Razer [saw]Blade 2015 -- Fan Noise UP/DOWN: Possible Fixes...

Update & Edits for clarity (Mar 9, 2015):
Razer confirmed the fans doing this is "normal". There is no user-modifiable way, nor anything on the horizon to control fan profiles like some other manufacturers. You'll have to under clock a bit (see my post below), elevate the laptop's bottom, use an additional lap cooler, or some combination of the three if you want to keep it off the max fan speed while gaming modern games.


To begin, some quick points:

• I got the 1080p version to make it easier for the system to maintain decent FPS with decent visuals, while minimizing heat & noise
• I don't care about max visual settings in games -- I'm not being "hard" on the system.
• Games should smooth but am not a '60FPS' stickler
• Benchmarks are cool, but just a number.
• I don't expect the system to be silent. I've owned many gaming laptops before.
• BUT: I do expect the fan noise to not sound like jet airplane, and I expect it to be consistent.

We'll say the laptop has about ~5 fan speeds, with #5 = fastest. The difference in RPMs between #4 & #5 are pretty extreme (very audible). While gaming, temperatures rise over time, but the fans do not scale with it. The fans just jump from Speed #4 to #5 which rapidly cools the system in about 30 seconds.

The cycle restarts every ~5 minutes making it extra distracting as it noise/temp seesaw's UP/DOWN/UP/DOWN between Speed #4 & #5, like a saw blade:


Testing with Intel XTU: Extreme Tuning Utility:
I have notched down dynamic voltage offset by -44mv without trouble and took all of the multipliers down by 2-4X each. I also lowered the top Wattage allowed. More testing to be done, but it may be helping in staying out of the danger fan zone where the laptop starts hovering around my room...

Can any other 2015 or 2014 RB owners provide any other helpful tips or share some positive experiences? My experience so far with this laptop has been A+ in every other regard... But the top fan speed is barely acceptable to begin with and certainly not acceptable coming ON&OFF every ~5 minutes.

 

Remember that's 14 days from order, not the day it was delivered.

 

is this from gaming or just normal use that the fans will go top speed all of a sudden? is it really that bad? do you have audio of it?

 

If it wasn't only gaming I'd say something is wrong, mine doesn't start making any noise unless I'm playing a game of some sort, nothing else causes the fans to ramp. I haven't tried apps that can stress CPU/GPU like video encoding/rendering/password hash cracking

 

I have to agree with you in that I dislike the fan noise as well. I had a gs60 and the fan noise felt like the 2nd notch on the razerblade but the blade is on its 3rd blipping to 4th notch on the same game. It is easily the loudest laptop I have ever owned. I was loading a dota game in the study hall on campus and before I did anything to lower clocks it went to the highest fan level. I thought it was going to take off. I was so embarassed I alt-f4'ed. Like seriously...it is soooo loud!

I downclocked the cpu cores each by 3 and it still will ramp up on occassion. Wish it was a little cooler/quieter Will probably return next week....sigh.

 

Thanks @xlr8in ... Good to see I'm not the only one, but bad since my hopes that maybe I didn't have good heat pipe contact to CPU are being dashed... That maybe a replacement would offer different results.

Very promising info on the GS60. Which GPU model is that you're comparing to? The 1080p 970m was one of my other laptops on my list. That and the P34W Gigabyte (which from reading around seems fans may be as bad or worse than Razer) or the Auorus v3, yet it didn't have a 1080p option.

Yes @ledzepp14 , gaming only is when it does this. It's nearly inaudible under light loads, YouTube, and even older games.

For example, Divinity Original Sin, Star Citizen, Rise of the Triad (2013) all produce this fan oscillation no matter what the game settings. I'll try to get a good video of it.

The fans slowly increase in speed, but like I said in my first post... It's a monster jump from the next to last RPM and the final RPM. As such, it adds a lot of noise, but it's the going back and forth that really hurts on this beauty of a machine.

 

what about third party programs that control fans? i remember using one of those years ago. they still work?

 

I do agree that throttling of the fans do seem a bit too aggressive for my liking. However, better safe than sorry I feel. Especially on a machine that normally runs as hot as it does. I'm reluctant to messing with it.

 

@Lauski The gs60 model I had was the 1080p with 970m...think it was a 4710. I just remember the fans were not near as loud as the razer. @LVNeptune is experimenting with different repastes...with not too bad results. Depending on what his next set of numbers are I just might repaste as well. Anything to get the cpu down to mid 80s with 100% stress would be unbelievable! Assuming that is possible I may keep the beast as then it wont get noisy.

@ledzepp14 I dont think no fan controller software works with the blade. The profiles are tied to the temps and other than attempt to reduce your temps nothing can be done

 

Yeah I opened HWInfo64 and didn't see anything in there that could be done yet. I'm not too familiar with the program though.

Safe than sorry, absolutely... I'm just trying to get it stop going up....and down....UPPP and DOWWWN from that max fan speed. Guh. Now, good news to report though... for my ambient temp of 67F and modern games on high settings @ 1080p the following Intel XTU specs are now holding the fans steady:



Compare this 30 minutes of running to my first picture in the thread. My CPU is down to 3GHz from the standard 3.39 (or so?) but that's the only downside. I never heard that dreaded max fan or any changes to the RPM that were noticable. Going to give me something to think about now with this laptop.

 

@Lauski That looks pretty good. I had my core clocks all one notch higher and didnt adjust the wattages but copied your profile for now. It is a shame we cant have it wide open because it is too noisy. If I can put on a good thermal compound and have temps under 90 I will be so happy!

 

Thanks for posting your profile. Im doing the same for now but with one less per core multiplier. This laptop seemed too good to be true, and Im afraid it is too good to be true. Still a lovely laptop though, Ill be keeping a keen interest on the best way to repaste if an effective method is found.

 

First post updated. Hats off to Razer Systems Support for all their kind help, listening, advice and doing the best with what the system currently is. They even passed along my feedback regarding adding some fan control like other notebook manufacturers so everyone could meet their own goals. (Also, having additional fan speed steps near the top end.)

Contact [email protected] for technical system issues or to discuss your concerns/suggestions.

 

I too have noticed the fan noise crank up on my 1080p, but for most things, it does not get that high.

Granted most of what I am doing right now is playing steam games on my TV which is only 720p, but at that resolution the razer blade is usually silent for games like Skyrim. Sometimes it will crank up to the "fan on" but not the "jet noise" level that I get if I were to play something more intensive.

I would also say, try to find a msi gs60 to play with first if you are interested. I got and returned the gs60 before the razer blade and actually thought that the gs60 was louder, especially in idle. However, I will also say that the fan noises seemed to be different types of noises (pitches I guess), so it may very well vary from person to person which they find to be more bothersome. Other than the noise, the screen bleeding (why I returned it), and that it had a larger footprint than I wanted, the msi gs60 was a solid machine though.

 

You raise a good point and add another option to people viewing this thread. Avoid modern games if you expect the fans to stay off the max speed-- or try to run them at 720p. That could be worth giving a go. This screen is small enough at 14" it may not be noticeable. I hadn't thought of that.

 

Where is also an issue with Windows 8.1 I have seen on a few machines now where the Windows Installer Module process will kick in in the back ground and then the fans will kick on also. I am not sure what it is doing but I have seen the Blade, a Dell XPS 13 and a Thinkpad all sit doing almost nothing then the fans kick on almost full blast and in each case the CPU wasn't under more than 40-60% load, but the #1 CPU usage was for the Windows Installer Module. It only lasted a few minutes before stopping what ever it was doing though.

 

I'm also a bit disappointed with the fan loudness, while I admit that using headphones or even the laptop speakers while playing games, I don't notice it much and don't really mind when I'm at home - but I can see myself being embarrassed in a lecture room and the fans go full jet mode, or even if I decide to use it in the office where it's usually quiet.

On a side note, has anyone noticed the fans get loud even when watching Twitch? Seems like such a simple task as watching twitch shouldn't be producing loud fan noise - yet it seems like whenever I start Chrome, and when I get into watching Twitch it ramps up.

 

Your fans ramp up just starting Chrome? My 2014 is virtually silent watching youtube or twitch on chrome.

The fans going ape during an extremely demanding game is something you'd have to deal with for just about any gaming notebook that is thin and light. The only ones that stand a chance at being quiet are huge 9-12lb or heavier beasts with huge fans that spin slower and have larger heat sinks.

If you bought the Razer you're probably someone like me that got tired of 9+ lb notebooks and understands the tradeoff.

 

My fans just ramped up. I took a look and the Windows Anti-malware program was taking up 30% CPU for a short while.

 

got myself a 1080p as well today and that fan was driving me nuts. i went with your XTU settings max temps 89 deg celsius and the max fan still came on. but better than default! thanks! subscribing to this thread

 

I just used the same settings as you and while playing StarCraft 2 and streaming netflix my max temp was 78* a good 5* lower than yours.

While stress testing it averaged at 74*

 

i too noticed the fans go loud when i just had the Windows update screen on. sounds like Windows services annoy this laptop.

do you guys see a FPS dip in games with these reduced XTU settings?

 

I didn't have any noticeable change in mine, but unless its dropped below like 45.

I also had no throttling.

I'm running at a max of 3.2GHz right now, which is not enough to change anything noticeably from 3.6 for what I do.

 

ok thanks. this is with Lauski's setting on the previous page, or you have a different one?

 

Mine are similar but my multipliers are: 34, 33, 32, 32

Everything else is the same. It the same clock speed then as the 2014 Blade, but with being a newer chip it's still faster. While keeping lower temps.

 

just wanna check what made you decide to leave the Dynamic CPU voltage offset of -44mv?

 

I looked up online that older blades and this cpu in similar machines users were getting it to go down between 40-100 without trouble.

I played with combinations of undervolting with lowering the multipliers until I got the result you see above. My goal, was 1080p modern games, with using the blade on a hard flat surface, and NO fan speed #5 (max).

If your goals are like mine, but you're thinking you want to lower voltage more, so you can keep the multipliers up, be careful... My enthusiasm was tempered by @LVNeptune saying he had the machine lock up so hard undervolting he had to physically open and disconnect the battery to get it back.

... Maybe he can tell you what numbers he had experimented up to ;-)

 

do you guys have your fans still going when doing basic stuff like checking email? seems strange that mine never shuts off for these simple routines. it's not loud, but noticeable enough, especially when compared to my MacBook pro that's dead silent. is there a way to make sure Optimus is properly switching to the Intel GPU?

 

Look in the nvidia settings area for the application list. If you're viewing email in chrome for example, you can make sure it is set to the integrated Intel, instead of the nvidia discrete.

This is just the general gist from what I remember. On mobile device atm.

I'd be surprised though if it wasn't defaulted properly.

 

hmm.. not seeing the application list in the nvidia program.

 

thanks! i was looking into the other nvidia experience program instead.

 

I will just add my 2 cents. I own 2014 edition of the blade (4702HQ + 870m) and upon extensive XTU work have learned the following:

1) The absolute best way to lower your CPU temp is to limit your CPU at 99% which will effectively disable turbo (i.e if your base processor clock is at 2.2GHz with turbo to 3.2GHz it will cap it at 2.2GHz) - I have tested it with multiple games (Witcher 2, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dota 2 etc.) and there was ZERO FPS difference. But, the temps went down significantly - meaning maxing 80-82C on Witcher 2 instead of 91-5C and it actually helped the GPU down 1-3C as well (since its the same chassis). Furhtermore - it may even improve FPS under load since the GPU won't throttle. My system howers over 85C on GPU in intensive games and core clock is 900-920MHz usually instead of (941MHz or even 961MHz with turbo).

2) Unless you do something like this, its extremely difficult to get temps down a lot - mainly because of the fan profiles - meaning you will get the CPU and GPU to generally run cooler if you undervolt, decrease speed of your CPU/GPU etc., but the fan will still only pick up at certain temperature - meaning it will get there slower and perhaps less often AND your temps will very much stay the same. One thing it could prevent is extreme overheating (92C+) and thermal throttle on GPU (which I think is around 87-9C on 870M)

3) You can undervolt a lot more than -40 on dynamic CPU offset. I have basically maxed out overclocking in XTU (meaning +2-3 on each multiplier), and have -100mW/-100mW/-95mW (keep in mind that the graphics wont really help I think - its more for battery life). In addtion I have reduced both turbo boost power max and short term turbo boost power max. You can see the details in the picture attached. I think with more tweaking you could go higher on some of these, but Im too lazy to spend a day trying to figure it out

4) Lastly, you can also undervolt and overclock the GPU a little. I get +51MHz on core and +260MHz on memory through NVIDIA inspector wiht -12.5mW. You could possibly do better - it all depends on a system.

 

I think it might have been mentioned before, but my fans ramp up randomly in Windows - just doing low processing power things. I noticed in the task manager - that random windows processes ramp up every so often and then the fans ramp up to a fairly notice-able setting. Kind of annoying when it happens randomly in a quiet environment for no apparent reason.

 

Sorry for the double post - but does anyone have any idea about this (above)? Fans going up and down for about 5 seconds in desktop - seems like a Windows thing but a work-around would be cool. Starting web development class and don't want the fans going haywire in class while I'm just coding.

 

I wish there was a fan control for this thing. The fans just don't ramp up fast enough, and the constant up down is a real annoyance.
I know on the rMBP does have Lubbo's Fan Control to help with this.

 

Hi there, I recently got the 2015 Blade and want to get ontop of this sooner rather than later. I've downloaded the XTU software but not entirely sure how to limit my CPU to 99%. Would it be possible to point me in the right direction as to what I'm meant to do - what controls I'm meant to play with etc, conscious I don't want to break anything

Thanks,

 

Actually, you don't need xtu for this, it's in the advanced section of configuring a power profile in the control panel.

 

Got it, thanks for that hfm!

 

Unfortunately my razer blade 2015's fans ramp up and down while browsing facebook and chrome. Like, if I load a page it will freezer for a sec, load, then the fans will ramp up for 5-10 seconds then go silent. I love this laptop for everything besides this fact (I got the QHD version) and will still probably keep it, but it's annoying nonetheless. I'll try to limit my CPU tonight and see how it goes, hopefully that solves the problem. Thanks for this thread, it's good (but also not good) to see others with the same issue.

 

My fans are practically silent unless I fire up a game. I've never heard them ramp up and down.

 

Yea ditto mine are silent unless I'm gaming

 

I set Max CPU to 99% and it does disable Turbo Boost and the thing runs super silent even when doing stress tests.

 

I actually have the same problem. It gets to the point where I have to keep a constant ear on my laptop during lectures, so if I hear it start to ramp up, then I have to quickly hit the power button and put my computer to sleep before it turns into a jet engine. Super embarrassing, apparently this happened while I went to the washroom one time hahah.

Right now I'm trying the reduced multipliers in XTU to help, and then I'll try limiting the CPU to 99% percent tonight.

 

Let me know how it works, I unfortunately got a virus and had to restore it and am now waiting for a recovery usb from razer. It should get here today.

Razer replied to my email and said the fans ramping up and down is normal as its a thin laptop and needs to dissipate the heat or else it'll get too hot. I'm fine with putting up with it since this laptop is literally half the size of my old Alienware M14x but it would be nice if this didn't happen.

 

So I've set my max CPU to 99%, however when I stress test it still goes up to 95C. I mean granted its a warm day today here but I'm a bit worried about how high it goes.

When I'm browsing or playing hearthstone it doesnt make a sound and sits at around 45-48C, however when I play games it shoots up - playing Witcher 2 it goes up to 95 briefly and then comes down, it averages at around 86-87C and that's with the CPU at 99%.

Any suggestions?

 

It's not a problem.

 

Ah great, it's just you get a bit paranoid when it comes to this laptop