Friday, August 14, 2009

CPU fans running loudly and constantly

The Problem

For the last few days, I have noticed both of my CPU fans on my Gateway / AMD Phenom Quad Core / Windows Vista machine have been running loudly and constantly, even when I don't have any applications open. My CPU fans are not dusty.

This seemed to coincide with either a boatload of Windows Updates I installed a few days ago, or my installation of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 (for my upcoming Mobile Development class) and its subsequent service packs.

The Solution

It turns out the loud CPU fans are directly related to the configured Power Options in the Windows Control Panel.

My Power Plan was set to "High Performance". The very instant I changed the this to either "Power saver" or "Balanced", the CPU fans ceased or became very muted.

Windows Vista Power Options Control Panel
These settings state that processor performance will be reduced, but for now I will leave this as-is to see if I notice any difference, and who knows, this might show up as savings on the utility bill!
Posted by Ricky Blaha at 9:15 AM
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