Dell XPS 12 :: Fan Spins Up But Only When Machine Is Idle
Mar 21, 2013
While in use, the XPS 12 is usually fairly cool and quiet through normal operation. It spins up if in heavy use of course. This is whether on AC or battery power.
However, if the machine sits there and goes to idle, the fan spins up like crazy and the bottom warms up to. This is for hours and hours at a time - often if I leave the machine at night and come back in the morning this is the case.
I thought it might be some process that starts running when the machine is idle and away, but if I leave Task Manager open there isn't any disk or CPU activity that would indicate that happening.
i have a dell xps m1330 came with ubuntu preinstalled. its a great laptop. but the fan runs most of the time not full speed but load enough to be audible in a quiet room. when i installed a cpu temperature monitor it showed the average CPU temperature hovers between 40c and 55c when ever am using the system for just browsing the web. is this normal.
here are the system specs 320GB hard drive 7200 RPM Intel Intergrated card 3100 4gb ram core 2 duo 2.2 ghz
i chatted with dell tech support and he said it was normal for my system to get 60c 55c 70c is this true. am thinking maybe its because the my hard disk speed is high (7200) please if u own a dell xps m1330 can you please tell me the average temp of your computer... esp if u have the intel intergrated card.
My dell laptop (M501R) suffered a Blue Screen and wouldn't reload windows. Eventually, I just re-installed windows (re-formatting the hard drive) but everything was running slowly after about a minute or two of running windows. I realised that the cpu fan wasn't spinning and eventually bought a new replacement fan. I changed the fan over but I still have the same problem.
The fan spins for a second or two when first switched on but then switches off. I updated the bios and as soon as the bios program began updating the bios, the fan kicked in at full speed until the bios was finished updating and then switched off again.
I've ran the Dell diagnostics program and the only faults picked up are related to the hard drive, something to do with SMART.
The bottom of the computer is hot to the touch and the fans are blowing out hot air. I cleaned all fans and heat sink vents. also re applied all thermal paste on the cpu and gpu. Im concerned because my motherboard and gpu were just replaced yesterday for heat issues i believe. havent figured out if the heat was the cause or not. the temps were the same as there now with the new motherboard and gpu .....
I noticed that when idle the temperature slowly goes up to 65C, then the fan kicks in, lowers it to 45 and stops. The temperature goes up again and in about 2 minutes it is already 65 again. The process repeats indefinitely.
For the past few days, I woke up to my laptop's fan rather loud spinning. I noticed that my computer was constantly at 100% CPU usage even with like literally no processes opened, and it's idling ~50C.
It's to the point where moving my mouse across the screen lags, the pointer jumps from one spot to another.
I'm not really sure what the problem is, I ran AVG with no problem, and I don't remember doing anything to my computer in the past few days that would be considered abnormal...in fact, the only thing I did do was try to use a screensaver for the first time ever, but I turned it off with no difference,
i was reading a few other posts about idle temps of the GPU in the XPS 1530 and my temps are way above what everyone else is getting.
I have an idle GPU temp of approx 80-88 degrees celsius. I mean i could maybe expect that under a heavy load, but an idle temp??? The fan seems to be on all the time.
I just got the xps 1640 today and I'm very distracted by the loud system fan. It's audible all the time even when the computer is idle. I haven't been doing anything intensive on my computer either. The fan starts as soon as windows loads and never stops. I know this laptop has heat issues but I checked the core temp and it is only between 38-45degrees C. I know the fan can get louder under load, this is what I would describe as idle but still, it seems way too loud. It was raining earlier and I could hear the fan over the sound of raindrops hitting my roof. It's getting unbearable!!
Has anyone had the same experience? Or more importantly does anyone have a way to reduce the speed of the fan slighty? Speedfan doesn't seem to support my motherboard so I can't do it there.
System: P8600 2.4ghz 4gb ram 320GB (7,200rpm) WD HD
My 1530 has recently been overheating when left idle for a while(30 min or so). When I come back I find that the fans stop working, the system overheats and the laptop restarts with blazing temperatures.
In order to turn the fans back on, I have to shutdown the laptop and then switch it back on
Just got new Latitude E6520 and fan seems to never shut off. Left side of laptop always hot even when computer is idle. I can hear fan being constantly on. Is it enough to raise support request or what do I do?
The Dell E4300 for example is generally inferior (IMO) to the Vaio Z (heavier, slower, uglier, lower quality screen, lower quality build materials, etc.) yet it costs just about the same."
Sony Z here in Canada: $2614 before tax ($45 shipping)
If you make the warranty the same (3 years), $2943 before tax + $45 shipping
Same specs, I paid $2100 before tax (and free shipping) for the Dell E4300. Is it worth the difference when the keyboard (I don't like the Z's keyboard)?
I have to wait the same week (Oct 14/15) to receive either.
I am using Dell Inspiron 15, Model 3520. I bought laptop in January 2013 and its started giving this kind of error.
When I am using it continuously its working fine , when i go away from system(kept idle for sometime) it gets shutdown. So I need to re-login and it closes all the application which i was using before shutdown.
I already did some initial checks like scanning entire system for virus(i hardly have any data on system) and Dell online PC Check which passes all the test.
I just got a refurbished E7440. Before booting into an OS (e.g. staying in BIOS or at the boot menu), and after booting into Ubuntu, the fan is always on high and never stop (even when the CPU is idle at 40 degree C)). I also have an E6420 and an E6440, have never seen this behavior on them.
I see both BIOS A06 and A07 has "thermal control" listed as enhancement. Updated the BIOS to A06, A07, then A08, still have the same problem in all of them.
Is this expected for all E7440s or just mine? What can I do to make the fan be "on-demand" (without using Windows)?
i have encountered another bug aside from gpu boost issue, which is currently still unresolved. Fan speed control is not going idle on 7720 SE, even when temps are very low (below 40c)... on A12 BIOS, I have to restart my laptop to be able to switch to FAN Idle speed again. These are temps iam having and fans are still on.
If I leave my M4400 idle with Windows (Vista Ultimate 32-bit) locked and the screensaver on for any length of time (e.g. 20 minutes), then the network card goes into power-saving mode even while on AC power, reducing the connection speed from 1Gbps to 100Mbps. I can see this because the colour of the LED on the port changes. The reduction in speed causes a brief disconnection from the network. When I unlock Windows, there is another brief disconnection as it reverts to 1Gbps, and this causes instant messaging applications to log out.
If I go to the Link Speed tab on the network card's properties in Device Manager and force it to 1Gbps instead of Auto Negotiation, it warns me that power-saving features will be disabled, but then I don't experience the problem and it never disconnects. "Reduce link speed during battery operation" is unticked, but this should not apply to AC power anyway. I've tried upgrading the driver to 9.50.14.2, A01 (released on 24/02/2009) but the problem still happens.
I've had my M1530 for about 5 months and in the last few days and have had a problem with the screen.
Twice in the last 3-4 days I have come home from work to find the left hand side of the screen substantially dimme(darker.
The screen was left on regular settings, no screen saver etc. Within 5 minutes of use the left hand side of the screen had returned to normal brightness..
A few days ago, on my Inspiron 1545, my power adapter stopped working.
I started using an identical Dell adapter (exact same model PA-3E) to supply power to the laptop, power was working fine, but the battery would not charge. The battery is at 0%.
In BIOS the adapter is recognised as the correct 90W adapter but the battery is marked as "IDLE".
I have run Dell diagnostics and that says the battery is healthy, how can that be if it wont charge.
The power button on my XPS 13 has been slowly becoming less and less responsive when the machine is powered off and has now (After ~a year and a half) reached the point where it will no longer power on at all.
What makes this more confusing is that the button seems to work normally whenever the machine is on.
I replaced the thermal paste of the CPU and the GPU with "Coollaboratory liquid pro". And I replaced the thermal pad of the northbridge with "Arctic Silver 5" thermal paste.
Here are my sesults (in a 20 degrees Clesius enviroment, T9600, 2,8GHz, stock voltage): 73 dregrees Celsius at 100% load (instead of 92) 39 dregrees Celsius at 0% load (fan off) (instead of 45)
According to my research and different experiments this combination is my actual optimum. The cooler and more silent system supports my usage of voice recognition (using the internal mic). Of cause later the voltage could be reduced using rmclock.....
These are temps when I'm not even doing anything. The fan activates when the GPU hits 51C and stops when the GPU temp reaches 44C. The CPU doesn't seem to be a factor in activating the fan.
Use I8Kfangui to see your CPU and GPU temps. Just don't click on AUtomatic Fan Control because that will severely lag your system until you turn it off. http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html
When I start up my laptop, it makes a beeping sound then tells me something along the lines of,"AC power adapter wattage and type cannot be determined."And when I press F2, it tells me that my battery is operational but it is on idle but the lights on the battery do not glow.When I get it started up, on the actual home screen with icons and everything, if I hover above the battery icon it tells me, "Plugged in, not charging."
My AC power adapter has a small led light on it, and it is green. Before this, my laptop used to get very very hot, to the point that I could not even put it on my lap for too long. I would also sometimes put it on my bed where there is fabric. Also, there is a break on the AC adapter at the very top near where it gets plugged in. I also ran a diagnostic test and it gave me back a code, 2000-0142 .....
Also, my laptop is significantly slower and I am using an Inspiron 1521
I got myself a lovely little Precision M4400 on christmas eve. It was downgraded from Vista to XP from Dell. Since I have a specific way of setting up my systems, I spent a week in januray installing the OS from scratch.
Usually this isn't a problem, I have installed my own systems the past 15 years, and things have worked out pretty good so far. But there are some things about the M4400 that I simply don't understand, and I hope there are someone here that can guide me towards a solution.
The specs are: Dell Precision M4400, with 4Gb Ram, a Quadro FX 1700M graphics card, and a Intel WiFi Link 5300 AGN card. I am currently running 32bit Windows XP on it. I think those are the relevant specs for the things I'm fixing.
So, there are three main issues with the machine.
First, I haven't been able to find any official graphics driver for the machine! On the Dell site there are only drivers for Vista. If I select XP as the OS, I only see drivers for a 770M graphics card.
I got a forceware driver from Nvidia installed, but I get a lot of BSOD right now (sometimes from just resizing a Quicktime window!), so I could really need some help on this. That's the most critical issue .....
What causes this message when I boot my Latitude E6510 laptop?
ERROR "The reader is not installed on this machine. To install reader, press any key to restart your computer and run the reader installer. If the reader is installed on this pc, please check if the reader is installed on an encrypted hard drive.....Press any button to continue"....
I have XP on my macbook pro via bootcamp/vmware. I tried putting 7 on it, but then XP stopped working. So I deleted the partition that 7 was installed on and XP worked again.
Is there a way I can have both XP and 7 working via bootcamp? As far as I know I can't, so I was thinking about running 7 with bootcamp and XP via vmware. Also ever since deleting the partition that 7 was installed on XP doesn't seem to be able to boot via vmware. It was says I have to remove the physical disk from the virtual machine then add it again. How do I do this?
Despite installing the Texas Instruments PCI8412 Memory Card / 1394 Controller on my M6500, the machine does not seem to recognize any memory card that I put into the drive. The driver states its installed fine and despite several attempts at re-installation, I don’t seem to be able to get it working.
Dropped computer during move,lost all the disks and paperwork.Hard drive was damaged so purchased new one locally..Downloaded ISO win 7 86,installed used original validation.It booted up all fine but no drivers for mouse or Ethernet or wifi actually no drivers.Mouse works.
How can I download the drivers and save them to CD/DVD and install on machine.