PC Case fan speed

andyp3001 · 24 May 2015

Hi all,
Recently bought a HP Envy Phoenix. Specs:

CPU: i7 4790
GPU: GeForce GTX 770
2Tb HDD
128Gb SDD
16Gb RAM

When turning on the PC, all the fans ramp up, naturally, but the case fan used to stay on full speed all the time. I like a quiet PC, so it was mildly annoying. Now, I've never had a SSD in a rig before, so I was blown away with how quick it booted up. I can see why folks on these forums recommend them. Anyway, after searching online, I found a solution in that if I added a 5 second boot delay to BIOS, it would eliminate the fan-full-speed issue. And it did. Now the PC is fairly quiet with the case fan at normal speed and all is well. Temperatures remain easily within spec., even, say, when playing Far Cry 4 on ultra. All the fan speeds vary slightly as per normal under load. Does anyone know how this all works regarding the BIOS delay making everything run normal as regards the case fan speed? Was the PC booting up so fast that the fan speed simply just got "stuck" on full? Just curious. Thanks in advance.

TVeblen · 24 May 2015

The start up of a PC is a 2 step process.
To purists, the BOOT step in the process is the part where the BIOS/UEFI runs it's check routine and starts up all the components on the motherboard. Once it is done with that it gives the "all OK" and looks for a bootable device to hand off control to.
The STARTUP step in the process is when the operating system starts up and loads.

An SSD greatly increases the speed of your PC starting mostly during the STARTUP process, because it can read and execute files so much faster.
But during the BOOT process the existence of an SSD will have no effect, because to the BIOS/UEFI it is just another hard drive.

I suspect that the boot delay is working because the BIOS/UEFI is going too fast, or skipping over certain processes. This should not happen, of course, and it could be because of a bug in the BIOS/UEFI on that particular motherboard.

Another BIOS settings option you could test is to toggle the "Fast Boot" from enabled to disabled (after returning boot delay back to default) and see if that makes any difference.

andyp3001 · 24 May 2015

Thanks for the advice. I'll try that. If no joy, then I will go back to the BIOS boot delay. It doesn't appear to be doing any harm. The motherboard, according to "Speccy" is a bespoke Hewlett Packard model 2B36. Brand AMI. If that is any help. Thank you.

TVeblen · 24 May 2015

The boot delay is a good workaround. No problem with that.
The test is just to see if the problem is indeed due to something missed in the full boot sequence.

andyp3001 · 24 May 2015

I'll try what you advise. Thanks again. Much appreciated advice. If it's OK, I'll post the result of the toggling"disable fast boot option". It is good to learn about these things!

Layback Bear · 24 May 2015

I never use fast boot just for the reasons you are experiencing.
Some times it boots so fast some things don't get loaded.

Another thing.
In msconfig/Advanced Boot/Time Out the default time is 30 seconds. If you set it to less you could also skip loading things at times when booting.

andyp3001 · 30 May 2015

I have no facility on BIOS to enable/disable fast boot. It is a OEM mobo, so some things may be inaccessible. There is one in the windows operating system power setings, but that didn't have any effect.

TVeblen · 30 May 2015

Does that BIOS have any fan speed controls in it's settings? Anything about Quiet or Cool & Quiet?

If not, you may just have a buggy motherboard, with a bad fan sensor on it.

The cable that goes to the problem fan: does it have 2. 3, or 4 wires?

andyp3001 · 31 May 2015

It appears all of these pc's do this. The fan bothers some but not all, so not everyone raising the issue on forums. Depends how fussy folks are about noise. It wasn't ever loud. But I do like a quiet PC, under normal loading. There is no case fan speed control in BIOS. But the 5 seconds BIOS delay workaround does have the desired effect. The fans do ramp up nicely according to loadings and temps, Far Cry 4 on ultra being a prime example. And everything operates within normal temps, the GPU never going above 67 degrees. I tend to think that the ultra fast start-up via the SSD used to skew things somewhat. The PC even had the HP SimplePass fingerprint sign-in software on it (it is a PC, not a Laptop!), so I think that maybe the motherboard is also used in various other HDD-only configurations which I bet the fan speed issue does not affect, but I would not know for certain. With Hewlett Packard, maybe one size (Op system and bundled software) trying to fit all. Aside from the worked around start-up fan speed issue, the PC works flawlessly. As long as the 5 second delay in BIOS does not affect the running of the rig, which it seems does not, then all would appear to be well. I do know of one user (where I got the idea from) who later removed the BIOS delay and the case fan speed start-up issue never came back (quoted below) ! Maybe it's something that HP never considered when putting these rigs together, with the case fan start-up speed not even looked at in initial testing.

"Re: Envy Phoenix 810-201no loud, fan problem (?)
Options
‎01-24-2015 06:00 AM
I added a boot delay in the BIOS, that way I didn't have to do anything on start up. Now after having the delay for a few weeks I removed it again and now the computer seems to work properly again. Don't know why."