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Computer lag when CPU fan changes speed.

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Private_Ops

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I have the BIOS setup to monitor and change the CPU fan according to CPU heat. Problem is, each time it changes the fan speed it pauses the system for about a second. It tends to get REAL annoying, so I've thought about turning it off and getting a couple Zalman Fan Mates and manually controlling my fans.

In the mean time, any idea why my board would do this?
 
If I had to guess, and I have too, lol, the fan speed change is not what is really going on, all of a sudden your cpu sees a heavy load and the heat it generates goes up, this is the lag, the fan is just responding to the cpu load.

It could be possible that the fan control software if you are using EIST or Cool n Quiet is using enough of your memory while in windows to cause a performance issue but unlikely. That software is fairly simple and does not require a lot of cpu horsepower to do its job, I just cannot see the fan control software causing any significant cpu load by itself.

All speculation.
 
BillParrish said:
If I had to guess, and I have too, lol, the fan speed change is not what is really going on, all of a sudden your cpu sees a heavy load and the heat it generates goes up, this is the lag, the fan is just responding to the cpu load.

It could be possible that the fan control software if you are using EIST or Cool n Quiet is using enough of your memory while in windows to cause a performance issue but unlikely. That software is fairly simple and does not require a lot of cpu horsepower to do its job, I just cannot see the fan control software causing any significant cpu load by itself.

All speculation.
Click to expand...


i agree, i think it is not the actual fan speed adjust being the cause, but simply a symptom of a possibly much larger issue

try turning that feature off and letting the fan speed run constant and see if you still get the slowdown, pretty sure you will, then you will know it's something else
 
Probably should have mentioned I'm running Fedora...

Anyway, I have tried turning it off and letting the fan run at full speed and it never does the lag thing but, soon as I turn it back on it starts again.
 
hmm interesting, don't know crap about that opty, but I am thinking some kind of thermal throttle ? CPU gets automatically slowed if the CPU temp goes up ?

Here is what I am thinking and its all speculation. just wild ass guess.

Fan on 100% chip nice and cool, heatsink nice and cool, OK, dump a big load on the CPU, temps start up but heatsink very cool and can quickly absorb the extra CPU heat, the fan is helping at 100%, and all is happy in CPU land.

Fan on low/auto, CPU is maintained just inside its max thermal envelope to keep the fan as quiet as possible, heatsink is probably fairly cool but with the fan running slow it is "maybe" hotter than fan on 100%, actually I would think it would be a fair bit hotter. dump a big load on the CPU, temps rise almost instantly, heatsink due to the lower delta in temps cannot absorb the heat quite as fast, fan not helping a lot, CPU internal temp spikes up, CPU thermal throttling cuts in reducing the CPU frequency or voltage or both and signals the fan "for gods sake speed up I am cooking down here", game goes down the crapper as CPU speed drops, in just a few seconds the fan speeds up, heatsink catches up with thermal load, throttling cuts off, game back to normal and all is good and probably the fan goes back to a slower speed.

All speculation. You should be able to run some kind of load software and with CPU-z watch the multiplier and CPU frequency, and some temp monitoring software and actually try and make it do what I am thinking. However games load the machine in ways a lot of testing software cannot, and we play games for hours, so how you test this would need to be thought about and as closely match what is happening when you game as much as possible. Acutually I think your "leave it on 100% and it does not happen pretty much proves it".

Speedfan lets you alter the fan speed settings based on temp trip points, not sure it will control your stuff, but worth a look see. oops uh oh, linux, nevermind.

Someone may have coded an application that would let you set the fan speed/temp "curve" to your own settings, if not they should.

Bigger heatsink would help.

I watercool so have huge reserve thermal capacity built into the system to absorb rapid changes like that, but I still have a fan controller and when I game I put the headphones on or turn the speaker up and then turn up the fan on the rad and rev up the noisy pci slot fan blowing on my vid card. Its a nasty trade off, noise vs cool, no pat answer.


If you dont mind, what game and how are you playing it in Linux ( If mine, DAOC, would play ok I would dump microshaft in a second. )
 
What is your CPU temps at? I had the same problem, turned out that I was hitting the throttle temp on my CPU. Cleaning the heatsink fixed my problem.
 
Some MBs have CPU throttling based on load. If that load also causes the fan to shift, it could be a coincidence that they appear to happen at the same time. However, that would seem to be a reverse of what the CPU should do - it should speed up with load and slow down as load reduces.

Look at other BIOS settings for CPU throttling.
 
BillParrish said:
hmm interesting, don't know crap about that opty, but I am thinking some kind of thermal throttle ? CPU gets automatically slowed if the CPU temp goes up ?

Here is what I am thinking and its all speculation. just wild ass guess.

Fan on 100% chip nice and cool, heatsink nice and cool, OK, dump a big load on the CPU, temps start up but heatsink very cool and can quickly absorb the extra CPU heat, the fan is helping at 100%, and all is happy in CPU land.

Fan on low/auto, CPU is maintained just inside its max thermal envelope to keep the fan as quiet as possible, heatsink is probably fairly cool but with the fan running slow it is "maybe" hotter than fan on 100%, actually I would think it would be a fair bit hotter. dump a big load on the CPU, temps rise almost instantly, heatsink due to the lower delta in temps cannot absorb the heat quite as fast, fan not helping a lot, CPU internal temp spikes up, CPU thermal throttling cuts in reducing the CPU frequency or voltage or both and signals the fan "for gods sake speed up I am cooking down here", game goes down the crapper as CPU speed drops, in just a few seconds the fan speeds up, heatsink catches up with thermal load, throttling cuts off, game back to normal and all is good and probably the fan goes back to a slower speed.

All speculation. You should be able to run some kind of load software and with CPU-z watch the multiplier and CPU frequency, and some temp monitoring software and actually try and make it do what I am thinking. However games load the machine in ways a lot of testing software cannot, and we play games for hours, so how you test this would need to be thought about and as closely match what is happening when you game as much as possible. Acutually I think your "leave it on 100% and it does not happen pretty much proves it".

Speedfan lets you alter the fan speed settings based on temp trip points, not sure it will control your stuff, but worth a look see. oops uh oh, linux, nevermind.

Someone may have coded an application that would let you set the fan speed/temp "curve" to your own settings, if not they should.

Bigger heatsink would help.

I watercool so have huge reserve thermal capacity built into the system to absorb rapid changes like that, but I still have a fan controller and when I game I put the headphones on or turn the speaker up and then turn up the fan on the rad and rev up the noisy pci slot fan blowing on my vid card. Its a nasty trade off, noise vs cool, no pat answer.


If you dont mind, what game and how are you playing it in Linux ( If mine, DAOC, would play ok I would dump microshaft in a second. )
Click to expand...


I don't even have to be in a game to do it, I've got a CPU modifyer setup to keep the CPU running at 1GHz. I've noticed it A LOT less in Linux but, considering i dont do much it's keeping my temps down and the fan changes based on temp not load.
 
the fan changes based on temp not load.
Click to expand...

Er, so what do you attribute the change in temps from then ? Solar flares ? Are any of your memory sticks glowing red ?
 
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