How to Fix Loud Laptop Fan Making Noise
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How many times were you annoyed by a noisy laptop fan?
If you’ve ever asked yourself, why is my laptop fan making noise – this is the right post for you!
Have you ever heard your laptop all of a sudden go unbearably loud? Well, this can occur to anyone, no matter how old your machine is.
There can be a lot of reasons causing this problem such as a CPU fan kicking off, but in most of the cases they are all easily solvable and will not take much effort to deal with.
Of course, there are cases when the noise can’t be handled due to the laptop’s age. Some internal components simply get loose and worn out creating a buzzing noise.
Either you can change them, or buy a new laptop.
But you better learn how to solve the problem of a noisy laptop fan since you might easily experience a new laptop making fan noise.
However, before tossing your old laptop to the trash, there are some things that you might try in order to reduce the noise of its fan.
If you’re really sure your laptop fan makes noise, this post might help you out big time.
Nevertheless, you can use these tactics as well to improve your brand new laptop and decrease the hot air inside which may cause the potential noise.
Let’s check out some of the most effective ways of dealing with the annoying loud noise caused by a number of laptop fan issues.
Why Is My Laptop Fan Loud?
Let's first look at the most common reasons for a loud laptop fan.
- Bloat Software
- Blocked Vents
- Hard Disk Problems
- Malware and Spyware
- Old Software Drivers
6 Solutions to Fixing Loud Laptop Fan
What You'll Be Needing:
1. Get rid of that dust
The most common problem of any laptop noises is dust.
Since laptops are more complex than PCs, most of the people don’t want to bother opening it and cleaning its cooler.
The dust accumulation can damage your laptop in several ways. The most common one is obstruction of the fan blades and reduced airflow.
As you may assume, this obstruction leads to louder spinning and thereby increased noise. This is when your laptop may start overheating.
Since the processor is the heart of any laptop, you should have a routine of cleaning its cooler. The dust accumulation can affect it in degrading ways.
Basically, you will need to blow out the dust every now and then (approximately once a year) in order to keep it working properly.
The only thing that you will need in order to do this is a small screwdriver.
7 Easy Steps To Blow Out The Laptop Dust Properly
- Turn your laptop off and plug it out the electricity
- Flip it to the backside
- Remove its battery
- On the outer edge find the air vent
- Unscrew that panel and open it up
- Now, you can see the fan underneath it
- The only thing that you need to do now is to blow out the dust. Preferably, you should do it outside because there is a lot of dust accumulated. Use another fan (for example, for your hair) to blow it even more effectively.
Be careful not to open the laptop that is under warranty. Opening it will most likely result in voiding the warranty.
Therefore, if it’s under warranty, you can take it to the professional and let it fix it instead of you. Because, even if your laptop is new, you could be still facing a noisy fan issue.
After blowing out the dust, you will be able to proceed working normally on your laptop without losing your sanity because of noisy fans.
Not only that you will benefit from having your laptop quieter, but you will benefit from it being a bit faster as well, with a lot less pressure and temperature involved.
2. Seek and Destroy Malware
Malware infection is quite common and an annoying thing for a laptop computer. Especially if you don’t have proper antivirus software.
As you may already know, malware is a virus that slows down most laptops and desktop computers alike. Even a newer laptop can get infected.
With that said, it will not only slow it down but raise its temperature as your laptop will try to follow your commands unsuccessfully.
Furthermore, more effort will cause your laptop to be much louder for even the simplest processes while making the fans spin faster due to extra heat buildup.
So, if you still don’t have your anti-virus program, I would gladly suggest you get one.
There are a lot of free anti-viruses, and each one of them has the updated “premium” version for even better protection and additional power settings.
However, there is a simple procedure that can show the presence of viruses in your laptop.
Just open the process tab in your task manager (mac users) and if you see some strange letters, chaotic order, or strange processes that will most likely mean that your laptop is full of viruses.
If you are using Windows, you can edit the startup folder.
Again, if you find the strange process, google its name and see what you’ll get. When your computer boots many applications get loaded and remain active as background processes for extended periods of time.
If you manage to find reliable information about the unknown process, most like its legitimate. Otherwise, it’s probably malware and needs to be taken care of.
Of course, most of the viruses are hidden very well and working in incognito mode so you won’t be able to notice them this easily.
Once you deal with viruses, your laptop will much easier run the applications and processes and hence, reduce the effort along with the noise that your laptop produces.
3. Close some processes
For the majority of the working people, it’s not strange to have a lot of software running in the background. This includes tabs, and programs that they are not using.
All the programs opened in the background use up a certain part of your processor and RAM memory as well.
Although they are in the background, these running programs still need a lot of horsepower to run smoothly.
A lot of processes might lead to some unwanted overheating and laptop fan noise that can make your blood boil.
Most of the times, these processes won’t be your fault. If you open your task manager, you will notice that there are a bunch of Google Chrome processes.
This is somewhat annoying and can slow down your laptop by a lot.
With slowing it down, there is a side effect- the noise. There is a solution to this problem.
If you don't want Chrome to open a new process for every single tab, it’s possible to set the browser to create only a single process for multiple tabs all browsing the same site.
How To Turn Off New Processes In Chrome
To change the setting, right-click the Google Chrome icon in your "Start" menu and select "Properties."
Click the "Target" text box and scroll to the end of the line. Insert the phrase "--process-per-site" after the end of the text currently in the box and click "Apply."
This should fix those annoying Google Chrome processes. However, there is a whole other side.
An enormous amount of processes might be your fault as well.
For example, playing games and listening to Youtube songs with several tabs open might slow it down and make your processor work at 100% capacity with maximum fan speed.
In this situation, it’s natural that your laptop will turn into a box of loud noises.
You can manage your processes anytime you want. Simply open the Task Manager and go to the process tab. Remove those processes that you don’t need anymore.
However, if your laptop is making grinding noise – software might not be able to resolve this issue and you’d have a look at the next couple of steps to find the solution.
And if this doesn’t help, you’re most likely having physical problems with your fan.
Therefore, you’ll have to look up your laptop’s model to find out how to fix or replace your fan.
4. Use an additional cooler
Laptop overheating? One of the best ways to cool your laptop and prevent overheating is to buy an additional cooler, specifically designed for this purpose.
If there is more noise than usual coming from your machine, a laptop cooler can be a godsend. An overheating laptop is no fun to work with.
In order to make this work, you will need to place it underneath your laptop. With a few additional fans, your laptop performance is guaranteed to improve.
Most laptop coolers come in different sizes to accommodate different designs. Not only can they drastically lower the overall temperature of your laptop but they also allow for better air circulation.
This is possible thanks to the elevated cooling pad that creates more space for fan vents so that your laptop fan can run smoothly.
Simply put, the cooler is an absolute must for those working with highly complex programs.
This is a great thing to have, especially in your bed. It will cool your legs as well, you know. Needless to say, you will hear no buzzing or vibrations coming from your laptop.
5. Lift up your Laptop from the surface
There is a cheaper variant of the previous method. If you don’t want to invest in coolers, you can simply elevate your laptop from a flat surface.
Since the cooling fans are positioned at the bottom, it’s quite a smart thing to leave a bit more space underneath your laptop.
That way, the fan will blow much more air through it and keep it simple to cool your laptop. Noise will be reduced and everyone will be happy.
As an elevation tool, you can use almost everything. Of course, this works as long as it doesn’t cover the fans that you want to lift from the primary surface.
It’s the cheapest trick for your laptop, and it can increase the productivity of your processor by a lot.
6. Use a mixture of methods
Finally, you can always use multiple methods and try to improve the performance of your laptop further.
For example, cleaning it from viruses, turning off some processes, and putting a cooler underneath you can decrease laptop fan noise significantly.
When I say “cut the noise”, it’s not only about the noise. First, you should take care of your laptop’s health.
All of the aforementioned things will not only make it louder but slow it and potentially bring some serious problems.
After all, you would want to do everything to make that buzzing noise from your laptop go away, right?
On Your Laptop Fan Making Noise...
In the light of everything we previously mentioned, we learned a lot about laptop fans.
I tried to give you some of the easiest solutions, and some preventive measures for keeping your laptop at a top-notch form.
Whether your laptop was making a whirring noise or any type of noise when you turned it on – the number one component to suspect is the fan.
Hopefully, this article made your life a bit easier and your laptop a bit quieter.
And if your fan is still making noise – we recommend you to have a look at the steps again and even try to re-do them.
You might also like:
- Best Quiet Keyboards for a Quieter Workspace
- How to Soundproof Office Cubicle and Block Out Noise at Work
- How to Soundproof a Home Office
How to Fix Loud Laptop Fan Making Noise
Is your laptop fan making noise? Is it getting too loud and annoys you? Here's how to fix loud laptop fans. It's easier than you think! Read to learn how.
Instructions
- Get Rid Of That Dust
- Seek and Destroy Malware
- Close Some Processes
- Use An Additional Cooler
- Lift Up Your Laptop From The Surface
- Use A Mixture Of Methods