I have used an Macbook for work for many years, and one thing I love about the computer is that there is ZERO fan noise and I never feel the laptop is heating up.
Does the framework laptop have a loud fan? What about the amount of heat it generates?
Welcome to the community!
I’ve had MacBooks that heated up and I had a MacBook Air M1 that never seemed to be above ambient temp at any time (I only ever did light tasks with it).
My 13", AMD Framework laptop will heat up a bit at times. I still generally don’t hear the fan, but it does ramp up once in a while, depending on what I’m doing. Even coming from the fanless, crazy efficient M1 Air, I’m still okay with the heat and noise generated by my FW 13" AMD. But it does warm up a bit at times and the fans do run once in a while.
Is the fan loud?
Yes.
Does it heat up easily?
No.
At least not in my limited use so far. I haven’t gamed on it yet, but I have done other things that have spun up fans of previous laptops like big installations or updates. However, during initial setup, the fans did roar to what I imagine was full speed (presumably because it was in some state where it had to default to max fans) and yeah, it was obtrusively loud. Like the kind of loud that makes it awkward even just trying to have a conversation at home, let alone in public. But other than that one time, if the fans have come on, I haven’t heard them at all. GPU module installed the entire time.
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I’ve tried to get my Framework 16 to get loud… but despite 100% CPU or iGPU usage, it stays pretty quiet in my opinion. Maybe it’s different on configs with the dGPU (I opted out), but the Dell laptop I use for work is significantly louder at idle that the framework is at full bore. At least in my experience, the fan noise complaints seem to have been wildly exaggerated.
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Would you be willing to run cinebench 24 for me? Mine gets kinda loud doing that. I’d be interested to see if your cooling is that much better. I get 904 points now.
I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get it to run on my Linux install, but I can certainly try for you.
Maybe indeed. Noise is such a subjective thing, and I feel pretty tolerant having lived for many years with a big, poorly cooled 2010 Toshiba without knowing that one can just reapply thermal paste and instantly drop idle temperature by 20°C. Still, I found the noise potential of the GPU’ed 16 to be high, albeit seldom reached.
Do we know if they’re the same fans in the GPU vs the blank expansion module? I ordered both so I’m curious to try to push it with the blank module and see if I feel differently.
Edit: Answered my own question, about a third of the way down the page: Framework | Choose Framework Laptop 16 DIY Edition (AMD Ryzen™ 7040
With the Graphics Module you have two 75x75x11.5mm fans, while the Expansion Bay Shell contains thinner 75x75x8.2mm fans.
I would imagine smaller fans have a higher pitch and potentially faster rpm, and thus be even more annoying… but it doesn’t necessarily need to shake out that way. Perhaps the dGPU just sounds different.
I think it depends on the efficiency of the operating system. In Linux or MacOS the fan is pretty quiet or stopped and the CPU clock speed is very low on idle unless you are gaming. On Windows however you may encounter more bloatware running on background. Some people discovered than when you are AFK the CPU % often goes up and fan running like crazy until you do something like moving the mouse. This might even happen when you put the laptop to sleep. You might want to debloat if you are running on Windows
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I have the dGPU - when it’s under use, it gets quite loud imo. But when it’s not, it stays decently quiet. Although for me it gets decently loud when just the CPU is under a lot of load, regardless of dGPU usage - not sure if it makes a difference, but I do not have the expansion shell, have only used it with dGPU in.
but under light loads, like internet browsing and such, I don’t hear a thing.
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Rather than exaggerations, I suspect it’s just a matter of differing configurations and circumstances. Especially gGPU present vs. dGPU absent. It’s likely that one of those two configurations will be louder than the other. Beyond that, differing workloads are likely a factor. Differing environments could be at play: the same noise will sound very loud in a quiet environment and relatively quiet in an environment with more ambient noise. Even different operating systems could be a factor.
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I don’t have a FW16 yet, but according to my experience using my FW13, if you run demanding tasks in the middle of nowhere (like running a benchmark software), the laptop will throttle the CPU before spinning up the fan. The CPU temp reached 100C when thermal throttling happened, eventually stabilized at 87C when the fan speed caught up.
I just received my framework 16 with an expansion graphic module which seems to be pre-installed. I assembled it and turned it on for the first time (no OS installed) and the fans are making a loud buzzing noise, like the fans are scraping something. I opened BIOS and let it sit and the fans would go louder and then a little quieter. But even quiet is loud! My current laptop makes 0 noise compared to that when running docker with several containers and 100 tabs. I’m wondering if it’s expected or if I should contact support.
I just received my FW16 with the 7700s today, and I gotta say I’m really disappointed with how loud, and especially how HIGH PITCHED the fan is. There’s a huge spike in noise level around 4khz, similar to what I’ve heard with some higher tier Lenovo machines. My wife says it reminds her of a tea kettle. It isn’t coil whine either, it’s definitely the fan. It’s so bad that I’m probably going to put in a return request.
Looks like the computer uses PWM instead of a buck converter to control the fan speed. Which is a bit weird bc that’s a pretty ancient technology, reminds me of the annoying sound from the ESC of cheap DIY drones.
Edit: not this problem
I installed Fedora 39 and it was very quiet the whole time. But as soon as I installed Steam the dGPU fans kicked in and it’s just ridiculous. Even the music does not cover this noise. I’m hoping it’s just a faulty graphic module expansion.
A couple people have found that a “buzzing” noise from the fan was caused by the fan rubbing a wrinkled sticker or a little tab of molding plastic. Both cases I’m aware of, they were able to fix the issue and resolve the noise. I can’t say for sure that’s what you are experiencing, but it might be worth looking into, depending on the nature of the “buzzing” noise.
That’s exactly what it sounds like. I need to take it out and take a look. Thanks.
