I’m having an issue with a Framework Laptop 13 (11th Gen i5) inside the Cooler Master desktop conversion kit. I updated the BIOS since the previous owner never did, and did a fresh install of Windows 11 Pro. The problem is that whenever the system goes to sleep or sits idle, the fans randomly spin up to max, slow down, and then ramp back up again. The vent does get a little warm, but I don’t understand why this is happening.
I’ve reinstalled Windows and the issue persists. SpeedFan won’t control the system fan, so I’m running out of ideas. I’ve read through the forums but haven’t found a clear answer. On top of that, the laptop randomly wakes from sleep without any input. I’ve seen similar reports online, so I’m assuming this might be a common issue.
Can anyone from the community or Framework staff explain what’s going on or suggest a fix or workaround? It’s driving my family and me insane.
Do you still have the laptop? Or do you only have the 11th gen mainboard inside the CM conversion kit? e.g. Did you validate that the mainboard was working fine while it was in the laptop, AND that it’s ONLY having the fan issue AFTER it’s moved to the CM kit?
This is typical of Windows deciding that everyone wants “Modern Standby” instead of actual sleep.
The OS constantly wants to ping crap from the Internet and send its data back to its home.
Enable Hibernation (it is off by default; thanks Microsoft!) and have the device go into hibernating instead of sleep. Otherwise a handful of settings need to be changed to not allow the device to wake up from anything other than a power button or key board/mouse event.
As to the fan ramping up, depending on the age the thermal paste might be weak and it is just getting up to temp a lot faster. Check out the thermals while it is idling and it reports abnormally high then the fan is having to do more work to keep the processor cool.
I should mention that I’m using Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut as the thermal paste, so I don’t see why the CPU would be heating up like that during idle or sleep.
I’ll try enabling hibernation, but what really throws me off is that my 11th gen i7 FW13 in the stock laptop chassis has zero issues with sleep, while the 11th gen i5 in the Cooler Master case keeps acting up. Starting to feel like this board might just be cursed.
That is one of the best pastes out there; so that probably is not the issue then. Something is railing the processor though to get it that hot all of a sudden.
Did you reset the BIOS to the factory defaults after updating it? There have been issues with early gen mainboards not getting the NVRAM cleared after a BIOS update. Maybe a value is stuck and driving it to a high C-state when it should not be.
If you could get the console output of the EC it probably would have something that might lend a hand to figuring out what is going on. If you try like an Ubuntu LIVE USB does it do the same thing? Might be worthwhile. If so then it is a hardware/firmware thing as opposed to the OS.
Maybe that particular i5 board just has ADD and needs a perscription. J/K
I don’t really know how to check for all that. I already pulled the CMOS battery and cleared it, but one memory channel is dead. MEMTEST86 gave heavy errors on the right channel, but with just one stick on the left channel everything worked fine. Still, the fan randomly ramps up. At this point, I might just disable sleep and use hibernation. Honestly, I’m hoping Framework might replace the board and investigate, but I doubt they’ll do that. Since it’s a second hand sale.
