Any way to control the fan on a 5580?

Hi Tanquen2,

Thanks for posting.  Apologies that your system is not performing as expected.

Here is some information from the Dell knowledge base you may find helplful:

Resolving fan noise on a laptop

Thanks Robert but I'm looking for a way to control the fan. Looks like Dell has decided there should be no way to do this. That is their deal I guess but then the Dell Command Power Manager Thermal Management should be like spot on and it's not. 

Hi, a have same problem with Dell Latitude 5490 with CPU i5-8350U, in minimal load, typically after start OS, is CPU i maximum frequency and fan still spinning on the crowded all the time. Dell support advised reinstall all chipset driver and flash BIOS the new FW version, but it didn't help.We're sad, our problems will be solved. If I wanted to feel both at the airport as for the noise, I'll get some server and not a business laptop.

It looks like there is nothing that can be done other than find a different port replicator that doesn’t use the Thunderbolt port or return the Laptop for one that doesn’t have this design flaw.

 I understand if Dell can’t or won’t make a change but this is a real issue and just saying it’s working as designed or releasing a technote about users incorrectly misdiagnosing a bad fan doesn’t change that fact that the fan is unnecessarily distractingly loud under very normal not at all stressful workloads.

 I don’t think there is anything in the sales literature letting customers know they are buying a much noisier than normally laptop because the Thunderbolt controller chip is inadequately cooled and that your new laptop will often sound like you are gaming and or coin mining even if you’re not doing anything and even if you run the CPU at half the speed you paid for.

 I’m disappointed in Dell. They need to fix this, offer another port replicator without using a Thunderblot port or its power draw if that is the issue and let the customer know. Everyone in the office that got one has mentioned it and we would not have gotten them if we had known.

Is there a way to help cool the Thunderbolt controller chip?

Is there a different port replicator that doesn’t use the Thunderbolt port?

Is there a Dell laptop with a Thunderbolt port that has adequate cooling for the Thunderbolt controller chip?

I have the same problem with this loud fan on model 5580. After updating to the latest firmware the only option that the fan will not make loud noise is to select "Quiet" option in the thermal Management , at the price of very slow cpu speed. Optimized, cool and Ultra Performance option is like sitting next to a jet engine.

Very disappointed with the purchase - what a waste of time and money to buy Dell.

Adding a "Me too"...  Dell Command Update shows that my system is up to date, so there don't appear to be any updated Chipset, Drivers, or BIOS Firmware.  The fan runs full speed even with about 10% CPU, 31% Memory,  7% disk, and 2% GPU.  I'm using a WD15 Dock, and I've heard that the issue may be a physical one related to the Heat sync for one of the Chipset chips (Not enough thermal paste, or not enough passive heatsink), so the fan runs to compensate for that.  I can try running without the dock for a while, but that's hard to do because everything is setup to connect using that.  I'm surprised Dell hasn't been able to produce an update to fix this if it's software/firmware or a recall/service-call to fix it if it's hardware.  We have a lot of these machines and many people complain about this issue, so it's not just my laptop.

Same here. With up-to-date firmware and drivers, the system fan gets really noisy after only 10-15 seconds at 100% CPU, in a room at 20°C (68°F).

That is clearly not the expected behavior, and I never witnessed something like this with the previous generations of Dell Latitude laptops.

Any idea out there?

thanks,

-Pierre

You should consider yourself lucky, the new versions owners (g5/g7) are going crazy because fans start spinning after 70°, all our units are overheating and nobody ever told us if they're going to give us (at least) minimum control over the cooling of our machines. I would personally prefer my laptop to be noisy instead of hot (and noisy since it get's hot and fans ramp up to max every 10 seconds)

I am having major issues with the 5580 I was issued by my employer - the fan on it runs CONSTANTLY at varying levels of background noise and is seemingly independent of the load placed on the machine. 

What's interesting is I am using it to WFH (thanks to the current situation) and am not using the docking station they provided me. It's a USB 3.0 Dell D3000, not a Thunderbolt one, but I am using an external monitor which is connected using the Display Port, rather than VGA or HDMI. 

This is doing my head in. I work in 2nd line support and spend a great deal of my time on the phone, the constant noise and underperformance of this machine causes me unnecessary stress when trying to deal with people having problems of their own. If I could use my own MacBook Pro instead, I would! 

Is there anything that can be done from a Windows perspective to help with this? I have done all of the Dell recommended things (all drivers up-to-date, latest BIOS) and the Diagnostics do not report an issue, either. The machine is not even warm, it's elevated off the desk too so plenty of air can circulate beneath it.

Rather than start complaining to my own IT department about what is really an on-the-surface issue! 

I've spent ages discussing this with Dell, trying to come up with a solution. All they've offered up so far is to clean out the ducts on the machine (which I had the common sense to do before contacting them, in the first place...) and to turn off turbo-boost. Now my machine barely keeps up with my as a I type a message to a co-worker in Microsoft Teams! 

I get 2-3 minutes of peace from this machine when I first boot it in the morning, before it starts. Honestly, my 16" MacBook Pro with a 6 core i7 is quieter than this (and runs cooler) when doing 3D rendering, never mind when it's doing basic productivity tasks! 

Worst part is, I don't even know if my employer will do anything about it... The dialogue I have open with them is only going to go so far. 

I did the liquid metal on the CPU and cooler and always have the laptop raised up for better air flow and it seems to have helped a little bit. But it's still pretty bad if I have a VM or two running. When I use the Intel tool to lower the CPU speed I don't really notice a performance loss it's just a pain to use the tool and to keep resetting the speed. It's been a while but when I first turn it on even though the temperature goes up higher the fan doesn't really come on or stays low but once it's on it seems to stay on even when the temperature drops back down.