I am looking for fanless laptops with enough capacity for RAM and storage along with at least 15" screen size. I don’t need a GPU and a 15W CPU with good single core performance is enough for me (Intel U or Y, for instance). So far the only option is either Macbook Air (Too expensive, not enough RAM, MacOS is not my best preference) or Lenovo Thinkpad Fold X1 (too experimental to buy yet).
I really wish Framework would offer an alternative. If there is noise, I don’t care the rest; silence is my top requirement. And computers with fans will get loud eventually if not loud when they are brand new. The solution is to discard the fan from the beginning.
For fanless laptops, we also need good a passive cooling setup to dissipate heat. Simply removing fans without enough passive cooling would be terrible for the performance.
I do it with my current laptop but it’s annoying to reset the configuration each time you reboot. Ideally, BIOS should have this option available to the end users.
Also, one needs to select a power-efficient CPU for a fanless computer, again for best performance.
I have. They’re not x86 chips, and run a low TDP CPU, like the 5W Atom I mentioned.
The TDP is low enough that Apple also use it in the iPad.
You’re not getting a performant FW16 with passive cooling, the x86 CPUs don’t exist. As noted by 2disbetter, best option is to turn the clock speed down in software.
This was mostly a joke but the 16 probably has a much better passive cooling setup than a macbook air just by virtue of being much bigger but it is definitely not meant for it.
Bigger issue there is skin temperature which can’t really be guaranteed without a fan and is kind of a legal requirement.
I do run a x270 with an unplugged fan for media consumption tasks which it does just fine but it does get uncomfortably hot if you were to actually use it in a lap. Actual passive laptops need to take care to insulate the hot parts from the user.
That definitely helps but just turning down the tdp of the hs will likely get you very close to the u in that regard.
But in all seriousness, the macbook airs are literally built for this, kinda hard to beat them at that game.
What Apple did with their custom chips is very impressive with regards to efficiency. I doubt though, that they did it with silence in mind. Apple can optimise their whole ecosystem around just a couple of chips. They can optimise their OS specifically for these chips.
Downside: they are not x86 chips and won´t run Windows. Don´t know about Linux though.
For x86, @Magic is typically correct: these chips aren’t that efficient, so if you want to go fanless, you either need bigger/more passive cooling, or turn down the chip speed and possibly voltage to limit the power.
The latter is certainly possible with a FW, also with other laptops. Heck, when I am just doing some word processing, my fan won´t turn on anyway, and that is with only some minor tweaks.
Fazit: If that is fine with you, you can limit the speed/power and it might be what you want.
But efficiency-wise, at the moment you can’t beat Apple’s silicon with a FW.
True that they leverage ARM chips. But there are many x86 options by other manufacturers like Dell for example. The problem with them is they are small, often around 13’’ and they have little RAM. It’s evident that fast fanless is possible but this user group is underserved by manufacturers. They assume fanless buyers will be content with little RAM and small screens, but that’s not the case. Apple saw the opportunity this year and released a 15” version of Airs.
In short, if Dell can make 13-inch fanless XPS with decent performance it means they can also make 15 or 17-inch versions since passive cooling is easier with bigger computers. They just don’t think there is enough interest in these, I suppose.
A lot of people just don’t care, so the market is pretty little. On top of that, if you want some power, you really have to think about how to get the heat away, which likely results in a more expensive solution (both in bill of materials as in development time). So for a lot of manufacturers it is just not worth the effort.
I’m with you OP, it can’t be that hard. My old Latitude has a i5-5300U and the fan almost never comes on in normal daily use, especially when running Linux (I dual boot Manjaro with Windows). Even on Windows, the fan spins up on startup cuz of whatever tomfoolery Windows needs to do to start up, but then they go quiet.
I’ve been testing an even older E5500 that I put a Core 2 Duo P9600 in (P being the low-wattage variant in that series at 25W), and that thing almost runs at room temp…running Windows 11! The cooling system was designed for a T-variant (35W) and it wasn’t designed to be fanless, but it might as well be now!
If those old machines with those old chips can keep that cool, I have to imagine we have the technology to do it on purpose with a modern CPU. I think the question becomes is it feasible within the design constraints of the 16? Do we also need a lower-res screen to lighten the GPU load? Can such a low-watt chip support all the peripherals already designed into the 16? What are the side effects of a Framework Air?
I am looking for fanless laptops with enough capacity for RAM and storage along with decent screen size. I don’t need a GPU and a 15W CPU with good single core performance is enough for me. So far the only option is either Macbook Air or Lenovo Thinkpad Fold X1.
I really wish Framework would offer an alternative. Like OP, if there is noise, I don’t care the rest; silence is my top requirement. And computers with fans will get loud eventually if not loud when they are brand new. The solution is to discard the fan from the beginning.
Yeah, that’s the discussion we should be having. Though, we should definitely let GPU go, it’s not possible to accommodate a GPU without a fan. We should be satisfied with CPU graphics.
Not on desktops though, 3 years ago I bought an Airtop3 which was able to handle passive cooling up to 200W, so I had a high-power CPU and GPU installed in it. It was GREAT until the unit failed. I had to return it.
Honestly the 16 without a dgpu with the tdp and max temp turned down is probably going to go a long way here, especially if you can live with the fan coming on at min sometimes to keep the skin temperature within legal spec.
The power impact on drawing a higher res screen on the igpu is pretty insignificant, as long as you don’t start gaming on it (desktop use and all that). Higher res screens do tend to use more power but it’s the display drawing most of that and the display is already passively cooled.
Replacing the hs with the u version should be pretty painless in that regard since it’s just a different bin of the same silicon with all the same features but the hs with the tdp and max temp turned down is probably allready fine.
The current gen amd built in graphics are already pretty fancy.
If you were to go fancy a passive heatsink kit that extends into the expansion bay space where the fans and gpu would be, would be a somewhat afordable option compared to a whole custom board and everything and cover most of the use case. Also would be relatively doable as a hobby project, having a custom heatsink cncd is expensive but not prohibitively so.
I’d see how well it works with no/turned off fan and turned down tdp first before committing to that though XD. A 7480hs capped at 12w (with a lot of idling much lower of course) is still quite a lot of performance and may be doable with the stock heatsink.
I set my x270 to 15w boost for 2 seconds then 6w (which is about as low as it goes with those old intels) and while it gets a bit uncomfortably hot it runs fine for web browsing and media consumption. Keep in mind the heatsink in that thing is absolutely tiny so the much bigger one in the 16 with a much more efficient processor may be just fine.
I was thinking about this as well. Performance would take a hit, no one questions that. But can you get enough performance with a passive solution for certain use cases? My gut says maybe. I doubt Framework will make an official solution, but part of the beauty of this laptop is that anyone can design and build that up. I’d love to see a community made fan-less option. There are plenty of light-workloads that don’t actually need a fan to provide good enough cooling, I’ve got my current laptop doing that.
I had to return it.