretty hot - 95c =\

For the best cooling, set your TCS to performance, and modify your power schemes so that the minimum processor states are set to 0%. this will keep the cpu underclocked and thus at lower voltage when idle.

 

Thank you both for very enlightening information. Xactic, are you suggesting that I set min cpu at 0% and max at 99% and VTC at Performance? I don't do anything that ever requires turbo boost, to my knowledge, so wouldn't I be better off setting the max cpu at even less than 99%?

Thanks. I question how many really understand the relationship of these two power/fan settings to internal temps - well, maybe it's just me.

 

Yeah, 0% minimum, max 99% will give you 2.53 ghz on your setup?
be sure to set your balanced profile like that, and maybe you can leave the high performance one to 0% min, and 100% max if you want to have turbo boost on that one. that's how i do it... and for battery saver i just set max to about 80%. on high performance i have min set to 99% so that it idles at high mhz (2.8ghz). there's always a micro delay as the cpu ramps up steps to reach full speed so that's what this setting is all about. look up intel p-states on google for more info.

recap
set minimums to 0% to save battery life, this will just lower the p-state to it's lowest possible which in my case is about 1.1 ghz
and the ceiling value is up to you, you could always launch something like cpu-z while plugged in and running a cpu bench in loop mode, think aida 64, and then play with the % values, to see which percantages correlate to a drop in the multiplier. like you may have to go down 5 or more % to see a drop in clock as it only drops in predefined segments according to your fsb x current multilplier and ofcourse limited by maximum clock for cpu.


Here in this video I am demonstrating how to do just this:
http://www.screencast.com/t/MLeJnCSck

Using AIDA64 to run a cpu benchmark and show temps, and CPU-Z to show you the cpu-clock at the same time.

hope that makes sense, if it doesn't, well, buy a mac :laugh:

 

Thanks! Done, done and done! Your post is bookmarked for future clean installs. You are right, aren't you??

@XTACTIC: "hope that makes sense, if it doesn't, well, buy a mac :laugh:

I was so focused on your advice, I missed your best line (note my sig). Classic. I already owed you +1 (x5!), but that reminded me to do it.

 

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