Resolve and Dell XPS 15 -- fan noise?

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tacman1123

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  • Real Name: Tac Tacelosky

Resolve and Dell XPS 15 -- fan noise?

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 12:28 pm

I've seen some signatures on this forum that reference the XPS 15. I very recently bought one, because it seems like the best laptop for running Resolve. I have an XPS 13 running Ubuntu, but couldn't get Resolve to start because of inadequate CUDU/GPU.

Now when I run Resolve on the XPS 15 (Windows 10, 32G RAM, 1T hard drive, SSD for the OS), the fan pretty much constantly runs. And it's loud enough that it's distracting while editing. I contacted Dell tech support, and they recommended updating the BIOS to 1.4.1, which I did. The fan runs less now, but still not whisper quiet.

My question: is this a defective computer, or is this pretty standard. The Dell forums are full of people complaining about fan noise, so it's hard to tell if this is standard. Fan noise definitely happens a lot more when I'm using Resolve.

Thanks,

Tac
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Thomas Dove

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Re: Resolve and Dell XPS 15 -- fan noise?

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 2:31 pm

I have an XPS, and yes, when doing anything demanding [like Resolve or anything else that uses all the processing power] the noisy fan runs almost the whole time..
Main Resolve: Linux Centos 7, Intel i7 16GB RAM, nVidia 1070Ti, Decklink Extreme 12G
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Rakesh Malik

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Re: Resolve and Dell XPS 15 -- fan noise?

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 4:00 pm

Small machines need to move a lot of air to keep cool under load... and the nVidia GPU in there is probably generating at least at much heat as the CPU.

'Tis the tradeoff. If you want a quieter machine, get a bigger one or a wimpier one. Unless you figure out a way to alter the way that thermodynamics works ;)
Rakesh Malik
Cinematographer, VFX Artist, photographer, adventurer, martial artist
http://WinterLightStudios.ca
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Nuke/Houdini/Resolve
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Brad Hurley

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Re: Resolve and Dell XPS 15 -- fan noise?

PostThu Oct 04, 2018 4:11 pm

Rakesh Malik wrote:'Tis the tradeoff. If you want a quieter machine, get a bigger one or a wimpier one. Unless you figure out a way to alter the way that thermodynamics works ;)


Case in point: my i7 Microsoft Surface tablet (which of course is incapable of even running Resolve) kicks its loud fan into high gear when faced with such challenging tasks as running a web browser with two tabs open or checking email in Outlook.
Resolve 19 Studio, M2 MacBook Air with 24 gigs of RAM; also Mac Pro 3.0 GHz 8-core, 32 gigs RAM, dual AMD D700 GPU.

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