[SOLVED] Ryzen 3700x CPU Voltage and Stock Fan Noise

[DarthBatman]

Hey guys so for the live of me I cannot get my wraith prism cooler to shut up. It's because quite a nuisance and I'm not sure if there's much I can do other than upgrading it.

One thing I've noticed is that the CPU fan runs much more quietly when I'm in bios as opposed to running windows. I've been reading reddit thread and topics here about voltages and temperatures spikes. Fortunately I'm not seeing drastic overheating. Ryzen Master shows me frequently around 39-42 C at idle. Dragon Center reads higher, at low of 39 to a high of 51 C.

But I am wondering if my voltage is too high. I went into bios to see if I can change CPU voltage from Auto to Normal as apparently that has alleviated some of the fan problems with other Ryzen users. However I don't have that option in the Menu. I'm given, Auto, Overclock with Offset, AMD Overclock. From there I didn't know what to do so I decided to leave it alone.

But the cpu voltage is reading 1.4. Is that too high at idle? Here's a pic from bios.

https://ibb.co/vkZ48pb

https://ibb.co/c6KRGWb

I did install a new chipset driver on Dragon Center after mulling it over because even though it shows as the latest version. The AMD website has not listed this one available yet.

So I went from 2.07.14.327 to chipset driver 2.07.21.306

I was hoping this would improve things but it doesn't seem that way. I did change the fan on the prism cooler from low to high but I read that this should not effect idle operation.

I did adjust the minimum and maximum processor states in Ryzen Balance plan this morning just to see if it would change anything. I changed minimum to 90% and maximum to 99% and the fan is still loud as hell. The stock Ryzen Balance plan is set to 99% and 100% respectively.

This has lowered my temperature in Ryzen Master but the fan noise does not change. Photo here:

https://ibb.co/ZLpVLVM

Is there anything I can do with my settings to quiet this thing down or is a better cooler my best option? I'd like to get the Noctua U12S as a replacement as I hear they of good quality and much quieter. Is there anything concerning in those photos that I need to adjust asap?

 

[GarrettL]

I have a 3800x and the Wraith Prism would cool it but it was loud under load.

You can tame it a bit by adjusting your fan curves so it's a smoother transition to higher fan speeds when under a sustained load.

With the spiking of the cpu speed the fans will ramp up when really not needed to do so.

 

[DarthBatman]

I have a 3800x and the Wraith Prism would cool it but it was loud under load.

You can tame it a bit by adjusting your fan curves so it's a smoother transition to higher fan speeds when under a sustained load.

With the spiking of the cpu speed the fans will ramp up when really not needed to do so.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I just changed the fan setting back to low and that seems to have helped. But it just seems like after running any task at all the fan doesn't back down to a lower state. If I play Halo Reach for an hour, the fan will turn up while playing but will keep running high well after I'm done.

As a fellow Ryzen user do you think my CPU Voltage is a concern?

 

[Phaaze88]

Set a fan curve like so:
-lowest rpm of 60% at 60C minimum
-80% at 85C
-100% at 90C

I might not have remembered the last 2 correctly, but it went something like that.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I just changed the fan setting back to low and that seems to have helped. But it just seems like after running any task at all the fan doesn't back down to a lower state. If I play Halo Reach for an hour, the fan will turn up while playing but will keep running high well after I'm done.

As a fellow Ryzen user do you think my CPU Voltage is a concern?

AMD made Ryzen processors boost like GPUs: it'll keep doing it until it either hits a temperature limit or a voltage limit. Voltages as high as 1.45v are normal for Ryzen when boosting.

As far as temperature spikes and such go, it's a quirk with how Windows schedules tasks when the system is more or less idle and how Ryzen suddenly boosts. Windows will run background tasks on a fixed interval, regardless of when it was scheduled. So there's periods where the processor suddenly gets a load of work to do and since it's usually hitting one core, that one core gets the full boost. It's also likely the fan curve is based on the hottest CPU core, rather than something like the die average.

It's a fun quirk about Ryzen

 

[DarthBatman]

AMD made Ryzen processors boost like GPUs: it'll keep doing it until it either hits a temperature limit or a voltage limit. Voltages as high as 1.45v are normal for Ryzen when boosting.

As far as temperature spikes and such go, it's a quirk with how Windows schedules tasks when the system is more or less idle and how Ryzen suddenly boosts. Windows will run background tasks on a fixed interval, regardless of when it was scheduled. So there's periods where the processor suddenly gets a load of work to do and since it's usually hitting one core, that one core gets the full boost. It's also likely the fan curve is based on the hottest CPU core, rather than something like the die average.

It's a fun quirk about Ryzen

Ah I see. So if I'm hearing you and Phaaze88 correctly I need to set a fan curve to alleviate the noise or simply upgrade to a quieter fan unit?

To set a fan curve I can do this in bios correct? Would be nice to access that in Ryzen Master.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Ah I see. So if I'm hearing you and Phaaze88 correctly I need to set a fan curve to alleviate the noise or simply upgrade to a quieter fan unit?

To set a fan curve I can do this in bios correct? Would be nice to access that in Ryzen Master.

It'll only be in BIOS or potentially your motherboard manufacturer's utility. Alternatively you can get a fan controller like NZXT's.

If you want alternative ways to "tame the beast":

• Use the "Power Saver" power plan when you're not doing anything intensive. It looks pretty bad as it caps the processor to 2.2V and it'll actually park most of the cores, but I've been doing this for a while and I don't even notice performance loss in light tasks.
• Set a fixed voltage and frequency. For example, you can run a 3700X at 4.1GHz down to about 1.3V or less (I haven't tried going lower, too lazy to do right now). And this is a fixed frequency, so the processor will run at that speed regardless. While this sounds counter-intuitive, the processor's power consumption is directly related to how much work its doing. So it'll still idle with a fairly low power consumption and the lower voltage won't cause temps to spike as high.

For me I went with the first route. I did limit the PPT, but this only affects the processor at load.

EDIT: Should also point out the second method could actually help with performance since under load, the processor can maintain a potentially faster clock speed than stock boosting.

 

[kurdtnz]

Best thing I ever did was swap out my wraith prism with a different cooler, sanity saved!