I just recieved my FW16 a few days ago. So far I’m over the moon about it. However I’m concerned something is wrong with this machine. I’ve not heard a fan even once. Threads like https://community.frame.work/t/is-the-fan-loud-does-it-heat-up-easily/ led me to believe I would have the opposite problem. And tonight, while charging the battery, the laptop is noticeably warm under my palms. I’ve installed Fan Control but it doesn’t find any fans to control.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’d be completely delighted if this proved to be the quietest computer I’ve ever owned, but only if that’s by design. ; -)
Should I hear a fan? Under what conditions?
Framework 16 Performance Pro
System: Ryzen™ 7 7840HS
Memory: 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR5-5600
OS Name: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
OS Version: 10.0.22621 N/A Build 22621
First make sure to install a monitoring software like HWiNFO to monitor your cpu temps and if they stay at 99+ degrees Celsius then your fan is likely defective.
Then try running a benchmark like Geekbench or Cinebench. If you do not hear the fans within 30 seconds(maybe a little more but not more than 1 minute cause you can risk damaging your hardware), I would recommend contacting support. Make sure to be monitoring your temps while running it so you don’t overheat your hardware.
You can also search the forums for another fan control software because maybe Fan Control doesn’t support the Framework 16’s fans.
Hope this helps. Share screenshots of the HWiNFO report (CPU Temps) and other people on the forum can also help you to check your issue. You can also share the scores reported by the benchmark if it runs without completely overheating.
i mean, the fans only run when im gaming, so that doesnt sound problematic to me. the warmth comes from the battery charging, not from the CPU, so unless the OS is slow to a powerpoint quality, means the laptop isnt throttling. even if there are no fans the CPU will throttle at too high of a temperature.
4k youtube without hardware acceleration gets the fan to spin slowly for me, if you would try that maybe? or just run a gpu test scene
Thanks for the suggestions. HWinfo reported 30-65 C with an average of 33C while running Geekbench CPU & GPU benchmarks. It seems I have the best case scenario: fan not needed yet.
I went with the basic expansion shell and basically never hear the fans during normal use. I know they are spinning because I have picked it up and both looked at and listened to the fans. When running games or a stress test the fans do ramp up but they are still pretty quiet.
When running stress tests the temps on the 7840HS are shooting straight up to 100C on both performance and balanced power profiles and will sit there for a bit before the fans speed up so I would like to see a more aggressive fan profile personally, or a way to set my own profile in the BIOS. Running in the power saver mode I see the temps hit a max of about 90C before throttling. I cannot say I have seen a lot of performance difference between power saver and performance, maybe a few hundred MHz at most. I know other people are saying that it is by design for the CPU to sit at 100C for extended periods of time but that really skeezes me out and I am avoiding it.
I’m having a problem (at least with the basic shell expansion module in Fedora KDE) where the fans refuse to turn on. They will run in the BIOS, but as soon as it boots into the Operating System, they turn off and won’t come back on again. Even running three 4K videos, it just gets hotter and hotter, but no fan.
BTW, I’m checking for fan spin by shining a flashlight through the grill. I can see the blades standing still and there is no air blowing out the side.
After running three 4K videos for 10 minutes, the fans finally turned on. However, they refuse to go any higher than (what I can assume) is their lowest setting as I can’t hear them and I can barely feel any air coming out of the side vents. The Flashlight test reveals that they are spinning though.
The following are some temperature readouts and pictures too.
Ambient air temperature is 25C (78.1F)
The Laptop keyboard and under-plate are 39.1C (102.4F) as taken from a laser thermometer.
The various sensors (from glances) are reading between 40C to 46C (104F to 114.8F)
I ran these tests again, but with the GPU card installed. The fans in the GPU ramp up normally and even spin aggressively at times. Not sure what is wrong with the Shell card but I have some theories. It could be that the CPU is not detecting/reporting temperature and so the fans only spin up when the GPU gets hot (when one is installed) or it could be something wrong with the shell card itself. Either way, I wish we could set fan control parameters in the BIOS.
Is there an “ectool” for windows?
On Linux one can do “sudo ectool pwmgetfanrpm all”
and it gives the speed of the fans.
The fans are quite quiet, so when they are moving slowly you can hardly hear them. You can hear them when they are moving fast.
Circling back many months later to close the loop: yes mine has a fan and yes it works, when it needs to, which is not often. I continue to be very, very happy with this machine.
