Adjust fan speeds in your PC’S BIOS
With six fans, my 14-year-old PC can get very noisy. Before trying fanless components, I wanted to see whether I could slow these fans by adjusting fan speeds in the BIOS. This isn’t without risk
In a quiet room, I ran the Sound Meter app ( www.snipca. com/37701) on my Android phone to gauge background noise - the app recorded around 25 decibels (db) 1 . I then turned on my PC and the level increased to around 46db 2 , which seemed much louder than the ‘quiet library’ rating suggested by the app.
Next, I turned on fan control for my processor by enabling the CPU FANEQ Control .
I left the High and Low fan settings at their defaults 2 , meaning the fan would increase to full speed if my processor needed it to. I then repeated this step for the other two fans .
We downloaded Dell’s Power Manager tool ( www.snipca.com/37696) on our XPS 13 laptop. By selecting the Thermal Management tab, we were able to choose from four profiles: Optimized, Cool, Quiet and Ultra Performance. Although ‘Quiet’ made the fan barely audible, Task Manager revealed it also capped the processor speed at 1.29GHZ (see screenshot below left). Because our processor is capable of speeds up to 4GHZ, this caused a noticeable drop in performance levels, with programs taking longer to load and Windows feeling more sluggish. Once again, this is something you can use when you want to prioritise low noise over performance in the short term.
Adjust your desktop PC’S fans
Due to the number of fans inside desktop PCS (along with two case fans, most PCS have fans for the processor, graphics card and power supply), they are usually noisier than laptops. On top of this, most of the fans are set to run at full speed by default. Depending on the make and model of your motherboard, you may be able to set your PC to slow the fans. Precisely how you do this varies, but it’s usually done via the BIOS (typically - set them too low and your components may overheat and get damaged. Therefore, when setting fan controls, it’s a good idea to go with settings suggested by your PC’S BIOS.
I then loaded my PC’S BIOS (pressing Delete shortly after switching it on) and discovered my Abit AB9 Quatgt motherboard includes a utility called uguru. I opened this, then selected the ABIT EQ section 1 , followed by FANEQ Control 2 .
I then ran the sound test again. When I turned on my PC, it measured just over 40db for a few seconds 1 , before falling to around 32db 2 (the 48.5db spike 3 was my PC beeping once as it booted). Amazingly, my PC now barely makes any sound, so I’ve avoided having to upgrade to fanless components.
accessed by pressing the Delete or F1 key a few seconds after turning your PC on). In the BIOS, look for an option called Fan Control, Power Management or similar. Here you should find options for controlling each fan’s speed (see how we reduced our PC fan speeds via the BIOS in the Mini Workshop above).
You can also try to reduce the number of fans inside your PC. One option is to replace your graphics card with a fanless model, which instead use heat sinks to disperse heat and is therefore silent. Bear in mind that fanless cooling is typically only found on low- to mid-range graphics cards, such as MSI’S Geforce GT 730 (£73 from www.snipca.com/37697), so they won’t be suitable if you enjoy playing advanced games such as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. They are, however, perfectly fine for everyday tasks such as web browsing and video streaming.
You could also upgrade to a fanless cooler for your processor. This is more complicated than installing a new graphics card because you’ll need to remove your existing processor fan, then connect your new fanless cooler to the processor. This involves applying thermal paste to bind the two (the paste will either be pre-applied to the cooler or will come in a small tub that you need to apply yourself). You’ll also need to make sure that the new cooler is capable of keeping your processor cool enough. First, check the TDP (thermal dynamic power), which is the maximum power consumption in watts of your processor – Intel lists its processor specs at www. snipca.com/37698; for AMD visit www. snipca.com/37699. Once you know your processor’s TDP, make sure it’s lower than the power rating of your chosen fanless cooler. Nofan’s CR-80EH (£66 from www.snipca.com/37700, pictured above), for example, is rated to work with processors with a TDP of up to 80W.