Am I on track for a fast but quiet laptop?

Thriller Writer

New member
Hi Everyone

This is my first post here. I want to replace my six-year-old Sony i7 Windows 7 laptop with a fast new model, and I want it to be as QUIET as possible. My Sony has given me good service, but its fan now races at the least provocation – even with graphics-heavy web pages such as Radio Times. It drives me mad, and also make me worry that the fan is running itself into the ground. It also races when I run Microsoft Access, and something that puzzles me is that it races as soon as I launch the application. In other words, it seems to race at the expectation of running hot, not because it actually is hot. Or maybe it's just ultra-responsive.

I don’t do any gaming. My key requirement is to run various business applications at the same time under Windows 10 – e.g. Word, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Filezilla, Acrobat, Skype, maybe Access (many of these with multiple open documents), plus multiple tabs in a web browser. Oh, and with Apache web server running in the background. I might also want to run a virtualised instance of an older Windows version alongside all this in order to run ancient software.

When I look at the above, it seems a lot! But it's fair to say that my Sony handles it all pretty well, though there's low-level fan noise most of the time, and it rises to a roar with Access or demanding web pages.

I emailed my requirements to PCS, and had a very helpful response that included a sample spec based on a Defiance V RTX 17 (thanks for that - much appreciated). The full spec includes an i7 9750H processor, 32GB of SODIMM, solid-state hard drives, and an RTX 2060 6GB graphics card. My question is: with my typical work load, how quietly would this run in the real world?

Something that concerns me is that the Defiance is described as “ultra-thin”, yet many experts seem to say that compact laptop cases are likely to become hotter than those with more internal space for air circulation, and therefore will often be noisier. So would a different PCS model with similar features be more appropriate than the Defiance RTX?

I hasten to add that I'm not doubting the PCS advice - just looking for clarification or anecdotal experience on the noise issue. Thanks for any suggestions or comments.
 
Considering you feel your Sony is still up to the task, have you ever cleaned out your machine with some compressed air? A tenner on a few tins of compressed air could save you £1500? Just a thought.

Conversely, the ultra-thin ("MaxQ" style chassis) laptops are the most power conservant. You'll also find that the RTX 2060 is only a whisker shy off of the pace of the RTX 2070 MaxQ, so you won't be sacrificing much, if any, performance with that GPU - and saving yourself a few hundred quid into the bargain.

Modern laptops can run as quietly as you wish; as long as you don't mind sacrificing raw performance. They normally come with some form of "control centre", where you can create your own fan/performance profiles. However, there will already be few profiles - "Quiet", "Max", "Off", "Auto" for example. Sony may have its own software suite, or there may be third party software fan controllers you can use [give it a Google]. Even within Windows you can have "Passive" cooling:
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Control Centre on my MSI:
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Clevo Control Centre:
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Thriller Writer

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Thanks to TheNameIsJamb - your advice on quietening my existing Sony makes very good sense, and I appreciate the detail you've included to explain your point. I certainly haven't given up on the Sony, but I want to upgrade to a new laptop get the benefit of solid-state disks, much more RAM, and of course better performance. And I need to experience Windows 10 so that I see what my customers see! I feel I'm rather living in the past. Your points about power management of course should presumably also be relevant to the replacement laptop once I do take the plunge. If I'm reading you right, the suggested Defiance V should indeed run pretty quietly under my typical work load. Is that the bottom line?
 
Solid state drives are indeed a God send, especially for virtual machines. The speed difference is unbelievable. My current laptop has a 256GB (237GB) M.2 OS drive and a 1TB (893GB) data drive. I reckon I'll be using one, or both, in my new laptop to accompany the 512GB OS drive.

All high-performance laptops will be noisy - in-fact, all laptops that have fans can be noisy. But you can control how much noise it will make by adjusting your settings; at the cost of performance.
 
I'm no expert on the subject matter of SSDs, but those M.2 drives normally hit around 1500MB/s read / 750MB/s write. SSDs are normally around 500MB/s read/write.

The first time you copy a file from SSD to SSD you really have to listen to K-Log's Danger Zone and make jet engine noises.
 
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