Solved How to make a laptop not idle warmer when plugged in

@hdmi Thanks for everything :) I do suggest trying what I've said in the first post, it won't do much if your PC is doing unprompted background stuff but I imagine you've already checked for that (Windows Update in primis, etc). My Dell machine is always reluctant to spin up the fans (it wants to be a Mac apparently) while other brands' fans are more susceptible, though activated at low RPMs; I don't know if that's your case

@Almighty1 What hdmi is suggesting is pretty good. What you're talking about is "power plans", while hidden power settings are the options inside of a power plan's advanced power options that are usually not available (you have to go to Control Panel of course). Something like this (MS documentation); you can search on google for the name of the hidden power setting you're interested in and tenforums or elevenforum should have some tutorial on how to enable it
If your fans run at max speed because you're actually using your machine's full power there is not much that power settings can do though; keeping your laptop's cooling system clean and clear of obstacles as previously suggested here is the most important thing

NOT recommended for a laptop (unless battery is dead and you don't mind about the extra heat), but if you actually want to increase performance you can enable the "Ultimate Power" plan. This plan is hidden in Windows 10/11 Home and Pro because it is intended for Workstations. It is available in Windows 10/11 Pro for Workstations, but you can unhide it and use it in Windows 10/11 Home and Pro as well if you open a PowerShell as Administrator and execute this command:

powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61

It will force CPU to almost never idle and TurboBoost to always be enganged regardless if it is needed or not. Yes, I know, it is exactly the opposite of what we are trying to do in this thread, but I post it in case anyone is interested. Of course it would deplete the battery faster and generate more heat, so it is not recommended on a laptop, unless it is old with almost dead battery and you use a stand with fans to dissipate heat.

fruh said:

I do suggest trying what I've said in the first post, it won't do much if your PC is doing unprompted background stuff but I imagine you've already checked for that (Windows Update in primis, etc).

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Homeopathy. :)

In my laptop the Elpis controller chip on my 2TB Samsung 980 PRO can get fairly warm while, for example, unrarring a huge archive. Changing DISKMAXPOWER to anything below its default value of 100 causes it to run even much slower than a typical M.2 SATA SSD. So, changing this value to 99 for just a few seconds at regular time intervals until the temperature has dropped below a certain threshold that I can specify (i.e., also by using HWiNFO64 portable to run the necessary commands automatically whenever I want) does force it to cool back down again quickly.

If anything, this little method/trick is a lot more elegant, much easier/faster to achieve when compared to using UI automation techniques to pause/resume the WinRAR extraction automatically on-the-fly each time when something is getting a little warm in there. The portable edition of HWiNFO64 gives the benefit of letting you use multiple copies or hardlinks of HWiNFO64.exe in multiple different folder locations. Each folder can contain a different HWiNFO64.INI so, a simple script can run the taskkill command to terminate the HWiNFO64.exe process before starting it again with a different folderpath which causes HWiNFO64.exe to load the HWiNFO64.INI that is located in that folder.

NVMe Crippled:
powercfg SetAcValueIndex SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_DISK DISKMAXPOWER 99 & powercfg s SCHEME_CURRENT

NVMe Normal:
powercfg SetAcValueIndex SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_DISK DISKMAXPOWER 100 & powercfg s SCHEME_CURRENT

@hdmi I've never even encountered the diskmaxpower setting, that's pretty interesting. It's more and more apparent that you know what you're talking about Thanks for sharing the good stuff

fruh said:

@Almighty1 What hdmi is suggesting is pretty good. What you're talking about is "power plans", while hidden power settings are the options inside of a power plan's advanced power options that are usually not available (you have to go to Control Panel of course). Something like this (MS documentation); you can search on google for the name of the hidden power setting you're interested in and tenforums or elevenforum should have some tutorial on how to enable it
If your fans run at max speed because you're actually using your machine's full power there is not much that power settings can do though; keeping your laptop's cooling system clean and clear of obstacles as previously suggested here is the most important thing

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Hmmm, need to see what the options available are. In my case, I keep the fan at full RPM because this is a Dell XPS 15 9570 which is known to have the CPU throttling but what's weird is the first maybe 18 hours, the system will be fast but then it will lag really bad even though the CPU is still never about 30% and then it will be okay again and at other times, the CPU can hit 99% and lag but still have not been able to find the cause of that or what processes are causing it and ofcourse it will either stay laggy or it will fix itself later. My machine is always on 24/7/365 and plugged into AC.

It is a known issue with computers (or smartphones) leaving them on for many hours or days they eventually become slower and need to restart. Rather annoying if the computer is busy doing some work. I restart mine once or twice the week.

@Almighty1 I understand, if you haven't already done so I'd suggest to check in Task Manager for DWM.exe memory usage. What you are describing sounds a lot like how a memory leak would and DWM had a pretty bad one some time ago, which was then solved by the newer Intel graphics drivers. Also, since you have a Dell machine I'd recommend checking if it's compatible with AlienFX Tools which is highly convenient for managing the fans (though your machine might not be compatible sadly)

spapakons said:

It is a known issue with computers (or smartphones) leaving them on for many hours or days they eventually become slower and need to restart. Rather annoying if the computer is busy doing some work. I restart mine once or twice the week.

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It only happens with laptops but not desktop with the exact same software installed I have noticed and seems to be a Windows problem as it was this way even with XP some 20 years ago. So depends on my luck, this week seems to be a good week and the system didn't slow down even after 3 days and 6 hours, normally it would have slow down after 24 hours or so, sometimes it will fix itself and sometimes it won't.

fruh said:

@Almighty1 I understand, if you haven't already done so I'd suggest to check in Task Manager for DWM.exe memory usage. What you are describing sounds a lot like how a memory leak would and DWM had a pretty bad one some time ago, which was then solved by the newer Intel graphics drivers. Also, since you have a Dell machine I'd recommend checking if it's compatible with AlienFX Tools which is highly convenient for managing the fans (though your machine might not be compatible sadly)

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dwm isn't leaking and I was in the Intel thread where it was fixed in the 30.0.101.1121 drivers. The Dell fan utility I am using does have a handles leak of about 600,000handles which the author of System Informer formerly known as Process Hacker told me how to track down and restarting it would recover the handles so it's not a memory leak because the memory usage is the same but like right now, the system is still fast after 3 days at 51% CPU while sometimes it can be laggy even when it's 30% CPU. I'll checkout AlienFX Tools, thanks for the pointer when I have more time to play with it - looks like it only supports Dell G Series laptops other than Alienware as I am currently using Dell Fan Management — Software for controlling the Dell laptop fan speed and the author is no longer developing the tool as it's the one with the handles leak. Hwinfo supposedly can also manage the fans. The problem with Dell's automatic management is it starts the fans too late.

@Almighty1 yeah unfortunately Dell's fan profile is not reactive enough. Unfortunately I have no other ideas but I hope you'll find the best thing for your machine :)

If the fan is too old and dusty it will make more noise than when new. Even if you clean it, will make little difference. You might consider replacing the fan. Google with the laptop model since the fan part number might not be very helpful.

fruh said:

@Almighty1 yeah unfortunately Dell's fan profile is not reactive enough. Unfortunately I have no other ideas but I hope you'll find the best thing for your machine :)

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Yep as the Dell Fan Management utility apparently doesn't work on newer machines than mines either. What I find weird is sometimes the lag will fix itself.

spapakons said:

If the fan is too old and dusty it will make more noise than when new. Even if you clean it, will make little difference. You might consider replacing the fan. Google with the laptop model since the fan part number might not be very helpful.

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That's true too as one of the fans actually stopped working. I tried Super Slick Slick Stuff lubricant which worked for I think a month as this was the ones that dried to a film before the fan completely head to 0. Then I used Valvoline 15W50 Synthetic Motor Oil on both fans and it's been able to do 5100RPM consistently for the last 9 months. The Ebay fans are not the same as the OEM as they are faster but I read they have the screw holes at the wrong place. I even replaced the Thermal Interface Material with the Honeywell PTM7950.




Maybe the i8750H just doesn't work as well in Windows 11 as it does in Windows 10 as someone on the Intel thread said the c0 uses 10% CPU time when the system is on non-modern standby.

If you remove the fan from the laptop, you can spray it with plenty WD-40 and leave it for a couple of minutes. All dust will disappear! Then wipe it clean, spray some more WD-40 inside the core of the fan, between the plastic. This should eliminate any squeaking noise and make it turn freely without resistance. Put it back on the laptop and test it. It should be much better.

I actually took the fan out and used 91% rubbing alcohol to clean it. I was more worried that the WD-40 might actually flame should the fan or something spark. I'll keep that in mind the next time I open the machine. I mean if the fan runs freely when I spin it using the fingers without tightness, that should mean it's turning freely because before when there were problems with the fan, it will only go to 3000rpm and then back to 0 rpm. My concern with opening the laptop too much is either the screws or the screwholes will get worn out from the tightening of the screws. Also, this was in the Intel dwm.exe leak thread, what did the person mean by the permanent runaway process of 10% on one core and how do I even check if I have that problem? My black screens was because I installed a certain version of the Intel drivers and upgraded on top of it but when I uninstalled everything and deleted all the drivers and installed version(s) newer than the buggy driver which Windows Update replaced and then put the version I wanted on top, the problem no longer happened.


Seems like the same person wrote this but I have no idea what was meant exactly...