Question Fan being extra noisy when gaming but never used to?

[Pirripz]

Trying to help my mam out here; she has this one game on her laptop which she's obsessed with playing - just one of those hidden object games - but she says as of two game updates ago, whenever she plays, the fan is on and off constantly, really loud and sometimes for sustained periods. The fan was never noticeable before. The only other time it gets this loud is when Windows is installing updates.

She normally likes to play for hours at a time, but the noise is irritating her and others around her so much, she now barely plays and it's sad as it was one of her favourite pastimes and she has been playing that specific game for about 10 years.

I've tried what I could think of; making sure she had all the latest updates, checked all the drivers were up to date, changed what game/graphics settings I could, cleaned the fan (it was barely dusty) and replaced the thermal paste but it hasn't made a difference. The laptop is always sat on top of a ventilated stand as well.


What else can I try?

 

[Aeacus]

The laptop

Should've said it as 1s thing, since i read the whole topic as PC being desktop PC.

In any event, if fan is still loud, then it could be fan bearing. Meaning either:
* fan replacement (depending on laptop, either easy, hard or nigh-impossible)
* stop the fan completely (could lead to thermal issues)

For mitigation: she could use good outside noise canceling headset. One such headset does wonders with PC gaming, whereby fan (airflow) noise wouldn't be an issue (i know it 1st hand and it's the only way i game nowadays, by using headset).

 

[geofelt]

Laptop coolers are light and not very effective.
Under load, heat generated will cause the fan to spin higher.
Set the windows power profile to balanced(not performance).
If that does not do the trick, set the max cpu performance to something less than 100%; say 95%
That will keep the processor from boosting and should run quieter.

 

[Pirripz]

Should've said it as 1s thing, since i read the whole topic as PC being desktop PC.

In any event, if fan is still loud, then it could be fan bearing. Meaning either:
* fan replacement (depending on laptop, either easy, hard or nigh-impossible)
* stop the fan completely (could lead to thermal issues)

For mitigation: she could use good outside noise canceling headset. One such headset does wonders with PC gaming, whereby fan (airflow) noise wouldn't be an issue (i know it 1st hand and it's the only way i game nowadays, by using headset).

Changed my wording a little so that it's more obvious it's a laptop.

Since the fan only gets faster/louder just when playing this game and is fine the rest of the time (playing browser games, watching videos etc), I assumed it was because that one activity was making the CPU get hotter and not that the fan is broken. Like I said, it only seems to be behaving differently since an update to the game (or perhaps Windows), it was always quiet beforehand.

She usually likes to game and listen to/ half watch the TV at the same time, with others in the room who are also getting irritated by the fan.

 

[Pirripz]

Laptop coolers are light and not very effective.
Under load, heat generated will cause the fan to spin higher.
Set the windows power profile to balanced(not performance).
If that does not do the trick, set the max cpu performance to something less than 100%; say 95%
That will keep the processor from boosting and should run quieter.

It is set to balanced but I'm not sure where one sets the cpu performance?

 

[geofelt]

Where you set balanced, in windows there will be a selection for advanced power settings.
In processor power management, select 95% for maximum processor power.

 

[Pirripz]

Where you set balanced, in windows there will be a selection for advanced power settings.
In processor power management, select 95% for maximum processor power.

I checked and this option wasn't there.

Followed the steps here and the processor power management options became available.

Lowered them as you said and restarted the machine.

Opened the game and left it running for a bit before messing around in it, with HWiNFO also running to measure core temps. Fan was quiet as a mouse, no core temp exceeding 45°C.

I think this has solved the issue. Thank-you.

 

[tautvexe5]

I checked and this option wasn't there.

Followed the steps here and the processor power management options became available.

Lowered them as you said and restarted the machine.

Opened the game and left it running for a bit before messing around in it, with HWiNFO also running to measure core temps. Fan was quiet as a mouse, no core temp exceeding 45°C.

I think this has solved the issue. Thank-you.

in case you notice that it becomes too slow, you could set the limit to 99% that would only disable the turbo option and would give a few hundred mhz depending on CPU itself