m11x r3 shocking fan profile

Hi Guys,

Just got an m11x r3 and I love it except for 1 thing. the fan profile!!!

The laptop fan is either off/low/aircraft. What were Dell thinking? couldnt they have added a few more steps so that the noise transition was gradual? It seems like a really lazy profile to me. First time I gamed in my quiet room I nearly jumped out of my chair when the fan kicked in.

The m14x was the same but fixed with the A05 bios. So my question is do we know if they plan to give us a bios fix too? If not I am sorely tempted to return the laptop

Are there still any Dell/Alienware reps on the forum that can answer?

 

Yeah tell me about it, my M11x R3 sounds like a Euro fighter typhoon on a fast fly by, BIOS update info would be great, should we update to BIOS A04 from the Dell website or is it already pre-installed if we bought our systems in October / November?

 

Thats one of the things that all m11x have problems with... mine actually makes a farting noise when the fan shuts off

 

They are really noisy little beasts, my fan sounds like "HEY EVERYONE I'M RUNNING IN 3D, CHECK ME OUT!" No wonder Skyrim is so quiet haha

Thank goodness the fan is brush-less or else it would last about 3 days!

 

Yeah, Dell must have spent a good 5 minutes implementing the fan profile! thought I had bought an Acer by mistake

ejohnson - my m14x used to do that when starting up and shutting off. I would still rather that than the jet engine we currently have.
I have got a few days left to return it and I really am in 2 minds. I love the power and performance but the noise!

I have also tried using HWInfo but unfortunately it locks up frequently and when I set a fan speed (say 4000rpm) it shoots upto 7000rpm and then takes 3 minutes to slowly settle down to 4000

I have also tried lowering the cpu and gpu clocks and raising the back which enables it to run on the slow fan setting for quite a bit.

Thing is I dont mind the noisy fan if I want to play BF3 on my own, but I need to have a quiet option for sofa/bed gaming with the wife.

 

Well I will say this, I have a heat sink modded r1 also, The fan never ever turns on unless I am gaming. Even when gaming it doesnt turn on high, its usually pretty quiet.

My wife has the heat sink modded one now because she uses it in bed, need that extra thermal cooling to deal with the fan being block most of the time.

 

same here.

im soo happy it stays off 95% of the time im on Intel gfx. even with this thing sitting flat on the couch while i surf the CPU barely ever goes higher than 40c.

i would highly suggest this mod to R2/R3 owners since those systems run hotter.

link to the mod is in my sig if you want to get an idea of whats involved.

 

Yeah unless I'm playing a game I get absolutely no fan activity, I was on battery and power yesterday for 10 hours and I didn't hear a peep out of it. Then launched a game and BOOM! Fan-tastic!

I bought a pair of decent 5.1 headphones and now I can't play without them as they sound so good, as for the missus i just play on it when she's in bed

 

haha, but I want to be able to play whilst the Mrs is watching soul destroying soaps! If I tried to game with the current noise levels I would end up with the TV remote stuck up my ****!

I looked at the heat sink mod and I am considering it but I dont think it will eliminate the problem as the low speed hardly pushes any air and as soon as the gpu hits 65c the fan rockets to 7k rpm.

I have just sent an email to Alienware Tech support and I may phone them if I do not hear back by tomorrow.
I could just return it but I cant find another small laptop with potent internals!

 

Let us know what Alienware tech support say, not a lot if they are the same dwardes I spoke to last month when my R1 when wrong and I shipped it back to them for a refund

I'd love to do a heatsink mod if I was 100% sure I could dismantle my R3 and put it back together again looking spick and span, truth is it might look like a paint can that's been levered off all round the edges and I'd cry!

 

To be fair, they are easy to take apart (just a little time consuming). If I decide to keep it then I will do a repaste and mod the heatsink.

I am also considering using a variable resistor on the fan to lower the volts/rpm

Edit and yes I will let you know. If nothing else if I keep bugging them then they may push this onto the BIOS engineers

 

Get passive noise-isolating headphones (also called canalphones or In-Ear Monitors / IEMs).

Totally blocks out the fan noise, and adds a high level of immersiveness to your gaming experience. I never go anywhere without them.

 

He is having a problem with the wife hearing it, not him self. SHe wants to watch tv, he wants to game. But the computer is too loud for her.

 

I used to have some Shure IEM's but I could hear the blood rushing around my ears and it was far too isolating, I still have them but prefer the can's (over the ear headphones) I bought, Astro A40 and mixamp which cost nearly as much as my R3 haha

 

I'm just glad that the fan stays off when not gaming no the R3. I can even game on the intel graphics and when it does come on it's very slow. Though it would be awesome if we could get really slow dynamic fan speed changes like newer high end graphics cards have.

 

Mine is not completely quiet when not gaming. When browsing, if the cpu reaches 40° (as peak), the fan suddenly start @ 3000 rpm. This is unacceptable. From 0 to 3000 rpm, it's crazy and more annoying than a fixed 3000 rpm profile.

For this i have to use HWiNFO and keep the fan @ 2500 rpm (very slighty audible).

I never saw a laptop with only a LOW-HIGH profile. This is really, really a shame. To make things worse, the EC implementation is bugged and you can't freely use HWiNFO to control the fan (you have to shutdown it before gaming, or it will freeze).

I think that we have to start sending email to the support complaining about the problem. They must release a bios with a fixed EC firmware...

 

I have already emailed but so far no response.

Going to start phoning and pestering tech support next week.

Also cyrusza, when you set a an speed above 4300rpm's does your fan shoot up to 6-7000rpm's and take about 3 minutes to slowly reach desired speed?

 

I had heard of the noisy fan and was holding off until Black Friday to buy an R3 thinking it may not be too bad. But if it's loud enough to disturb the wife during TV viewing, there's really no point in me getting this I'm afraid.

I had also considered using HWiNFO, but based on what cyrusza said, it doesn't sound like it's a very convenient workaround.

Short of taking it apart and voiding my warranty to mod the heatsink, is there any other solution? If I use rubber feet to elevate it half an inch above a Targus Chill Mat, would that make any difference in lowering the temps and keeping the fan speed down?

 

Its not really that bad unless TV is really silent, like late in the evening etc. It would be pretty bad but after i put some performance thermal paste instead of the crap dell use it hardly goes to max setting even without elevation... While it is a bit loud on MAX, it isn't very much louder than many of other laptops i used, just that m11x doesn't have the gradual increase in fan speed, its pretty much just no fan low fan or pedal to the metal.

 

Yes i observed this behaviour with HWiNFO but it takes a shorter time to reach the desired speed (some seconds).

Please can you share the email you used to contact Dell Support as we can contact them too?

 

It's not a temperature problem, really. Even if you mod the heatsink when Summer will come you will face the same absurd issue because of the higher external temp.

I think that we have 2 possible solutions:

1) Spam Dell about this behaviour and hope in a fixed firmware.
2) Disassemble the laptop, detach the 3rd fan wire (the signal one) and insert a potentiometer between the remaining wires and the laptop fan connector. Then mod the case to keep the potentiometer externally and manually adjust the fan speed.

 

So if I'm understanding correctly, you really can't use HWiNFO at all except while web browsing?

Here's hoping the R4 does not have any issues like its predecessors with hinges or fan noise. I want to give Dell my money, but find myself constantly waiting for the next model hoping for obvious needed improvements!

 

The fan is really not that bad. My home pc has a louder fan and that runs constantly. What suprises people is when the fan gets louder suddenly instead of a more graduated volume increase.

The current R3 is really a great model. And seeing as how there is no announcement for an R4 version, nor is there a release date or any sort of ETA. You might as well get one of the current models. This particular issue is also fixable via a software patch where the previous problem with the hinge was a hardware fault. Someone just needs to give dell a kick in the tush and get a software fix out for this.

 

Fundamentally yes. HWiNFO is a great piece of software but Mumak (the programmer) can't do more with such a ty embedded controller.

Please, send emails to Dell and complain about the fan profile. ninja2000 please, post the mail address you used as we can focus our efforts!

 

Here is the link to the support:
Alienware : The Ultimate Gaming Machine?

I am uk based so guess you will have to use your relevant countries support page.

Also its been a few days and I have yet to get an answer

 

cyrusza - I'm very interested in your opinion since I've never heard the fan firsthand and you're one of the few that's very vocal about it. I'm curious if you regret your purchase? Do you think I should hold off on buying this on Friday and wait until maybe an improved version next year?

Thanks.

 

the fan has pretty much been the same since the launch of the m11x, there probably wont be any sort of a change in it even in the r4 model (no I dont know when thats coming out so dont ask)

Some people the fan bothers, other dont really care that much. I personally dont mind the fan.

 

Thank you. As soon i find all relevant support info for other countries i will start a thread.

Hi rennervision. Let's make the thing clear: this is by far the best piece of hardware actually on the market.

You have to reason about your usage habits. Right now the laptop offers a fan profile that is the most absurd i've ever seen on a laptop: 0 >> ~3500 rpm >> ~6000 rpm. The 3500 rpm trip point is not so high (55 from unlocked bios) but for real is something like 45°-50°. The problem is that when your CPU is moderately stressed (~5%/7%) the peak temperature reaches 50° for a second and the fan starts. Then it stops. Then it starts. Then it stops. This until your load goes near ~2%/3% (almost idle).

This behaviour is ANNOYING. Extremely annoying, at least for me. I keep control of the problem with HWiNFO but if i want to do some gaming, i have to shut it down, because of the bugged embedded controller firmware that makes my lap freeze (the embedded controller is the chip controlling the fan and other stuff). Moreover, as ArchLinux user, i can't control the fan on Linux, because a program like HWiNFO doesn't exists for it.

Now my advice:
If you care only about gaming or you are not annoyed by a fan behaviour like this, buy this laptop NOW. If this bothers you, wait for a fix by Dell or a new revision, but don't rush in the purchase.

 

cyrusza - I am not sure if you realise, you can set a manual fan speed in HWinfo and then shut HWinfo down and the fan speed stays at that level until you sleep or shutdown the laptop. I use this to set it to 5000rpm when I game. I find it much less annoying to have a constant 5k rpm than 3500 > 6800 > 3500 > 6800, that drives me insane.

The low trip point I personally could live with but then I work on my MBA and only use the m11x for gaming on the move.

 

Yes i know that but i use the m11x also for developing. For me the better solution is to use che custom profile and shut it down when gaming.

 

fair enough Not sure I could use the keyboard for developing, have you gotten used to it or do you use an external.
I develop for IOS so I have to use my MBA for OSX

 

I'm used to it. I love this format because i can use it on the couch without much hassle. However when i'm at desk i use an external keyboard.

 

Necro post

My M11x R3 Behave exactly as Ninja2000 explain. Off -> On -> Aircraft.
The fan table is bad. Why dell don't build a bios with 8 step fan speed?
Hwinfo64 kinda solve my problem but its still bug me. I had Hwinfo64 freeze too while gaming. Can't kill the process, have to reboot when it freeze...

At 67C GPU here the fan go top speed. At 66C GPU i barely hear it.

Did anyone got awnser from Dell about this? Anyone complain? I see tons of post about this in few forums. There always people that will say that the fan is not that bad. Trust me , people that say that fan noise is not an issue for them ( You don't have this problem or you don't game). Have you ever heard what your fan sound at max speed?

I did everything i could possibly do, repaste heatsink , Heatsink mod , docking with fans.

 

I think some people just aren't bothered by fan speed! It annoyed me so much I have now sold the m11x. I won't buy another alienware until Dell introduce better BIOS fan tables.

I am now using a Dell Precision M4600 with quad 2720qm and quadro 2000m. The performance is better than the alienware m14x I used to own and it is whisper quiet even on load with my quadro massively overclocked!

Plus the best reason for my switch, a decent antiglare screen!

 

Ideally they should let us set our own fan-speed temperature thresholds

 

^ that would be amazing! I can do that on my mbp and I love being able to control it to my needs as we all have different priorities

 

More link of people complain about M11X R3 Loud Fan

Quote from the first link

Heat and Noise
I spent a number of hours trying to come up with a polite way of describing the level of noise produced by the cooling fan inside the Alienware M11x R3. After all that time, the nicest thing I can say is that the M11x R3 sounds like a pulsating hair dryer. The simple reality is this: The vent fan inside the M11x has to either turn on (at a relatively high volume) and off in regular intervals while the notebook is idle or it turns on full blast (at extremely high volume) while you're gaming in order to keep the relatively high-performance Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors and Nvidia graphics cool inside such a small laptop.

Quote from the second Link
Turning up the speakers on the M11x R3 won't drown out much of the fan noise

Quote from the third link
On the battery, it’s quick to ramp the fan up to full blast, which makes quite a loud whooshing noise. It’s not as bad on the battery (with the passive cooling policy) and will gently turn on the fan rather than jump straight to hairdryer mode. With headphones on or with some noise from a game the louder whooshing noise isn’t too bad, although it might annoy those around you.

Alienware M11x R3 and Battery Life, Heat and Noise

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/review...m11x_r3/391076

Alienware M11x-R3 Review | Overclockers

m11x r3 shocking fan profile

fan noise on R2 and R3

M11x R3 Fan ouch

R3 Heat/Fan Issues?

High Pitched Whining

DELL WAKE UP? CAN YOU HEAR ME?
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