[TRACKING] AMD FW13 fan speed jumps up high, drops quickly back to low / off

AndreD · December 28, 2023, 11:45pm

I’ve got the 13 AMD FW running Windows 11, all latest drivers (ones from the AMD site) and BiOS and it does this to me as well. Fan spins up to max for 1 second and then immediately stops. Laptop doesn’t even seem that hot and I don’t have much load on the machine – it has happened when I was just doing some very light web browsing in a 68F room.

Rufo_Sanchez · December 29, 2023, 2:15pm

I don’t have too many additional details to add at the moment, but I’ve had this happen to me too, in both Windows 11 and Arch Linux/EndeavorOS. The timing and frequency tends to vary pretty wildly in my experience, sometimes it might only happen once or twice in an hour long session, sometimes it spikes once every minute or two. I haven’t really put any time into figuring out if it depends on e.g. power saving settings, if the laptop is plugged in or not, etc., but I’ll pay more attention to these going forward and add details if I figure anything out.

xorly · January 5, 2024, 10:12am

I am seeing same fan behavior. I believe it make sense. Fan is off and temperature is slowly rising. Once it reaches some threshold, FW decides - it’s time to start fan (at lowest speed). Running fan causes the temperature to drop below threshold so fan is shut down. This repeats every few minutes.

And the fan speed spike? It’s “kick start”, where fan is started into higher speed for a moment and then it’s dialed down to expected speed. This is quite common, because fans are often not able to start into low speeds, but once spinning, they can be lowered into such speeds.

I believe that fan kick start is too aggressive here - too long and too strong.

Dylan_Evans · January 7, 2024, 2:01pm

I’m not sure how true that is of PWM fans, and even when using just voltage range to control a fan it still isn’t necessary to kickstart it at full pelt.

Hussain_Arif · January 12, 2024, 8:19pm

I have the same issue.
Fedora 39, Ryzen 7 7840u, 16GB/512GB Prebuilt
I’m only using the web browser with a couple of tabs

Sean3 · February 2, 2024, 9:10pm

Been seeing this happen on mine since day 1.
Doing nothing fan quiet, fan spikes high for 1 second, fan off.
It is rather odd and can be jarring when working quietly.

OS: Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS x86_64
DE: Unity
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7840U
Memory: 31266MiB

Tbhgfd · February 3, 2024, 5:10am

I just received my fw13 amd ryzen 5. And the fan has been going up and down abruptly a lot. For the 2 hours that the device has been on. The fan has been loud for the 99% of the time. I thought the amd version was quiet.

Update: the fan quieted itself after all the drivers have been installed.

Max_Power · February 8, 2024, 8:58pm

Just wanted to mention, that I have the same issue on my FW 13 AMD Ryzen 5. I’m on Ubuntu 22.04.03.

Dylan_Lee · February 8, 2024, 11:13pm

Same issue for me, the fan seems to jump to full speed for 1 second and back down. AMD Ryzen 7 with EndeavourOS with kernel 6.7.3-arch1-2

Max_Power · February 14, 2024, 9:03am

It’s been about 3 months since this issue has been reported and many Framework AMD users seem to be affected by it.

Is there any update on resolving the bug? I’d highly appreciate it!

Matt_Hartley · February 22, 2024, 1:14am

This is something the engineering team is working on. Firmware specifically.

Prise · March 2, 2024, 2:27am

Will this benefit windows users too? Also having the same issue but on windows 11 OS.

ajfriesen · March 2, 2024, 7:01am

It is firmware, so it will have an impact on the hardware regardless of the OS.

remshams · April 11, 2024, 7:10am

I have the same problem and it is really annoying for me and for my colleagues in the office.

How confident are you that this issue will be resolved?

I’m still within the return period on my device and as much as I like the Framework for all its other features and qualities, this is a bit of a deal breaker for me.

TomsonTom · April 19, 2024, 7:39pm

Hi, I have a new Framework 13 AMD and noticed this issue too on Windows 11. I updated to BIOS 3.05 just now, and the issue remains. I am doing nothing demanding, I have HWiNFO64 open to monitor the CPU temperatures, there are no spikes visible, and suddenly Framework turns on the fan to high speed for about 1 second, and then they turn off completely again.

What can we do to help you debug and fix this issue?

It is clearly a bug, because when I run benchmarks that make the CPU go to 95°C, the fans take about 30 seconds to turn on and stay on for quite a while. So where are these sudden fan spikes coming from when the system is in idle?

redhotvengeance · April 20, 2024, 2:08am

I updated to the 3.05 bios and I’m still experiencing this.

@Matt_Hartley Is it safe to assume that this is still in-progress for the firmware eng team?

Also, given the latest Framework email announcing more dedicated engineering teams, I assume there’ll be more frequent firmware fixes coming?

Raphael_Kimmig · April 23, 2024, 2:58pm

I’m seeing the same with my Framework 13 AMD on Ubuntu. At random points the fan will kick into high for maybe a second and then reduce fan speed again immediately. I’m on the latest bios version as well.

Charlie_6 · April 24, 2024, 2:17am

This is not a bug, but whether it’s desired is up to interpretation.

[RESPONDED] Changing the fan temperture points with ectool

AFAIK the fan control monitors the cpu_f75303@4d which is NOT the CPU temperature, the actual CPU temperature is cpu@4c but the fan only starts when the CPU is already thermal shutdown(103 C and 105 C), as shown
$ sudo ectool temps all
--sensor name -------- temperature -------- ratio (fan_off and fan_max) --
local_f75303@4d       319 K (= 46 C)          20% (313 K and 343 K)
cpu_f75303@4d         321 K (= 48 C)          25% (319 K and 327 K)
ddr_f75303@4d         315 K (= 42 C)        N/A (fan_off=401 K, fan_max=401 K)
cpu@4c                365 K (= 92 C)           0% (376 K and 378 K)

update edit

I found a way to replicate this. The “turn off completely again” is actually turned to 3% (the lowest PWM) then 0%.

If you are in a cold environment and just benchmark the CPU i.e sensor temperature passes the fan_off temp quickly, the fan will speed up gradually and if you then stop the benchmarking the CPU will slow down smoothly untli a complete stop.

However, if you are in a warm environment doing nothing demanding, the sensor’s temperature might stay at exactly at the fan_off i.e 313K for local_f75303@4d and/or 319K for cpu_f75303@4d and if the temperature changes very very slowly i.e. changing from 312K to 313K or from 313K to 314K in several minutes, the fan controller might freak out, sending 100% PWM in a fracton of second.

TomsonTom · April 24, 2024, 11:29am

I am observing the same thing. It is happening when the local sensor temperature is around 40°C, which is the threshold for fan activation. However, sometimes it turns the fan on silently, keeping it around 2500 rpm, and sometimes it seems to spin up a lot only to reach the fan off threshold immediately and turn them off again. This then results in the weird on/off pulsating behavior.

There might be 2 problems at play at the same time:

The fan is temporarily set for a higher RPM than it should be (way above 2500 rpm, which would correspond to the 40-41°C).
The EC needs to use a higher hysteresis. I think they use a 0.5°C right now, which is simply not enough. In other laptops, the fans usually turn on and off at very different temperatures, e.g., turn on at 45°C and turn off at 40°C. This would solve the constant pulsating as well.

TomsonTom · April 24, 2024, 12:02pm

I think @Kieran_Levin is the person who could shed some light into this issue. He’s signed off on this EC commit that touches fan behavior, including the hysteresis, timeout, and RPM / fan duty adjustments. I believe we could 1) increase the hysteresis, and 2) make sure that the fan does not spin up too fast if it was previously off.