Quiet, cool (heat) Ultrabook Reccomendation

[glenmore3685]

Hi All

Can anyone recommend a decent Windows Ultrabook that doesn't have issues with heat dissipation?

Dell have agreed to refund my XPS 13 (I7 7390) due to the fact the fan is constantly on.

I've been looking at what to get next, I'm looking at the new XPS 13 (9300), possibly going for an I5 as they may run cooler (and I'm not doing much more than Outlook/Powerpoint/Excel/viewing YouTube) but looking at customer reviews on Dell's own website it looks like heat could be an issue with the latest model too.

Surface 3 seems to have a few comments about heat/fan sound when charger is plugged in.

There are some fanless models but they don't seem to come very highly recommended (Acer Swift 7).

Any feedback on the ThinkPad X1 Carbon (8th Gen)?

I accept a bit of fan noise is normal but this XPS has the fan on constantly and the CPU utilisation isn't over 25% - gets annoying. Seems high spec processors in thin shells don't mix.

Thanks in advance.

[xeny]

glenmore3685 said:

Can anyone recommend a decent Windows Ultrabook that doesn't have issues with heat dissipation?
.

They pretty much all do that. You could try disabling turbo either in the BIOS or Windows power plan, but you may then post saying can anyone recommend a faster ultrabook.

14nm lithography CPUs seem to run cooler at present, and unless you're doing something that uses them, extra cores don't tend to make things worse.

[Horace Van Khute]

glenmore3685 said:

Hi All

Can anyone recommend a decent Windows Ultrabook that doesn't have issues with heat dissipation?

Dell have agreed to refund my XPS 13 (I7 7390) due to the fact the fan is constantly on.

I've been looking at what to get next, I'm looking at the new XPS 13 (9300), possibly going for an I5 as they may run cooler (and I'm not doing much more than Outlook/Powerpoint/Excel/viewing YouTube) but looking at customer reviews on Dell's own website it looks like heat could be an issue with the latest model too.

Surface 3 seems to have a few comments about heat/fan sound when charger is plugged in.

There are some fanless models but they don't seem to come very highly recommended (Acer Swift 7).

Any feedback on the ThinkPad X1 Carbon (8th Gen)?

I accept a bit of fan noise is normal but this XPS has the fan on constantly and the CPU utilisation isn't over 25% - gets annoying. Seems high spec processors in thin shells don't mix.

Thanks in advance.

Get a Mac and install Windows in bootcamp. Only Apple are silly enough to keep fans quiet until the CPU hits 80C. But also only Apple seem to use fans which whoooosh in an acceptable way, which doesn't get annoying after 5 secs.

So if you want quiet Apple is your default option*. Other manufacturers seem to be focused on keeping temps down. Even an i5 will fairly quickly reach a temp level which will trigger a fan.

• that said, if you connect your MBP to an external display (especially 4k) that changes fan profiles from "quiet until it melts" to "we'll be taking off soon", so if you want to use your laptop that way you will be disappointed.

[glenmore3685]

Horace Van Khute said:

Get a Mac and install Windows in bootcamp. Only Apple are silly enough to keep fans quiet until the CPU hits 80C. But also only Apple seem to use fans which whoooosh in an acceptable way, which doesn't get annoying after 5 secs.

So if you want quiet Apple is your default option*. Other manufacturers seem to be focused on keeping temps down. Even an i5 will fairly quickly reach a temp level which will trigger a fan.

• that said, if you connect your MBP to an external display (especially 4k) that changes fan profiles from "quiet until it melts" to "we'll be taking off soon", so if you want to use your laptop that way you will be disappointed.

Interesting - I wasn't aware you could do this. Can you delete the OS X partition and just use Windows? Also do you have to choose which OS to boot from each time or can you just set it to boot to Windows each time?

[Raj28]

If you have issues next time, try notebook fancontrol. I use it on my Lenovo ultrabook and it works really well.

[Horace Van Khute]

glenmore3685 said:

Interesting - I wasn't aware you could do this. Can you delete the OS X partition and just use Windows? Also do you have to choose which OS to boot from each time or can you just set it to boot to Windows each time?

You should be able to delete the mac OS through disk utility from within the recovery system. And you can set the default boot partition too if you keep both mac OS and BootCamp, which I personally would do as you could also run your BootCamp partition from within mac OS if you get Parallels or VMWare Fusion.

[Murph7355]

My Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon is pretty good.

I don't do much especially strenuous with machines these days, but do still handle the odd big spreadsheet, edit video/photos etc and it's quiet nearly all the time.

[glenmore3685]

Murph7355 said:

My Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon is pretty good.

I don't do much especially strenuous with machines these days, but do still handle the odd big spreadsheet, edit video/photos etc and it's quiet nearly all the time.

Thanks - do you know which generation you have?

[glenmore3685]

Horace Van Khute said:

You should be able to delete the mac OS through disk utility from within the recovery system. And you can set the default boot partition too if you keep both mac OS and BootCamp, which I personally would do as you could also run your BootCamp partition from within mac OS if you get Parallels or VMWare Fusion.

OK makes sense.

How is Windows driver support for the Mac hardware?

[Horace Van Khute]

glenmore3685 said:

OK makes sense.

How is Windows driver support for the Mac hardware?

Drivers are provided and supported by Apple. Have a look on their website.

[glenmore3685]

Horace Van Khute said:

Drivers are provided and supported by Apple. Have a look on their website.

Cheers, will check it out.

[gizlaroc]

I have been using Macbook Pros and Airs for 15 years or so, my last PC was the Sony Vaio, nice metal case that got rid of heat well.

I was looking at an XPS any other Ultrabooks to have as well, but was really surprised about the fan noise on them. I genuinely never notice it on Macbooks, I knocked the idea on the head as it would bother me too much.

[Horace Van Khute]

Yes, it's something I can't understand either. I'm actually willing to believe that some parts that Apple use must be made from some magic substance, fans and the quality of trackpads would indicate this. Or that other hardware manufacturers simply don't give a f...

[gizlaroc]

What gets me as well is my Macbook Air doesn't ever really get hot either, none of my Macbooks with aluminium bodies have. OK so I don't play games, but I use it at least 8 hours a day and sit with it on my lap, and never notice any heat.

When I ran Windows 10 on my last one, I loaded it up to see if I could live with Windows again when I was considering an XPS 13, it did however run hotter, so obviously something windows related rather than the machine itself.

Even my old Thinkpad runs considerably cooler and much quicker with Ubuntu than Windows 10.

[glenmore3685]

gizlaroc said:

I have been using Macbook Pros and Airs for 15 years or so, my last PC was the Sony Vaio, nice metal case that got rid of heat well.

I was looking at an XPS any other Ultrabooks to have as well, but was really surprised about the fan noise on them. I genuinely never notice it on Macbooks, I knocked the idea on the head as it would bother me too much.

To be honest I never noticed it with my slightly older XPS 13 but the latest one I have (7390) has been awful. Looking for a new laptop I've paid more attention to fan noise and done further research - seems like the new XPS 13 and the Surface 3 both have heat issues especially when the charger is plugged in.

Looks like I'll either go MacBook Air with Win10 via Bootcamp or the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8.

[Horace Van Khute]

glenmore3685 said:

To be honest I never noticed it with my slightly older XPS 13 but the latest one I have (7390) has been awful. Looking for a new laptop I've paid more attention to fan noise and done further research - seems like the new XPS 13 and the Surface 3 both have heat issues especially when the charger is plugged in.

Looks like I'll either go MacBook Air with Win10 via Bootcamp or the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8.

MBA, the new one, is pretty much guaranteed to have heat dissipation "challenges". Apple might be magical but they aren't going to overcome Intel CPU's thermals, which are toasty.

If you deffo need Windows X1 Carbon would personally be my choice, that said from my research on previous gen's when I was looking for a laptop fan was being one of the points people mentioned as noticeable.

[geeks]

gizlaroc said:

What gets me as well is my Macbook Air doesn't ever really get hot either, none of my Macbooks with aluminium bodies have. OK so I don't play games, but I use it at least 8 hours a day and sit with it on my lap, and never notice any heat.

When I ran Windows 10 on my last one, I loaded it up to see if I could live with Windows again when I was considering an XPS 13, it did however run hotter, so obviously something windows related rather than the machine itself.

Even my old Thinkpad runs considerably cooler and much quicker with Ubuntu than Windows 10.

Where as I notice my Macbook Pro getting hot alot and not much in the way of fan cooling.

[gizlaroc]

geeks said:

Where as I notice my Macbook Pro getting hot alot and not much in the way of fan cooling.

Interesting.

I tend to go for the lower spec cpu and best ssd and ram I can afford and always 13" model.

My last pro was the first retina model, since then had the 12" Macbooks and then retina Airs.

[cb31]

I've got a 12 inch Macbook so no fan noise as there is no fan. Trade-off is a mobile type CPU but with a lightening fast SSD it feels really snappy. No doubt if you tried to run video editing software or something it would be slow but everyday apps it is perfectly fine.

One thing I have heard on Apple forums is that running Macs in bootcamp the drivers from Apple are not optimised anywhere near as well as they are for MacOS, which means that things can run hotter and more noisily. Basically try and try before you buy just to make sure it matches your expectations.

[ZesPak]

Horace Van Khute said:

Yes, it's something I can't understand either. I'm actually willing to believe that some parts that Apple use must be made from some magic substance, fans and the quality of trackpads would indicate this. Or that other hardware manufacturers simply don't give a f...

Linus did a pretty good analysis on the MBP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJkIVg0upJ4

Basically it just lets it run hot and hopes you don't stress it too long before thermal throttling.
It's actually not a bad idea, and the components seem to be able to take it as well.

Edited by ZesPak on Monday 15th June 12:44