XPS15, a very noisy laptop. FAN NOISE is unbearable

Notebooks often will make noise, they are mechanical devices.  With the processors and GPUs that the XPS 15 ships with, it may make more noise then a notebook that you may be used to.  The thing here is determining if it is abnormal noise, noise indicating a hardware defect.  

Here is a basic Dell document on troubleshooting fan noise issues.

support.dell.com/.../document

Since you mentioned that you have updated the BIOS, your system if it is a XPS L702x should have bios version A10.  If you don't have A10 you may find it from the following link.

www.dell.com/.../DriversHome

It sounds like you have done most the troubleshooting. I can't promise you a completely silent system but if you feel that they may have been something defective about the replacement fan we can possibly look at having it replaced again.  If you have ran diagnostics on the system and received errors about the fan then I certainly suggest another service.  If you wish another service shoot me a private message with your name and the service tag and I will be happy to research service options.

TB

Terry B, thanks for the reply. I know notebooks often make noise. However, there must be something wrong when a laptop makes noise 95% of the time. I forgot to mention in my first post that I also ran all the diagnostic tests on the system and everything was fine. Also, one of the first things I did was to update the BIOS to A10, but that did not solve the problem.  As the replacement fan did not solve the problem, I now asked the technical team to send me a replacement laptop. When I browse the internet and come across so many people having the same fan noise problem with this XPS model, I start to think that the XPS is in general, a noisier computer than average. If yes, it would be fair for buyers if in the technical specifications of the laptop, there was a mention of the average noise levels emitted by the laptop under different types of usage. This information is already included in some external reviews of new laptop models, but it's my opinion that manufacturers should include this information in the description of their products. Like this, the consumers will know what they are buying. On the other hand, I know that not all XPS laptops make noise. For example, my flatmate owns a very silent XPS17. So I wonder why some laptops of the same model are very noisy and others are not. My suggestion to DELL is to put greater effort on trying to solve the fan noise problem and at the very least, to improve the information in the website regarding fan noise troubleshooting. In your own words, the available document on this topic is fairly basic.

Since diagnostics passed and replacing the fan didn't help with lowering the noise level you are right it is unlikely that replacing the fan again will be of any help.  The same with the system exchange, it is the same model it will likely have the same noise level.  If you would like for me to look into it further the offer still stands, shoot me a private message with your contact info and the service tag of the notebook.

TB

An update. I received a replacement laptop from DELL yesterday. To my dissapointment, this one is also very noisy. I am really dissapointed with XPS 15. What's wrong with this model? Why is it so noisy? The fan blasts al the time. I am sure that it doesn't have to be like this. Similar laptops from other brands are not noisy like this. I have tried to put my DELL next to a SONY doing the same thing (moving files from one removable disk to another). The SONY is silent, the DELL is like a hair dryer. This is not normal at all. Yes, I have updated the BIOS and went to all the troubleshooting procedures. I probably have to admit that the model is naturally noisy. A very big disappointment. I suggest any prospective buyers to avoid DELL XPS, unless they are not disturbed by noisy fans. And forget about using your DELL XPS in libraries or other silent places.

ajudante

I have received your private message and will answer shortly.

TB

Terry B and ajudante

IF you resolve this problem - then it would be great to hear the resolution. My Business Partner and I bought XPS 15's as replacements for our Inspiron 640M which must have been working much harder and the Fan was quiet. The Inspiron 640 was a replacement for something I can't even remember now although it was a DELL

Ie We Were so HAPPY with our previous DELL's that we were happy to shell out for our 3rd iteration of business Laptops

What is weird about the noise and it's bad enough locally is that it magnifies when speakign via Communicator or Skype - so much so that a client in Ireland has asked me if I am sitting with Cows - so loud is the mooing the other end

Early complaints to support were met with shock and horror as "no one had complaned before" - clearly that was ahem rubbish

I cannot imagine a siutation now where I would ever buy a DELL again which might be an issue for you if enough people feel that way.

Who knows though...a Quality company can differentiate themselves by the way they deal with problems. I guess I just need to know whether DELL is still a quality company

southendnil, I have not solved the problem. I am just resigned that I have to bear this noise for the next 4 or 5 years, until I buy my next laptop. Which is not going to be DELL, it will be a QUIET laptop from another brand.

Did you hear, DELL? "QUIET" !!

The problem is that nobody at DELL has yet acknowledged that there is a serious noise issue with XPS laptops. I am tired of hearing the "we haven't had any complaints" and "it's a powerful laptop, so it's noisy" excuses. Customer and technical support have so far been supportive, but ultimately, they have been hopeless in addressing the main problem: XPS is a very noisy laptop.

If there are students and researchers out there looking for a good laptop to use in libraries or other quiet places, please, do not buy DELL XPS! You'll disturb everybody around you.

It's also frustrating to have a laptop with an awesome sound system (like XPS), when the noise of the fan cancels out all music or sounds coming from the speakers.

I have an XPS 15 L502X and it's perfectly quiet on the balanced battery setting in Windows 7. In Windows 8 the fan is crazy, for some reason--constant CPU utilization that's higher than it should be results in the fan being on at least its mediums etting all the time.

Dell needs to fix this problem ASAP, I just received my Dell XPS 15 last week and no one can stand being in the same room with this loud non-stop fan blowing all the time.

Despite saying that the fix worked, in your case, in your last paragraph you admit that the fan still runs 100% all of the time. Well, fans make noise. So your laptop is still making noise, I suppose. It might be a different pattern of noise, instead of an intermittent noise every 2 seconds, it's a continuous noise. But it's still noisy. Same as mine. Probably many people are not bothered by that type of continuous fan noise. But we have to acknowledge that XPS15 is a noisy laptop, much more than other similar laptops from other brands. Dell might say that "the issue is not know", but that is not true. The issue is well known. Just browse this and other laptop forums and read users' comments. How can they say the issue is not know?..

Well I did say that a quality company could differentiate itself by the way they deal with problems. DELL's solution is to stick their collective heads in the sand. What a shame. If I were a betting man (oh yes I remember I am) I would guess DELL will not exist in 5 years time (in fact where is that put option). So at least I will not even have to consider buying another Laptop from them....sigh

Replacing the fan and heat-sink is working for now. The fan runs all the time, but not on full blast. Right now while basically idling it's spinning in low RPM. I have a few tabs in Chrome open, Skype, CoreTemp and few other things running in the background. Core temps are staying below 57C.

For now, I would say my machine is running how it should. I can't say for now long this will last because when I first got my XPS it was like this too...then a few weeks after purchase the fan started doing it's blasting on/off every 2 seconds torture routine. I started going crazy and figured out that my nVidia temperature gadget running caused this. After getting rid of the nVidia gadget, the fans stayed good for about 6 months.

Then a few months ago the torture came back even harder that before, even with no temperature monitoring software running. It would go on for hours and hours...Restarting/power off/on didn't work. As soon as I got back into WIndows 7 it would go into torture mode again. Tried clean installing Windows 7 various times, same story.

What I meant before is that I'd prefer a 100% full RPM fan over a bursting/pulsing fan. Of course, both are not desirable. The pulsing was very annoying. I was hearing pulsing even when it decided to stop sometimes. It became embedded in my head like torture. I would like to see a Dell executive use a pulsing Dell XPS laptop and see how long it takes for him/her to throw the thing out the window. I bet they don't use the XPS 15s.

I have contacted DELL representatives many times and their strategy is still to pretend there is no fan noise problem.

Message to all DELL staff reading this, in the hope somebody is proactive enough to try to acknowledge there is a serious fan noise in XPS models, and do something to solve the problem:

I find it rather sad that you are still trying to minimize the problem, and pretending it does not exist. The XPS is a very loud laptop, the fan makes a terrible sound all the time. It is not a "small minority of users" that are annoyed by this fault. Do not fool yourself in believing that. Just count the number of people complaining about the XPS noise in these forums and divide by the total number of XPS-related posts. After that, Google around, and see how prevalent the problem is. Compare the number of Google hits of "Dell fan noise" with "Sony fan noise" or "Compaq fan noise" if you atre still in doubt. If you still won't believe there is a noise issue, grab some of the user feedback data collected by DELL on the XPS model. And please take into account that many people are disturbed by the noise but for many reasons, they do not come to the internet to complain. They just stop buying Dell in the future, that is all. I would expect that Dell would try to take customers feedback into account, and do something to solve the problems of its laptops. But frankly, all you did so far was to try to pretend that the problem does not exist. Try to turn on your Dell xps next to a similar high performance system from Compaq or Sony. I would like to see if you have the nerve to tell me that the DELL XPS model is not as twice as loud as those two alternatives. If you want scientific data, I can also measure the noise emitted by the three models, and maybe then you will acknowledge that DELL XPS is by far the loudest of the three.

Idle

32.1 / 33.6 / 33.6 dB

HDD

32.4 dB

DVD

38 / dB

Load

44.2 / 45.1 dB

30 dB

silent

40 dB

audible

50 dB

loud

www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Dell-XPS-15-L521X-Notebook.80033.0.html

it says its normal,  some ppl need to understand how computers work.