Elitebook 1040 G9 noisy fan in low CPU load

[avicenne13]

Thank you for your message.

I am sure that turning Turbo Boost off will help the fan, but wouldn't it cap the maximum processing power?  I do not use my laptop for CPU intense processes but nevertheless, I don't think I will be able to sacrifice power for the sake of sound.

[TzortzisG]

Yes, avicenne13 you are 100% correct. I'm definitely NOT suggesting you run your expensive hardware permanently like that. I'm simply saying to test it and check how the fan behaves, I actually use THROTTLESTOP to either limit 1 or 2 of the last "multipliers" of TurboBoost, or enforce a power limit so that it doesn't use ALL of the TB frequency when hard-oressed.

[avicenne13]

Thank you TzortzisG for your reply.

I did it and it had no effect on the fan speed/sound.  In hindsight I think this was expected, since my complaints about the fan was at the CPUs idle states, so Turbo Boost on or off, it is the same, where the fan is already noisy in CPUs baseline performance.

[TzortzisG]

Thank you for the test AND the input.

I was afraid of this. So the only way for you to get a satisfying fan speed profile is 1) another (better) HP bios update or 2) taking control of the fan and setting your own fanspeed preferences. However, option 2 is next to impossible on your laptop since nobody has ever tried to find its fan registers and their properties before, no config exists, and the work is just way too much....

[avicenne13]

Thank you for your reply.

Exactly.  I've been refreshing HP Support Assistant for a new BIOS daily, and I am looking for an option in the future to have a setting like ' I choose my laptop to be a bit slower/hotter on my lap, for the favor of silence ' in an applet like Cool Sense. 

I learned the hard way that no app has any clue for 3rd party fan settings for this model.  For this, we will wait and see I guess.

Thank you again.

[TzortzisG]

To my knowledge, only building your own config and using it with this (https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-Notebooks/HP-G9-Firefly-LOUD-FAN-almost-always-running/m-p/84...) program, is the only available option right now. But I refer you to my previous post (a whole lotta work). I have used the original nbfc and this later version successfully, but mostly with older models that already had configs available. I always set my fan to 0rpms until cpu reaches 60 degrees C, and I can't for the life of me understand why HP insists on having the fans blowing on cold semiconductors 😉

[avicenne13]

Thank you for your message, I might give it a look.

I want to write one comment, for the possibility that some engineers from HP read this;  it is quite ironic that, when used for simple tasks (like right now) and used on a tabletop, the laptop is quite silent, like dead silent, and when you get it close to your ears like on your lap, it starts to get loud.  But I have to give credit to the fact that, the machine is sort of silent on a table.

[avicenne13]

I want to share another observation.

This is the first laptop that I have owned (and I did own many over the years) that keeps the fan spinning on standby.  First I thought that the laptop wasn't going into standby, but I am sure that it runs the fans during standby as well, up to some point.

[TzortzisG]

Welcome to the wonderful (brave?) new world of MODERN STANDBY (S0). Personally I've only used Hibernate ever since the Tiger Lakes for this exact reason........

[core22]

I been using the laptop for over a month and here the observations. 

In idle mode, the laptop run the fans every 5 to 10min. I notice this at night while I was sleeping (or not so much). 

Also I notice that using the laptop in my lap on batteries don't trigger the fan therefore is quieter. I think this is done to save battery been drain by fan.

I'm still not happy with the fan noise overall.