Acer Aspire V3-571G Fan Speed Is Capped Below 100%

wflores624

Hello,

I have an old Acer Aspire V3-571G-9435 laptop that I bought back in 2012. About a year or two ago it began to have performance issues, which were apparently caused by the processor clocking-down overheating. I believe that something is wrong with the system fan controls, as it does not run proportionally to temperature properly. The fan speed is inconsistent, in some cases I have seen the fan speed actually decrease with increasing temperature, but most critically it will never go above a certain speed threshold. I cannot pinpoint exactly when this began happening because I switched to a desktop PC as my main a few years ago, and only seldomly used this one until recently. Here are some things that I have tried:

• Downgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 7, which is what the computer shipped with. The issue seemed to start around the time that I took the free upgrade, but downgrading did not change anything.
• Updating/downgrading BIOS. I tried updating to the latest BIOS version from the support website, as well as downgrading to every previous revision that was available. This did not make a difference.
• Adjusting power and cooling policy. CPU is at 100% and it is on "Active" cooling on battery and when plugged in.
• Various 3rd-party fan control programs (SpeedFan and Notebook FanControl), but I was never able to configure them properly.

I have noted is that when the computer is first turned on, the fan seems to run at whatever speed it should be running at based on temperature for the first couple of seconds before the Windows logo appears, but then immediately reduces its speed after it continues load. I take this to mean that the problem is not necessarily with the fan itself, but I do wonder if the fan itself is still somehow causing the problem. I am leaving its replacement as a "last resort."

I have searched around for this issue quite a bit but have not been able to find anything similar. If anybody has any thoughts or similar experiences to share it would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

JackE

Did you try to upgrade back to Win7 from the original hidden ACER Win7 recovery partition if Win10 didn't wipe it out? Jack E/NJ

wflores624

Thanks for responding! I didn’t think that it had come with a recovery partition, but regardless I switched the original hard drive for an SSD a couple of years ago and reformatted the old one. However, when I got the SSD I started with a fresh install of windows 7 (this was before 10 was released) using what I believe was the same ISO as the reversion and it worked fine at that time. 

JackE

>>>when the computer is first turned on, the fan seems to run at whatever speed it should be running at based on temperature for the first couple of seconds before the Windows logo appears, but then immediately reduces its speed after it continues load.>>>I believe was the same ISO as the reversion>>>

If you're pretty sure it was the same Win7 iso,  the CPU temperature sensor, not the fan may be the issue. Likely clogged with dust bunnies or perhaps heatsink needs re-pasting to the CPU. If you haven't done so already, I suggest first trying to alternately vacuum the air intake port and blow air thru the air exhaust port a few times to try to chase them out. If that doesn't work, then it may require disassembly for a closer inspection of the fan, heatsink and cpu. Jack E/NJ

wflores624

I'll try giving it a thorough cleaning from the outside as you suggest, but I should also note that temperature-monitoring programs do give reasonable data. Both the GPU and CPU sensors read in the 90s C when it is really hot.

JackE

>>>I have noted is that when the computer is first turned on, the fan seems to run at whatever speed it should be running at based on temperature>>>

Do you recall if this seemed like the highest speed it ever ran when it was running OK. If definitely yes, this is a POST indicating the fan is OK. If definitely no, then the fan would be suspect. If you're not sure, then try the outside cleaning first. Then we'll go from there and take a closer look inside if it doesn't work. Jack E/NJ

wflores624

Yes, it seemed like the highest speed.

JackE

Fan's probably OK then. If it really gets 95*C, then CPU throttling should also happen. Jack E/NJ

wflores624

I use MSI Afterburner to track these data during games. I haven't pinpointed the exact thresholds, but I can see the CPU clock go from 3000 MHz to around 1200 or lower, and the GPU clock from 700 MHz to around 300 after it heats up.

JackE

Yep. CPU sez it's getting to hot in here. Jack E/NJ

wflores624

So it looks like there isn't much more to explore on the software side?

JackE

Probably not. Before pulling things apart for a closer look, you can also try keeping the laptop on a hard level surface, may raised a bit if possible, to facilitate air circulation. Jack E/NJ

wflores624

Yeah that’s usually how I run it. I have it hanging over the sidebar as well, as pretty much all of the heat generation is on the left side.

Kind of bummed that there wasn’t something obvious that I missed, but thanks so much for your help on this!

StevenGen

Firstly, I run my V3-571G on Windows 10 Pro 64bit and by doing the below modifications the laptop runs at and between 55c to 65c and in gaming (using the NVIDIA GeForce GT 740M) it never goes above 85c. But and yes, this is a common fault with the Acer Aspire V3-571G's, the single cooling fan is not adequate to cool both the CPU and GPU in the V3-571G 'what were Acer thinking'? Also, there are not enough vents in the bottom case of the V3 to seriously cool this laptop, very poor design! I had the same problem with the i7-3610QM (which runs very sizzling BBQ hot, you could probably fry an egg or boil anything on this CPU lol) as a matter of a fact, it got that hot that it just turned my system off, this was due to the CPU reaching 105c which is the limit of the i7-3610QM and the system turns off automatically. 

Btw, I've solved all these heat issues and my suggestion to all that have an Acer Aspire V3-571G is to firstly, clean the CPU fan, repaste the CPU and GPU with the 'Grizzly Kryonaut High Performance Thermal Paste' which is a very high heat dissipating CPU and GPU paste and the best around. Then and also drill extra holes (use a 1.5mm to 2mm drill bit) in the bottom case where the CPU round vent is (which is ridiculously small as a vent hole) and also drill holes (in a circular pattern, about 30 holes to make a circular hole vent) in the bottom case where the Motherboard and GPU mounts to the bottom case, this will eliminate and dissipate allot of the heat. 

I'm also running the Acer Aspire V3-571G on a gaming laptop cooler for extra cooling, you can also use a 'Vacuum Fan', there are loads of these (in various price ranges) so you have allot of choices and they work really well. I use a 'Cooler Master NotePal X3 $47.99' which is not cheap but it works excellently. 

Also and another thing that I've experienced (whenever I'm playing demanding GPU games) is to take the battery out of the  Acer Aspire V3-571G and run the laptop directly from the power plug, as it gives the laptop more ventilation (where the battery is located) and what I've found, is that the Acer Aspire V3-571G runs at least 30c cooler by doing this, 

Also, use ThrottleStop v8.70 to regulate and disable 'Turbo Boost' which also helps CPU tems, plus, ThrottleStop v8.70 also allows you to reduce the CPU's 'Set Multiplier' which also reduces some of the heat off the CPU.