What's new

At what temp does your fan kick in?

I'm really starting to wonder whether I have a bad Surface Pro. My fan seems to come on a lot. I never do anything particularly intensive and task manager confirms this. I am primarily just surfing the Web.

My fan can turn on around 54C and I'm wondering if this is normal. I'm at my wits end because the noise drives me nuts. I also just tried undervolting but I'm not sure it is helping.
 

jtuck82

Member
I'm really starting to wonder whether I have a bad Surface Pro. My fan seems to come on a lot. I never do anything particularly intensive and task manager confirms this. I am primarily just surfing the Web.

My fan can turn on around 54C and I'm wondering if this is normal. I'm at my wits end because the noise drives me nuts. I also just tried undervolting but I'm not sure it is helping.

I haven't really actually watched my temps to see when the fan comes on. I was at about 58C a min ago and my fan never came on. I had Modern IE, Comix, Speccy, Windows explorer open and installing PhotoShop Elements 10 all running. When I browse the web and/or read comics my fan never comes on. What browser are you using?
 
OP
L

laestrella

Member
I'm using IE. I've given up on Chrome. But the fan still seems to come on when I just have that app open and I'm not doing anything else other than reading forums. I just uninstalled a bunch of apps like bluestacks to see of that was the issue but it was still coming on.
 

jtuck82

Member
Hmm. I'm not sure. I would double check task manager and see what is running and using CPU power and see if you can kill it and see if that helps. If not, maybe back your files up and try a restore? I know you probably don't want to do that but it might be worth a shot. If you're within your return policy I'd probably just swap it out. Hope you get it straightened out.
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
I'm using IE. I've given up on Chrome. But the fan still seems to come on when I just have that app open and I'm not doing anything else other than reading forums. I just uninstalled a bunch of apps like bluestacks to see of that was the issue but it was still coming on.
You can probably get a more detailed look with Resource Monitor but its likely something from the bunch of apps. if I'm doing nothing Hardware Monitor (displays temps etc.) is using 2%. so how many apps are you running monitoring the device?
 

YKinase

New Member
I've had my fan wind up around 55C also. What I've noticed is whenever the OS is performing a 'maintenance task' the fan winds up even though the temp is low - usually during a malware scan or indexing operation. I consistently see the fan turning on whenever the system is at 65C for more than a minute. Even playing the reasonably low resource demand game FTL results in the fan spinning up.

What would be interesting is to compare SP3 temps under load in a systematic way to see if some SP3's have less efficient cooling. I've used the Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool and RealTemp to see the peak temperature reach 85C and fans kick on to what I assume is peak intensity after about 60s of running the test. I'm curious what Tmax others are getting....
 
OP
L

laestrella

Member
Something I might have done may be working. My surface has been cool as a cucumber this morning. And the fan has not turned on yet. Using the device right now my temp is 35C. I could not get it down below 45 last night. Maybe everything had to settle down after uninstalling the apps and undervolting? I only removed bluestacks and betterybattery pro btw.

Or perhaps the undervolting is working. The ultimate test for me as to whether my fan would come one would usually be to use Google+. For whatever reason that site would always heat up my device. I just tried it out and the highest my temperature got was 45C.

So we shall see what happens throughout the day.
 
OP
L

laestrella

Member
Just wanted to do a quick update. Used my Surface all day yesterday and the fan did not turn on once. I'm very happy now. I think it was probably the undervaluing that did the trick.
 

jtuck82

Member
Just wanted to do a quick update. Used my Surface all day yesterday and the fan did not turn on once. I'm very happy now. I think it was probably the undervaluing that did the trick.

That's cool glad its working good now. Although, mine isn't undervolted and still running cool. Who knows o_O
 

cdf3

Active Member
My fan comes on if I'm syncing files with OneDrive. I also tried BlueStacks, but the fan came on almost the entire time I ran it. So I ended up unistalling it.
What are you all using to check the temperature? I'd like to be able to check mine as well.
 
Top