Hello everyone! Batch 15 customer here.
Some reviews (notebookcheck.net for example) highlighted how the fans get very loud (52dB!?) under heavy load.
Will we ever be able to tune the fan curve ourselves, or create per-plan profiles as other performance laptops do? Like a “silent” profile for light tasks and a “boost” one for gaming and heavy workloads?
Do you think we will be able to undervolt the Ryzens or (most importantly) the 7700S? I don’t mind giving up some frames to get a quieter machine, but I’d like to have the freedom to do that.
Let me know what you think!
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The basic problem is that CPUs get hot and if you want quiet fans you have to throttle the CPUs. If you stop the fans from running fast enough to keep the CPUs cool, you will push the CPUs to use their own protective internal thermal throttling to prevent damage. My solution on my Framework 12th Gen core-i7 is to disable Intel ‘SpeedStep’ in the BIOS and run the CPUs at their base frequency of 2.1GHz (see Fan Noise Reports Holding Me Back - #32 by Tony_Travis)
Thank you for the fast response! You made my point. Will there be a way to configure “profiles” for fans (and subsequently performance), allowing us to prioritize noise over speed?
This might work, it seems like some people have used this with varying success on more recent AMD processors:
Releases · JamesCJ60/Universal-x86-Tuning-Utility (github.com)
Ryzen Controller has apparently been dropped by it’s developer to move onto this project. No fan controls, but voltage and power limits along with thermal limits are somewhat modifiable.
It’s unclear if the current dragon ridge chips are fully supported yet, but they may work on the latest build
Something also to note, that there was a thermal unit fix during production validation, so mass production will probably do a better job, overall, of transferring heat out to the fans. However, all systems face the issue of fan noise when under high load. No other way around it, need to move air to get rid of heat. From what I’ve seen elsewhere, the max noise is in-line with other 16" ‘gaming’ systems when fully loaded playing a game.
They also have a chart at different loads, off, idle, average, and playing games and fully loaded. Framework is also one of the best (lowest) at fan noise when it comes to average load.
General usage will be a LOT quieter. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Radeon-RX-7700S-performance-debut-Framework-Laptop-16-review.790807.0.html has some measurements:
Fan noise covers both extremes quite well in the sense that it can be very quiet when running undemanding loads and very loud when running more demanding loads like games. When simply browsing or video streaming, for example, fan noise would tend to hover around 28.5 dB(A) against a silent background of 23.8 dB(A) to be mostly inaudible. When running Witcher 3, however, fan noise can reach almost 52 dB(A) to be as loud as the competing Inspiron 16 Plus or some gaming laptops like the Razer Blade 16.