ZBook Ultra G1a random fan spikes

[LJ173]

Since I got the laptop I found that sometimes the fan randomly ramps up for like 1 second before stopping again. I suspect that some random windows background task is causing that. But still that is an issue probably caused by HP setting a too aggressive fan curve that reacts to short term temperature spikes when it should ignore them as they will drop on their own. am just concerned that this will damage the fans in the long term as 0% to 100% to 0% every like 30 seconds for one second can't be healthy. I know that there is some fan setting in the Bios but that only lets you modify the fan curve by some value between 1 and 15 (with 0 being standard). Has anyone tried changing that. Also HP should just fix that in the next bios.

[Stiggy_C]

I had the same issue. The fan constantly spin up to 100% even with the lightest load in desktop. I checked Task Manager, CPU load as around 6% and GPU load is around 10%. My BIOS version is 1.03.02 release in June, I may try to downgrade BIOS if this persists.

[Stiggy_C]

I tried something new today in BIOS (1.03.02) today.

Turn off boost converter

Force Customized Fan Control Options to 1

Turn off AMD Core performance boost

Turn off HP motion sensing cooling mode

Leave ZBook alone and windows in desktop doing nothing. Observed that fans eventually turn off after awhile. However, fans will now constantly spin up for a few seconds and then turn off again even if the laptop is doing nothing in desktop. Again, this made me think either BIOS or some sort of driver is mis-behaving. 

[Mark904]

It is a BIOS issue, have the exact same issue, on both Windows 11, and Manjaro Linux, spin, stop spin, stop. with zero load on the system.

Hopefully will be addressed in the next BIOS update (along with Thunderbolt connection issues)

[Stiggy_C]

Hi mate, I left another update on another thread, https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-Notebooks/ZBook-Ultra-G1a-Ryzen-AI-Max-PRO-395-high-APU-PPT-a...

Seem like something is off between 1.30.00 and 1.30.20. I tried some kernel parameters shared by the kind folk who created the above thread to cap clock to 3.6 GHz using amd_p state in hope to reduce fans noise and my fans still spinning at around 44 dB from time to time. Seem like I got a pair of bad fans too. How loud are the fans on your G1a? 

[Mark904]

The fans are not that loud unless I have the system running a very heavy load, but they do sound "rough" when starting, kind of a clicky noise, its not a smooth sound, and makes my think its going to fail sooner rather than later.

One thing I noticed is, if I run CPU diagnostics from the BIOS menu , which is supposed to stress the CPU,, the fans NEVER come on, and diagnostics can't read the fan speed.

I am waiting for the next BIOS update to see if it fixes these issues, before calling out a warranty repair.

Out of interest do you have a Thunderbolt Dock attached t your g1a, I've now tried three different ones (Dell using TB3, Lenovo using TB4, and Caldigit using TB5) and they don't seem to work properly with this system.

[Stiggy_C]

Sadly, I don’t use any TB dock. I am mostly wireless. Sorry, mate, wish I could help.