2020 HP Envy x360 13-aY0xxx, loud fans and poor battery life

[jwaynes23]

Hi everyone,

I purchased a 2020 HP Envy x360 13 inch back in December 2020. The laptop has worked flawlessly and i've loved using it for school and work. Unfortunately, I am now encountering some issues with the fans running at high speeds when I am doing normal tasks that haven't prompted fan noise in the past. When I turn the laptop on, I won't hear the fans for the first few minutes, but as soon as I open my browser and put on a video, and maybe have Outlook or Spotify minimized in the background, the fans kick on and they don't stop. The issue with this is that in Task Manager my CPU usage is only around 40ish percent, memory around 50 percent. I am also experiencing a noticeable decrease in my battery life. Normally I can get through a regular workday without plugging in, but now it seems like I'm dropping 10% every half hour with normal use. To be clear, I have used the HP Command Centre to put the laptop into 'Quiet', and this does make the fans run minimally. However, I am concerned about thermals and in the past, I just left it in the 'HP Recommended' mode and I wouldn't hear the fans during my normal usage. When I touch the bottom side of the case near the fans, it is warm but definitely not alarmingly hot by any means, and I only use the laptop on a flat surface. The fans do not make any grinding noises, they sound perfectly normal, but they run at a high speed for an extended period of time. I noticed this issue started to occur after updating my bios to F.16. Here are the things I have tried so far outside of the HP Command Centre,

- Hard reset, holding down the power button for 15 seconds

- Using the HP Support Assistant to check for updates (haven't been any as of February 27th)

- Checking for Windows updates, including updating to the most recent version

- Updating my browser

- Checking BIOS to ensure that 'Fans Always On' is disabled

- Disabling Virtualization in the BIOS

 I have attached a photo of what Task Manager is showing as I write this post (fans are running at high speeds). I do see that power consumption is 'very high' for the GPU, I am not sure if this is normal or if it might be the cause of my issues.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I love this computer and want to use it for a long time.

Thank you

[KrazyToad]

@jwaynes23

Welcome to HP Support Community

I would like to help

I appreciate all your efforts and expertise in troubleshooting this issue

The GPU seems to cause the overheating and fan issue

Try reinstalling the Graphics Drivers from device manager

- Select the Start button, type Device Manager, and select it from the list of results.

- Look for Display Adapters and expand the List

- Look for Graphics driver then right-click it, and select Update Driver.

- Select Search automatically for updated driver software.

- If these steps don't work, try reinstalling the driver: Open Device Manager, right-click the Graphics driver and select Uninstall. Restart your Notebook and Windows will attempt to reinstall the driver.

Thank you

If the information I've provided was helpful, give us some reinforcement by clicking the "Solution Accepted" on this Post and it will also help other community members with similar issue.

[jwaynes23]

Hello,

Thank you for taking the time to reply to me, I really appreciate it. So I reinstalled the graphics driver using the steps you provided, and I had some interesting results. Initially it seemed like my issue was fixed- I had 4 tabs open in my browser and a youtube video playing, the fans didn't kick on, task manager showed the power usage for my GPU was low, and the device wasn't overly warm. However, after about 5 minutes or so, the fans kicked back on and the power usage went to very high again. I replicated this process by repeating the process again (uninstalling the driver and reinstalling it), and the same thing happened. Seems like it could be an issue with the driver itself, but I am not sure. I have attached 2 screenshots here to show you- the first is when it was working, and the second is when it went to 'very high' again. 

If you have any other ideas let me know.  If I have to wait for a new driver update I understand. Thanks again. 

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[KrazyToad]

If you have an AMD Graphics Card installed please download and use the AMD Auto Detect Tool https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/gpu-131