It should be possible in BIOS and under Windows you could try the App SpeedFan.
I haven’t gotten around to try it on the framework yet, as I wasn’t to bothered by the fans but I guess it should work.
I also know that there are programs to fine tune the power usage (my brother uses one) but I can’t tell you the name right now.
On Windows, you can disable turbo boosting via power settings. Google around and you’ll find a registry key that shows this option again.
Beyond that you can use the power saving modes, by clicking on the battery and sliding it all the way to the left. This changes the TDP settings for the chip, such that it pulls less power. Less power means less heat.
Now your workload is going to determine the rest.
As a point of reference, I have 6 workspaces with about 13 programs open. These programs range from music player and browser to things like VMWare Workstation (with running Linux VM) and Visual Studio. The temps stay right around 38-42 C. The fan noise is inaudible to me. My work environment at home and in the office are not whisper quite.
I’m running Linux now with the exact same workload (program wise) and the temps are the same.
My personal opinion is that the fan noise on the Framework laptop is not louder than the x220t and x230 that I have. Both are significantly louder, and their fans are ALWAYS running.
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Notebookcheck:
X220t: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo-ThinkPad-X220T-4298-2YG-Convertible-Notebook.60217.0.html
X230 (max 39-40dB(A)): https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X230-2306-2AU-Laptop-Review.75317.0.html
W520 (max 39-40dB(A)): https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo-ThinkPad-W520-Notebook.53220.0.html
Framework (max 47-48dB(A)): https://www.notebookcheck.net/Framework-Laptop-13-5-Review-If-Microsoft-Made-A-Repairable-Surface-Laptop-This-Would-Be-It.551850.0.html
Maybe time to re-paste those ThinkPads you have if you haven’t done so. (To make sure they’re still functioning in-specs)
Having said that, capability / speed of the CPU come into the picture: Framework being the newer / faster laptop, it can handle more processing in shorter time. i.e. Old systems will be under load for longer…and longer fan on time. But the older Thinkpads are incapable of being louder than the Framework laptop (their fans are not as loud).
Or maybe your hearing / ears are just less sensitive to the fan noise frequency from the Framework laptop (predisposition).
Batch one 1185 user and I don’t think I’ve ever heard the fan. Maybe, just maybe, when I installed Windows 10, but that’s it.
Probably not doing intensive enough tasks to max out the CPU.
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I would say definitely fans are louder than other laptops I’ve used but they are linked to cpu intensive tasks. It’s not like they randomly ramp up. General usage for i7 hasn’t needed the fan to spin up. Although as they say YMMV.
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11th gen here, using Linux. Idle desktop, word processing or simple websites = completely silent.
Complex websites or the occasional compiler run = moderate swoosh noise; pretty much tolerable (no high pitched sound components).
Video encoding or playing 3D games = very audible “wind noise” with a slight hight-pitch buzz. Yes, there are more silent laptops with comparable computer power but only A1 CPU powered ones or bigger ones. So, I’d say in the market of Intel subnotebooks you are getting quite what can be expected within the boundaries of the technological base.
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Have you installed & configured intel VA API video acceleration ?
chrome://gpu/
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I haven’t explicitly, so if that’s not something included with Fedora or Firefox, then I probably haven’t. I’ll definitely look into this. Thanks for the tip!
It is loud, but for me, it ONLY comes on when I’m doing very heavy CPU intensive tasks like rendering video files or gaming. 99% of the rest of the time, it’s completely silent.
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I echo the previous post, essentially silent for normal operation, and I run Qubes, so my normal operation means ~14 VMs running concurrently. Really pushing the CPU load will get the fan on, but I’ve never found it to be exceptionally loud, at least compared to most other laptops I’ve used. Vast majority of the time I forget it even has a fan on
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The fan noise was very significant particularly as Win 11 opens from shut down for me (USB-C dock connected with two monitors). I carried out the following changes to set turbo boost to ‘Efficient Aggresive’ (didn’t disable completely) and this did help for a number of weeks, until the noise just started again. I’m going to try turning off Turbo Boost entirely. Reddit - Dive into anything
Fan is very noisy. At startup, and also during any windows update or other seemingly trivial tasks. I have 13th gen and it is quite annoying. Had I known about this I would have bought something else.
Windows user here, framework 13th gen, fans are terribly noisy. Startup and windows update are excruciating. Disappointing.
The Framework laptop is the best laptop I’ve ever had, but it’s getting a lot of bad press about fan noise recently. I’ve only had occasional problems with fan noise when running more demanding apps. However, when I installed Virtualbox under Ubuntu-MATE 22.04.3 and tried to run Windows 10 as a guest OS my laptop fan was so LOUD it was terrible trying to use it. The CPU load was not very high, but some of the cores were reaching 100C and making the fan run at full speed.
I trawled the Internet looking for a solution and soon realised that this is a well trodden path. I discovered lots of people with the same problem and negative comments by reviewers about fan noise. Until now, I’ve been using my Framework 12th gen. laptop for tasks that don’t require much CPU, but I want to use it as a desk-top replacement and the fan noise is a BIG problem.
The majority of work-arounds and fixes that I’ve seen are aimed at stopping the OS (Linux mainly) from ‘boosting’ the CPU. This is not much use for BSD or Windows users and I did some experimenting with the BIOS settings. The base frequecy of the 12th Gen Intel Core i7-1260P in my 12th gen Framework laptop is 2.1GHz, which is fast enough for most of the things I want to do. I don’t really need the turbo ‘boost’ to be enabled by the OS kernel, so I’ve disabled “Intel (R) SpeedStep™” in the BIOS - No other changes.
I now have a quiet Framework 12th Gen laptop that can run two Google Chrome profiles. Mozilla Thunderbird, several terminals and Windows 10 under Virtualbox with core temps around 50C with the fan spinning slowly and almost silently. Before, most of the cores were idle and one or two peaked at 100C when boosted. Now, none of the cores are boosted and performance is quite acceptable in return for the peace and quiet!
As you can see in the second picture, I have a HDMI and two DP monitors connected: I saw reports that these might be the cause of the fan noise, but it was just the same using only the laptop display…
And, @Matt_Hartley, yes I am running the oem kernel you suggested 
Bye,
Tony Travis
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I have deactivated turbo boost on tmy 12th gen aswell, which generates noise of course (that s where you get the 60W power max).
I agree with the previous comment, this laptop is the mosst silent I had in the past years. Better than Lenovo E570 for example.
I am currentely whatching a movie with 20 tabs in chrome and cannot hear the fan even when muting the video …when I put my hear on the fan I think I can hear a little noise… butwouldn t be sure it is the fan, if I didn t knew it was there !
The only case I get some noise is when using heavy app like OBS recording and streaming mutliple things with IA noise reduction and compressors, 2 cameras…
And of course gaming.
Now with AMD I guess it s even better they have 5nm CPUs , so for the same task it should use 4 time less power and fan 
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I’m glad to hear yours is silent. Mine is the noisiest laptop I have ever had, by far. Actually the noisiest I have ever witnessed. The problem is not the fan per se. The problem is that they go full throttle at low CPU load; their behavior seems insane. Opening a chrome tab send them in a whirring frenzy. Windows update, any trivial task will get the fans to go into overdrive. Based on all the comments, I think you are probably the exception, not the norm. It seems to me that the behavior of the fans should be fixed without having to cripple the CPU in the Bios.
I’m curious if you are Windows or Linux. Both require some tuning to get optimal efficiency out of. On Windows, for example, I had to do quite a lot to get the system to sit around 42C with my workload. This is very good, and the system is near silent at that point.
AMD systems can apparently run cooler, but I’m quite happy with my 12th gen.
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Hello Hugo. I hope this doesn’t make you feel like you’re being subjected to an “Internet pile on”.
My sense is that your experience is very much a minority one. I run linux on a 12th gen, so I can’t offer a useful comparison, however I seldom hear my fan. I have never heard it spin up when opening a browser tab. I run Win11 in a (Virtualbox) VM and I concede that windows update will occasionally cause the fan to become audible.
I typically run 2 browsers, each with ~20 tabs; 4 virtual desktops; and an assortment of about 20 windowed applications. One of those will typically be a mutitrack audio editor.
I think it might be worthwhile engaging with Framework support on this issue. Your 13th gen is probably still under warranty and the behaviour you describe certainly seems to be an outlier.
Dino
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I think the complaints about fan noise are justified. I have the AMD 7040 series model. While it’s true that the fans are silent most of the time - if the fan does turn on, it’s awfully loud.
I tried playing games while having the Laptop hooked up to the TV. It wasn’t possible. Performance-wise everything is fine but the fan noise is unbearable, even when sitting across the room.
I always thought the Steam Deck has a loud fan. But with the Steam Deck, you get used to the noise after a while - it kind of fades to the background. That doesn’t happen with the framework’s fan though.
It’s sad. The machine has more than enough power to do some (light) gaming, but the fan noise makes it completely unenjoyable.
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I always disable BOOST in ALL my computers, because I’m weird that way.
I was SHOCKED to find that FW13 (AMD) doesn’t have that toggle in BIOS.
I hacked the Windows registry to unhide all the power management options and disabled BOOST from there. I forget the details, but I’m sure you can find it using online search.
I hope Framework adds that feature to BIOS at some point, but at this point, I have very low expectation from Framework software team, as they haven’t even fixed the Sinkclose flaw, which was fixed by AMD on 2024-07-18 for Phoenix.
I like the hardware, but that’s only half of the equation. I’ve built a lot of PCs over the years and I track UEFI updates for all the different motherboards I own. I also track those for work-supplied laptop (Lenovo). They release quite a few important updates, and fairly frequently. If FW UEFI were perfect, sure that’d be cool, but that’s hardly the case.
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