How would you TWEAK this Bios to reduce fan speed?

The Pool Man · 07 Jan 2021

Greetings,

Me and Mini PCs and fan noise. Yikes. I might stick my new Mini in a college dorm fridge so I never hear it. lol

It's a Ryzen 5 3550H Mini... which Speedfan can't see. However there are BIOS possibilities. I found this --

How would you TWEAK this Bios to reduce fan speed?-2021-01-06-21_03_21-how-use-fan-controls-bios-reduce-fan-noise-_-minisforum-moz.jpg

I've gathered if I toggle the white part to 'software' I can then use those 5 choices below. Could someone hold my hand thru those choices?

FAN OFF isn't a thing for me. I don't care if it's on soft.

It's that fan start limit. I sense I want it to kick on around 60. Normally the PC hangs around this speed when somewhat idle --

How would you TWEAK this Bios to reduce fan speed?-2021-01-06-21_01_07-speccy.jpg

But if you open next to anything, the fan momentarily surges as the app opens up. It soon settles back in.

The rest of the settings confuse me. Is there a SLOW DOWN RPM of fan setting in there?

Golden · 07 Jan 2021

Is the BIOS setting in Fahrenheit or Celsius? What does PWM stand for?

Steve C · 07 Jan 2021

Golden said:

Is the BIOS setting in Fahrenheit or Celsius? What does PWM stand for?

PWM = pulse width modulation which is a means for controlling fan speed for those fans supporting this mode

Ghot · 07 Jan 2021

@The Pool Man

As for the BIOS settings... they "look" like the should for quietest ops.
Slope setting who knows. Might want to contact the manufacturer about this.

Iirc, you have 80mm fans? 80mm fans to be any use at all... are loud. At the same cfm, 120mm fans are quieter, and 140mm fans even more so... etc.

If it were me, I wouldn't even buy a case or a SFF comp that used 80mm fans. To get 80mm fans to cool, at all, they will run loud.

That SFF PC is proprietary, with proprietary part, and BIOS. Contact the manufacturer's tech support folk.

Helmut · 07 Jan 2021

If you do not understand fan settings then not a good idea to fiddle with those settings.
As already mentioned, the fan modes are set by the manufacturer, the abbreviated settings like PWM slope setting 2 means nothing as is.
Maybe the system manual has more details of the UEFI/BIOS settings.

There is no linear relationship of airflow to rpm. It varies with type of fan and the airflow of the PC case. Small fans are noisier as they have to use more revs to shift the same amount of air as larger fans.

A fan starting at 60°C is rather too late, you would want to be shifting at least some air thru the box before reaching that temperature.
The settings you show look to be sensible.

The Pool Man · 07 Jan 2021

Thanks for replies everyone.

Golden -- It is set at Celsius.

Ghot -- Yes, I've posted this question at Minisforum. They're a little slow to reply to -- shall we say -- product shortcomings?

Helmut -- the manufacturer encouraged users to alter those settings. My problem is they didn't give recommendations on settings to try.

I altered only one of them. THE FAN START LIMIT. I bumped it up to 65. Understand this doesn't mean the fan is off until that temp is hit. It means the LOUDER fan doesn't kick in until then.

The result? The fan stays at a constant speed most of the time. Before this it would WHIR on by opening a web browser, opening Plex, opening Gimp. In other words: touch ANYTHING and WHIR WOOOOOSH.

So far it seems good. But we're in winter in America where my room is cool. Things may be different in California summer.

I do help the Mini PC by balancing it in such a way as to allow more airflow underneath.

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This is Speccy reporting CPU and Motherboard temps. With two simultaneous streams.

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That looks high but moments later it drops to this --

How would you TWEAK this Bios to reduce fan speed?-2021-01-07-12_38_23-speccy.jpg

Now, just for kicks, two streams and a virus check. lol

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51-55 degrees. No increased fan necessary.