Laptop fan suddenly high speed?

[Lurmey]

Just now my laptop fans suddenly decided to accelerate to what appears to be somewhat close to full RPM, while pretty much idling. They've never done this before, my CPU isn't anywhere near overheating with Intel XTU usually reporting less than 40 degrees Celsius with an average of 39.

The weirdest thing is that right now I'm doing next to nothing and the fan just randomly decides it needs to run at high speed as if the laptop is hot, but when I'm playing somewhat intensive games at which point the fan should be running at high speeds, it doesn't. Is some piece of hardware broken? Can I get some software to better control the fan since the built-in automatic control doesn't seem to know what it's doing any better than a 3-year-old child?

Thanks.

[EddyK]

Hi Lurmey,

Has this happened once or several times?

I had a Spectre 13 before with a Skylake processor and found that the fans would suddenly boost out of nowhere when the laptop was nowhere near hot. The controller may be different but please immediately check Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) after fans spin to see if there is any sort of random background process that is taking a chunk of the CPU.

I usually found this to be Windows Modules Installer Worker which is basically a Windows update checker. It took ~40% of CPU, however, there was absolutely no laptop heat.

Furthermore, you can use HP CoolSense and turn it on/off and see if it makes a difference. HP recommends it on but I sometimes found that it activates the fan for no reason. If you don't have it, you can download it here: http://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp67501-68000/sp67743.exe

Hope this helps,

kem579

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[Lurmey]

Hi, sorry I took so long to respond. This was the only time it has happened and I can confirm that each of your suggestions appears to have no involvement. I frequently play games on this computer which often maxes out the CPU usage at 100%, but it never spins up the fan at all, even when the body feels hot to the touch, which is the bigger issue.

I had been using HP CoolSense and found that it made no difference whatsoever. My laptop didn't come with it pre-installed and other programs such as SpeedFan don't recognise my CPU fan as existing in the device, so I'm assuming my fan doesn't have that (is it fourth?) pin that allows software control.

Is there a reason the fan would suddenly speed up while the laptop is doing next to nothing? It's never been that loud as far as I can remember. I'm thinking some hardware may be faulty or broken as the fan simply never seems to respond to the temperature of the CPU or the casing. I'm currently cooling it with a cooling pad which appears to be sufficient.

[sakamuras]

Same hear... i'm actually looking to enable my "Fan Always On" in my Bios, but switching it on doesn't seem to do anything.  I also experience random instances where the fan goes full blast when the system is simply idling.  I am also kinda suspecting a hardware malfunction Ie. sensor....

[Lurmey]

The odd thing is that the fan is able to reach those high speeds and the sensors appear to be working fine since Intel XTU and other programs are able to accurately report the core temperature. I'm thinking something on the motherboard may be blown, something that acts as the connection between the motherboard and the fan to tell the fan to speed up in response to the sensor readings.

Sensor --- MB -/- Fan