Acer Predator Helios 300 ph315-52 fan speed increase after thermal paste replacement

Arkanea
Arkanea Member Posts: 2 New User
edited May 2023 in Predator Laptops

Hi, I have a Predator Helios 300 ph315-52 and I had a technician replace my thermal paste and clean my fans. Temperature wise, my pc dropped around 15ºC when gaming, and 5ºC while idle, which seemed good. Before this, my laptop would idle at 52-53ºC, and now it's more around 46-49ºC. Depending on the game, high load went from 80-85ºC to 70ºC, which was really good.

However, my fans have started spinning way faster than before (higher rpm) for no reason. Before the laptop was cleaned, idle rpm was 1900 for CPU and a bit more for the GPU, at 53ºC. Now, when idle at 47ºC, the minimum rpm on the CPU fan is 2640, and GPU fan is 2940 rpm, which is a lot more noisy than before.

I tried updating BIOS, I tried updating nvidia drivers, I tried changing between Predator Sense versions to lower the speed, but it still constantly keeps going back to 2640rpm cpu and 2940rpm gpu when idle. I used to leave my laptop on during the night, now I can't deal with the noise at all. I used to swear by predator helios before and how it had great cooling for a laptop, but this has completely changed my views on this laptop because the noise while idle is unbearable, and the only software that can detect these fans (predator sense) doesn't allow you to reduce fan speed, only increase.

It seems to me that it used to consider 50ºC the "lowest temp" and would give it 1900 rpm on fans. But now because it got cleaned and reached lower temperatures (42-43º), it considers that the new "lowest temp" and assigns the 1900 rpm to it, and once the temp rises to 49-50, fan rpm rises too.

We tried finding solutions or a diagnostic, and we've read two different people say it's a battery related thing (one fixed it by letting the battery drain, and the other by disconnecting the battery for 5 minutes). While he was cleaning the laptop, he disconnected the battery. Could it have anything to do with this? At this point it seems so random it could be anything.

Has anyone fixed this issue or is this a lost cause?

[Edited the thread to add model name]

Answers

  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,737 Trailblazer
    edited May 2023
    https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/685489/acer-predator-helios-300-fan-speed-increase-after-thermal-paste-replacement

    Below are the temps and fan speeds that your PH315-52 should be running at, the idle speeds of your laptop should be running at, CPU at 45C and its fan speed should be at 2000rpm and the GPU at 37C fan speed should be at 2200rpm, so you can see that the GPU needs more fan rpm to cool it. Your laptop is operating fine, don't try to fix something that aint broke!

    The table below is your laptops OEM Acer listed speeds for temps to what fan rpms should be, a difference of 5% is normal:

    image.png

  • Arkanea
    Arkanea Member Posts: 2 New User
    https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1203098#Comment_1203098

    Hi, exactly, my CPU fan for example was working perfectly before, at 50ºC it was at around 1900-2000rpm. My GPU was around 2300-2400rpm, so maybe lower than it was supposed to.

    But right now, at 50ºC, my CPU fan is locked at 2680rpm, the equivalent of 61ºC, when it should be around 2000rpm. The only thing that was done was opening the laptop, removing the fans to clean them, and replacement of thermal paste. How can the CPU fan be behaving so differently now (800+rpm at the same temperature)?

    The biggest difference is that my CPU fan has some coil whine at higher loads (>2500rpm) which I would only hear while gaming, but now it's constant, because instead of idling at 1900, its idling at 2700.

  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,737 Trailblazer
    edited May 2023
    https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1203101#Comment_1203101

    Yes I understand that, if you hear coil whine (and you can put up with it for a while?) then leave your old fans like they are, but imo its best to replace your fans, as and especially if you hear coil whine the fans are on their way out and will need replacing very soon, and that is the reason why they spin faster as these fans are thermostatically governed and they need to maintain those temps above set by Acer for the CPU and GPU temps, and your fans cant do that and they need to spin faster, that is the reason for their increased rpm's.

    These are the Acer OEM CPU/GPU Fans for your PH315-52 and their part numbers and type to replace your existing fans with:

    image.png

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