I've had my SP2 128 Gb for several weeks now and it's been a real little sweetheart so far. I am just noticing that to date, I don't think I've ever even noticed, or heard its cooling fans kick in? Does the SP2 really have to be pushed to the max for this to occur, or are the fans just so quite that you don't even hear them while they're running? Is there a trick to intentionally causing them to operate just as a test to see if they're OK?
Is There A Way To Check the SP2's Cooling Fans?
- Thread starter Sir Face
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jollywombat
Member
Play a graphically intense game, or grab your benchmark software of choice and run the CPU/GPU tests. Normally the fans will not kick on for everyday tasks.
Correct. The Surface Pro 2 is very well designed (excellent cooling engineering applied), and the low power consumption of the CPU of this generation of processors, really allows this to be a possibility.
I know it might be hard to believe, as many are used to consumer grade laptops, where the market for those is: "What are the highest specs for the lowest price, I don't care about anything else", which results in noisy systems (and poor or not great build quality, and so on).
The fan will kick-in if you watch a lot of Flash videos (YouTube), for long period of time in a row, when you are plugged in, if you wonder. Basically anything that is GPU intensive, or CPU intensive for long period of time, will kick the fans. The fans are really quiet for their size, and despite 2 of them, unless they go at near full speed, you won't be really hearing them.
The device is expensive, but you see that Microsoft didn't cheap out anywhere (well.. if we ignore the webcam). Solid build quality, super fast components, high quality components, low voltage variation of all components, high quality cooling solution, very good cooling engineering, excellent overall product engineering, unique and very nice looking device (doesn't try to be a look-alike Apple product)
I know it might be hard to believe, as many are used to consumer grade laptops, where the market for those is: "What are the highest specs for the lowest price, I don't care about anything else", which results in noisy systems (and poor or not great build quality, and so on).
The fan will kick-in if you watch a lot of Flash videos (YouTube), for long period of time in a row, when you are plugged in, if you wonder. Basically anything that is GPU intensive, or CPU intensive for long period of time, will kick the fans. The fans are really quiet for their size, and despite 2 of them, unless they go at near full speed, you won't be really hearing them.
The device is expensive, but you see that Microsoft didn't cheap out anywhere (well.. if we ignore the webcam). Solid build quality, super fast components, high quality components, low voltage variation of all components, high quality cooling solution, very good cooling engineering, excellent overall product engineering, unique and very nice looking device (doesn't try to be a look-alike Apple product)
Last edited:
CrippsCorner
Well-Known Member
The only things that have made my fans fire up is opening multiple videos at the same time, during some system updates, and strangely... whenever the screensaver comes on.
Screen saver and video I can explain.
-> It's fully GPU rendered. As much as Intel CPU's, they are nicely efficient. However, the GPU, is complete garbage in efficiency. As soon as you do anything, it goes full power 15W consumption.
Intel doesn't know how to make a GPU, let alone it's drivers. They don't have the expertise, nor looking for it. The way they see it, is to bring a new area of a mobile computing. While manufactures, sees Intel offering as a free graphic card, allowing to maximize profits or sales system at lower price point. The consumer doesn't know any better, and are content with it, ignoring the fact that it's really not good. Just NOW. Since late 2013-2014, it's adequate for web surfing and watching videos... but It does not FULLY support OpenGL and DirectX, hence why games crashes, you can visit next gen web site that aren't bare-bone like Facebook, and twitter, where if you scroll the page, the GPU can't follow up with the demand, if you are on battery, and set to Power saver, good luck playing that 1080p HD video. My 5 year old laptop, without clocking a bit faster over minimum, Nvidia very low end GPU, can handle that 1080p HD video just fine (and I would expect the same from AMD). Intel struggles. Multiple display support is half baked with Intel, and I can go on. And it's not like we don'r have the technology. Look at Nvidia Tegra K1. It's a CPU Quad core + a FULL GeForce 600 series (Kepler), together.. 5W max, and is more powerful than Intel best offering. If there was a market for dedicated GPU. I can assure you Nvidia (let alone AMD which has similar graphic solution with their CPU+GPU, which they call APU), would make that GPU alone.. so it would be what 3W? At 3W it won't even need any cooling, let alone 5W. This would allow the Intel graphic solution to be turned off, allowing reduce power consumption (which will be moved to the dedicated GPU), and even offer further gaming or 3D performance due the CPU being able to go faster for longer period of time.
Consumers need to start demanding dedicated GPU's, now you'll get a far better experience, more performance, no fan kick-in on screen saver or videos, all by keeping the same great battery life, and heat level, more or less.
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