nuc8i3beh. Fan off capability/Fan off temperature

[User1580570747988874]

Hi,

There are two settings in NUC's UEFI cooling section:

1 - "Fan off capability"

2 - "Fan off temperature"

Do i understand correctly - if 1st is enabled, 2nd is set to some temperature treshold, then FAN should not spin up until that threshold is actually reached?

Why it spins then :(..

[LeonWaksman]

On the image attached I can see that the Chipset (PCH) Temperature is 45 Deg C.

Leon

[User1580570747988874]

Yes, but sensors are set to Processor & Memory.

Why it should care about PCH temp then ?

[DKoma3]

There is not shown cpu temperature in BIOS, no?

VR is voltage regulator.

I reccon not to use fan off, still beter when there is at least some air movement.

Anyway in custom fan mode, regulation does not work well, as soon as u hit 71C it start to blow on 3370 rpm and you can not change it! Also it has too long reaction time.

And with all other modes (cool, quiet,balance) there is minimum 35% which is too much for me - lot of noise. So basically this product can not be setup with effective cooling.

I guess developers of this bios should fix custom mode - this is rediculous. I would bet it is a safety feature when custom mode is wrongly setup.

[User1580570747988874]

Ohh, right. I was sure VR is CPU temperature, as there is no other what would look like a CPUs. Thanks for info !

Ok, then that makes sense, since it is not clear what CPU temperature actually is. It is ridiculous what it is not show in UEFI :(.

[LeonWaksman]

1. If you want quiet NUC, I suggest to try the following settings:
2. Set: Fan Control Mode to Custom, Primary Temperature Sensor to Processor, Fan Off Capability - uncheck/disabled, Minimum Temperature to 85, Minimum Duty Cycle to 40, Duty Cycle Increment to 6, Secondary Temperature Sensor to CPU Voltage Regulator, Minimum Temperature to 60, Minimum Duty Cycle to 40, Duty Cycle Increment to 6.
3. You may want also to disable Turbo Bust Technology in the Performance tab. This will decrease the fan fluctuation as result of CPU frequency change with very minor effect on performance.
4. Press F10 confirmed by "Y" to save settings and exit from bios.

Leon

[DKoma3]

Hello Leon

1.Minimum cycle duty 40% is not quiet NUC. It is even more than defaults setting.

2. Why you choosing secobd sensor VR?

3.And now the funny part - as soon as you change to Custom fan mode - rpm regulation not working properly - it is not raising rpm and then suddenly it goes 3370 rpm (never goes over this - it is ~66%)

So I can not use predefined as 35% is too much for idle and when you have nuc next to monitor, fan noise is quite loud.

And when I setup 25% under custom mode, it goes often suddenly to 3370rpm - which is wrong (happening when slicing 3d model for printing for example).

So basically you can not use either one. I dont get it, how come after so many bios releases, developing engineeres didnt noticed this bug.

Try it Leon, install hwinfo64, and check rpm regulation, on custom and on balanced.

Regards

[LeonWaksman]

Hello @DKoma3​ 

1. " Minimum cycle duty 40% is not quiet NUC. " you think so, or did you tried it? Those settings are used in NUC8i7INH I have (I don't have BE). With those settings the Blower is noiseless (the NUC is located on my desk 40 cm from my ears).
2. " Why you choosing second sensor VR?" because in my NUC I've choice of VR or PCH sensor. I think that the first is more sensitive. Usually I chose Memory as a secondary sensor.
3. I chose 40% as a minimum blower speed, because it is still quiet in my NUC. So, the blower rotate on this speed, until processor temperature exceeds 85 Deg C (in normal operation, the temperature fluctuates up to 80 Deg C). Ones the 85 Deg is exceeded, for every Deg of temperatura rise, the speed is increased by 6%, therefore, while temperature reaches 95 Deg C (10 Deg above 85 Deg), the fan reaches 100% speed.
4. In other NUC - NUC7i7DNHE , I'm using other custom settings 80 Deg C, 30 %, 4 %/Deg and 60 Deg C, 30 %, 4 %/Deg. In addition, on this NUC, in order to keep it quiet, I've disabled the Intel Turbo Boost.

Regards

Leon

[User1580570747988874]

On nuc8i3beh disabling Intel Turbo Boost feels sluggish.

Interesting, in UEFI i have these sensors available:

Primary Sensor : Processor OR PCH ---> Only these 2 are available here.

Secondary Sensor: Memory OR MotherBoard ---> again only these 2.

A bit strange to have a system which displays temperature values for VR but not for CPU. And at the same time for primary sensor selection it allows to choose CPU but not VR. All this on the same settings screen btw :)

[DKoma3]

Hello Leon.

Maybe your NUC has different mapping duty cycle to rpm (larger fan in your Nuc?). With mine 35% is 2200 rpm - too much.

Can you check what rpm u have with 40% setting? Be carefull in bios fan lives its own life, sometimes it goes to 2200 rpm, sometimes to your minimum duty cycle.

Strange you dont have memory temperature as secondary sensor. (did Intel used cheap dimms with no temperature sensor?)

I understand the formula, how should be duty cycle evaluated, but looks like developers does not. :)) Rediculous to put it on market without testing. This is not a chinese fake (hence it is manufactured in china).

Do not advice to people to disable Turbo Boost. It is the feature, why these icore cpus looks fast. There is time window defined (by default 64s) over which it is running on high frequency and higher power consumption (mine 50W vs 30W, of course you can not hit 100C, then temperature throttle kick in) and this is taking high utilization spikes.

With turbo boost off, you can get half of power of your cpu/gpu (especially with cpus with low base frequency). Mine is 2.3 vs 3.4Ghz and getting cpu mark 800 vs 1200.

If your computer is running 24h in some simulation or rendering, then turbo boost does not have any positive advantage.

Regards

[DKoma3]

Hello mate.

Do not disable turbo boost, it speed up your computer during usuall work.

And you right, it is rediculous that developers dont show cpu temp in bios. Nice that they showing VR and PCH, which user even doesnt know what it means.

Also was curious why I can not choose anything as secondary sensor. And also missing setting: secondary off. Nothing complicated to implement in bios.

Looks to me, bios developement was outsourced to india. :) Recently, company I am working for outsorcing all to india including software developement. And have same experience, that tools dont have logic, usually it does not work as was intended and the worst is they putting tools into production without testing. Then you can imagine how end user strugling with these tools.