Optimus V Fan Noise

[westerdaled]

My Vortex III is so LOUD

Hi I do sense your frustration. PCS technical support whilst not particular bad is on the minimalist side - I get the impression they must practice how bat away any support request with the minimum words in a paragraph:smartass: Yep my Vortex III is noisy too . Just to illustrate I opened my laptop to do some work on my VMs and omg I thought I might be waiting at Heathrow !!!!!. it is so LOUD and just checkout how little CPU / Memory I am using ..

where is the

• The How To Guides to cover common customer complaints such as "My Laptop has a really noisy fan what can I do about it"
• A support portal/subside/discussion for each model on this community as Samsung does - this would not take a lot of resources tho it does require some level of customer service ....
• Advice on "when to vacuum the dust out of the back of my laptop" - including the risks
• When to set the Power management to Passive instead of Active.
• What is the CPU and memory threshold when you expect your fan to be at it its loudest.
• What is the recommended BIOS update for your laptop and a list of fixes now sorted.

Of course all this might be way beyond the remit of a bunch of box shifters, albeit ultra high powered ones!


I wonder what everyone thinks; are all you learning to live permanently attached to your Dr Dre Beats headphones........As a word of warning, there are lots of examples of companies who disregarded customer opinion and lost market share.... I have already been embarrassed by recommending PCS to an old friend (SP) who has kept detailed notes on the issues he had with his desktop and the muppet(s) who attempted to fix it - when they should have replaced it from the outset.

 

[fancellu]

I can't say anything but being quite upset at the way this issue has been handled.

I love the optimus v in about every way, except for its fan control. This post is just about the fan control, and by extension the way its been handled.
The Optimus V (Clevo W350ST) has faulty fan control. When the fan is switched on to cool, the bios knows no levels of speed, just full on and idle. Which for all intents and purposes can be considered "off".
(I must admit the really short bursts seem to go at half speed sometimes, but this might be the signal being so short the fan never powers on full. This is however an exception not the rule. I have never experienced or read anyone experiencing long periods of quiet cooling)

The problem
Its great the laptop has a strong fan, the stronger the better the laptop is able to perform. For the laptops price/performance, its no wonder it doesn't sport a expensive body with multiple fans, or a special design for better cooling. With just one fan, its no surprise this fan runs quite loud when the system is performing at its max, which again, is a good thing.
However, when the system isn't, the bios occasionally fires the fan up fully. On a low resource system like mine, this means the system slowly heats up over the course of an hour, until the parts are at a temperature they decide they want cooling. Because my system barely works, and thus barely heats, I get a 1s burst of noise, every 20 - 600s when the laptop has been on for a long time. And yes, it sometimes happens I get a 1s burst 6 times in 2 minutes.

When I was using a more resource intensive system, the laptop would stay quiet for maybe 30 min, then cool for 10 sec, and go back at it again a minute or 10 later. This meant that when I went to a meeting, I'd have to be ready to suspend my laptop or have my laptop be very present and annoying for 10 sec, every 10 min.

Neither of these scenarios are normal. Neither happen on other laptops. This model and its motherboard/bios simply have a problem.

The solution

There is no fix. People who say they fixed it in here are lying.
The bios updates seem to improve things. The cooling is less frequent, and long periods of cooling on idle systems are reported gone as well. However the fact remains, that when the fan powers on, it powers on full. Something that isn't supposed to or happens with other laptops.

PCS involvement
Let me be clear I have not contacted pcs, but are merely speaking on a basis of the comments I've read here. However this may definitely be seen as an invitation to explain themselves.

This is were I get upset. PCS knew when I purchased my laptop, this problem existed.
PCS did nothing to either inform or reach out to people affected by this problem. As far as I can tell (I'll be sure to mail them), nothing is being done to alleviate or solve the issue.
This is a severe lack in quality control. Know its there, do nothing, and worst of all, keep selling a faulty Clevo model.

Concluding
PCS offers laptops at prices I couldn't find anyone beating in western Europe. They offer a lot of customization, and deliver fast in the scope of things.
They are definitely a retailer I would buy from again. However I'll always be sure to check the parts included in the build for reported issues, because I have lost all trust in their quality control. (outside of the building)
My advice, don't buy this laptop, unless you don't mind noise that is present normally, and dominates quiet rooms or two person conversation.

Me too. I bought it with them knowing of this issue. And it seems to me that they simply don't give a monkeys.

Won't be buying anything from them again. Will actively warn others not to do so.

Dino.

 

[bararm]

So, PCS, any update on this? I bought my laptop in July, and mentioned shortly afterwards i was unhappy with the constant fan noise, and was considering returning the machine as it was unfit for purpose. I was told a BIOS fix was incoming soon, so waited.

It's now January 2014 and my laptop still comes on like a hoover, which is most embarrassing when i am sitting with clients or in meetings. I have emailed PCS "support" and five days later received a message saying they will "look" for a new BIOS update that fixes this issue. If there is no fix for this then i am seeking a return of the machine as i was not informed of this flaw (and it is a design flaw) and will purchase a machine from somewhere else

This issue has quite simply been swept under the carpet by PCS and i am not at all happy i have spent £1000 on a laptop that is so ridiculously noisy

 

[acffordyce973]

This issue has quite simply been swept under the carpet by PCS

I'm 100% in agreement with this. I haven't heard of any update so I'll be phoning support soon to see what's up, and hopefully they've just neglected to inform us that there's an update.

 

[donegal]

And there's me asking in another thread whether Optimus build quality is better than the Cosmos (and not getting an answer). The answer as to which I should order has been here all the time....

 

[adamv66]

Is there still no solution to this? I have had my Optimus V for 9 months now and everything is fine apart from the fan issue. Even as I sit here typing this the fan is running 100% for absolutely no reason and is incredibly noisy. It bugs me more now than when I first got it. It makes watching videos/TV on the laptop virtually impossible.

 

[AlexTes]

Is there still no solution to this? I have had my Optimus V for 9 months now and everything is fine apart from the fan issue. Even as I sit here typing this the fan is running 100% for absolutely no reason and is incredibly noisy. It bugs me more now than when I first got it. It makes watching videos/TV on the laptop virtually impossible.

Try emailing them. They responded to me. There's no file I can pass on or anything though.

 

[adamv66]

Did they resolve the issue?

 

[Sberca]

One of the PC Specialist staff members said earlier in this thread that the Optimus 13.3-inch version is not affected by the fan problem since it does not have the same motherboard as the Optimus X15 and the X17. Nevertheless, I have read complaints regarding the 13.3-inch Clevo fan (random fan noise etc.).

Can anybody confirm or deny that claim?

 

[Feyy]

Try emailing them. They responded to me. There's no file I can pass on or anything though.

It would seem Clevo or PCS don't care about this issue, so the community once again had to take matters into their own hands.

I've been using the Prema Mod bios since release a few months ago and the fan issue has been resolved with an updated fan curve profile.
This mod also includes a plethora of other extras, allowing you to change almost every conceivable option you might want to change for your laptop.

You check check it out here: http://biosmods.wordpress.com/

 

[Random_Matt]

One of the PC Specialist staff members said earlier in this thread that the Optimus 13.3-inch version is not affected by the fan problem since it does not have the same motherboard as the Optimus X15 and the X17. Nevertheless, I have read complaints regarding the 13.3-inch Clevo fan (random fan noise etc.).

Can anybody confirm or deny that claim?

13.3" and 14" laptops should not have a i7 in them to start with, that's why they are noisy, they hit 95c. Intel state max is 100c, even http://www.notebookcheck.net/ state "The i7-4710MQ is rated at a TDP of 47 W including graphics card, memory controller and VRMs. Therefore, the CPU is only suited for laptops 15-inches or greater."

 

[westerdaled]

Hi


This sounds interesting. Can you please give more details as to which models can use this update. I use the Vortex III for client work .so I could do without any BIOS update turning it into a brick. If we could knock up a quick table that would be good.



Daniel .....

It would seem Clevo or PCS don't care about this issue, so the community once again had to take matters into their own hands.

I've been using the Prema Mod bios since release a few months ago and the fan issue has been resolved with an updated fan curve profile.
This mod also includes a plethora of other extras, allowing you to change almost every conceivable option you might want to change for your laptop.

You check check it out here: http://biosmods.wordpress.com/

 

[DannyJo]

I bought the Optimus V 17" for the missus about a year ago and the fan has been running mad at random intervals since then. Emailed PC Specialist for support and received a BIOS upgrade which did not make any difference. A couple of weeks ago I went ahead and flashed the BIOS using Prema Mod (http://biosmods.wordpress.com/w370st/). Since then the fan has not been randomly kicking off into high spin at all and now stays nice and quiet all the time on idle and during normal daily use.

This BIOS mod also allows for some extra configuration options which I've not played with yet, such as overclocking. The BIOS also unlocks more potential out of the CPU and GPU as well. All in all I think this BIOS completes this laptop.

If you choose to go down this route, please follow the instructions carefully on that site and watch the video showing you how to flash the BIOS. Don't just take my word for it but do some research and read the comments on the site and make your own opinion. For me and the missus this BIOS has made life in the home office a lot nicer I must say.

I'm currently investigating if I can apply this BIOS (http://biosmods.wordpress.com/w370et/) to my Optimus IV as well but I'm still unsure as of yet.

 

[Artiom]

Hi,

My wife is using an Optimus V 17" (Clevo W370ST) laptop and has the same problem with fan noise - it stays at 100% speed all the time.
I did a small investigation and found that the fan behaves like this when PCH temp sensor is hot (>70 degrees Celsius) regardless of other components temperatures. As the laptop has 1 SSD for OS and 1 HDD for data, I found on some other forum (unfortunately can't find the link) that the second HDD is located right below PCH chip and all this contributes to high heat generation without proper cooling.

Someone said that the PCH temp sensor may defective, but I don't think it's true because the right side of the laptop is getting really hot, regardless of system load. It's mostly second HDD activity that influences this.

Does anyone have any ideas how this can be solved? It was suggested that a heat sink can be applied on the PCH chip - would this void the warranty? There are many speculations that a BIOS update would solve this issue - but it can just hide it by making fan control to ignore PCH temp sensor.

PS: another idea would be to use an mSATA SSD and put the data HDD in first slot, while keeping the second HDD slot empty. Did anyone used mSATA as boot drive on this laptop model?

 

[Platano]

Artiom, as mentioned by other posters a modified BIOS is available from http://biosmods.wordpress.com/w370st/. This fixes the fan noise problem and gives many other options too. Read through the instructions carefully, if you are not confident I suggest you get an experienced PC user to help you. Hope this helps.

 

[Artiom]

Platano, thank you for giving me the direct link, I was trying to install a different bios version. Now I have installed PremaMod and looks like it solved the issue with loud fan, however the PCH temp sensor still report quite high temperature - so the bios just ignores it (anyway the fan cannot cool that area). Unfortunately this is a flaw in the laptop design, so we will have to live with that.

 

[Sberca]

I have received my Optimus 13" and have been using it for a month. No random fan noise, perfectly quiet in normal use (MS Word, streaming, video, web browsing). CPU temps are very satisfactory: never exceeded 85°C (more often around 79-81) even when playing games such as Watch Dogs, Skyrim, and usually sitting around 60-65 in normal use. I even didn't need to undervolt or underclock it.

 

[Sberca]

13.3" and 14" laptops should not have a i7 in them to start with, that's why they are noisy, they hit 95c. Intel state max is 100c, even http://www.notebookcheck.net/ state "The i7-4710MQ is rated at a TDP of 47 W including graphics card, memory controller and VRMs. Therefore, the CPU is only suited for laptops 15-inches or greater."

See my latest post above. And I have an i7-4710MQ.

 

[chrisjraby]

I've had my Optimus V since just before Christmas last year and for the first few weeks it was fine; the fan made a bit of noise now and again but mainly only during high processing. Now however, I literally can't even browse the internet without the fan absolutely roaring! The only way to stop it temporarily is to put the laptop to sleep for a minute or so and then wake it up again, but as you'd expect, it soon starts up again after a while.

I absolutely love the laptop but the fan is really starting to become a big issue; I find it impossible to understand how the laptop can be sold with the issue so well known. I did a lot of research before buying the laptop but unfortunately I never found this thread; I think if I had I would probably have ended up talking myself out of it.

I notice people have referenced BIOS modifications and the like, but how reliable are they? Is there anything more official that PCS can do to help solve, or at least alleviate, the problem given their knowledge of it?

 

[bararm]

I returned my Optimus V for a refund, paid the extra and bought a Vortex IV
No more fan issues, and leagues different in terms of quality