Lenovo Thinkpad laptop fans run wild! Any advice?

Rhino Windows Hardware
1

Hello, when my Lenovo Thinkpad P15 is plugged in and Rhino is open the fans constantly run. Even when I am not preforming any tasks in Rhino. As soon as I quit out of Rhino the fans quiet down. I can understand if the fans are running when preforming heavy tasks. But, as I’ve stated just simply having a Rhino file open causes the fans to run.

I have the power slider set to Better Performance. When I slide the slider to Better Battery the fans quiet which makes sense.

The thing that doesn’t make sense is it seems that simply having a Rhino file open and not preforming any tasks causes the laptop fans to spike.

Specs
Nvidia 2080 Super Max Q
Intel Xeon - W-10855

Has anyone encountered something similar with their Lenovo product? Thanks for the help.

2

This is not a Rhino thing. The graphics cards 2080 etc need a lot of cooling and when you put them in a thin laptop you get noisy fans. Its the price you pay for great cards in thin devices. Same happens to me with an MSI using 2080 on most 3D software.

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Have you followed this?
Fan runs at a higher than expected speed - Windows - ThinkPad, ThinkCentre, ideapad, ideacentre - Lenovo Support GB

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As MIchael said, this is the price you pay for a powerfull graphic card (so far): fan noise!
very annoying
I own a p53 with a rtx5000 and the same goes here. Lenovo technical support said that this was expected (asked when laptop was brand new).
I manually reduce windows performance settings when not working on demanding tasks. Noise cancellation earphones helps also ;)l

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One option is to take out battery and use laptop with a cable for more permanent work.
Batteries tend to heat up quite a lot, requiring constant cooling.

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It is neither a Rhino nor Lenovo thing, it is Nvidia. For some reason they set Rhino’s power management to “high performance”. You can go to nvidia control panel to change it to “Nvidia driver-controlled”.

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This solved my fan issue, thanks!

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In my opinion, the most important laptop spec is its cooling power in watts. Laptop vendors do not provide this information because laptop users do not understand how important cooling is. Lenovo ThinkPad P15 Gen 2 is good example of this problem. It has very powerful CPU and GPU, but…

The cooling system is chunky with dual fans and a plethora of heat pipes, but the laptop still runs hot and throttles up to 20% under full load. Those two fans are also quite loud when spun up, hitting between 50 and 60 decibels at full tilt. source: Lenovo ThinkPad P15 (Gen 2) review: Outdated looks hide high-end workstation performance and features | Windows Central

Thermal design power (TDP)… is the maximum amount of heat generated by a computer chip or component (…CPU or GPU…) that the cooling system in a computer is designed to dissipate under any workload. source: Thermal design power - Wikipedia

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that buying powerful laptop is a waste of money. You can reduce its fan noise by forcing its CPU and GPU to run slowly (throttle), but it seems more rational to buy slow, cheap laptop instead.

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Or a cheap pair of earmuffs…. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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The fans will run faster if a program is actively using the GPU.

Though, you might check the nVidia Control Panel settings, and set your power management to Adoptive, or Normal. If it is in High Performance, the responsiveness will be better, but they GPU will generally not get a chance to cool down enough to be free from thermal soak enough to handle bursty work.

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Also, I suspect that the Performance slider affects the CPU. Even if they have 2 fans and two heatsinks, most Lenovo computers’s heatsinks are joined in the center, to handle asymmetrical thermals loads. I recommend putting the CPU on medium, better performance, but not Best.

What I try to do: Give both the GPU and CPU a chance to cooperate with the allowed cooling capacity.

It also might help to prop up the back edge of your computer. I do not recommend laptop coolers with fans, because the airflow might go the wrong way, staving the laptop with air.

Also, you have the fastest Quad that Lenovo put in a computer, at the time. Are you sure that you have a 2080? Generally, Lenovo uses Quado chips in their P series, which have nearly but not entirely Geforce equivalents. Notwithstanding, the fact that you have a MaxQ, means that you have more GPU than cooling, so Adoptive cooling profiles help.

Also, nVidia has new drivers–every month.

I have a Lenovo P15 Gen 2. Firstly, for good battery life, I need to do a reinstall. I hope they aren’t mining in the background.