Fan goes mental when I play MAME game, but quiet when paused??

[kvncooper]

Does anyone know why my PC fans would start turning over whenever I play a mame game, but stops when I pause? Is it a setting?

[RayB]

Yeah, you have it set to a power configuration where it alters the fan speed based on CPU usage (cpu usage = heat). You could disable this, but if you do I recommend keeping your fan at a higher setting than the low one, if you want to avoid frying your CPU.

[kvncooper]

Yeah, you have it set to a power configuration where it alters the fan speed based on CPU usage (cpu usage = heat). You could disable this, but if you do I recommend keeping your fan at a higher setting than the low one, if you want to avoid frying your CPU.

Thanks for this RayB.

Is there any chance you could instruct me on how I go about doing this? I'm using an old(ish) Compaq Pentium IV, 2.8Ghz, 1GB RAM.

Would really appreciate it. The noise is driving me insane.

[RayB]

It's usually a BIOS setting. You know when you boot your PC and it says "Press Del to enter Setup" ?? That. And if you don't know what you're doing, you can seriously F up the PC.

That's the best I can tell you. My current desktop PC has 3 fans and each one has a switch I can set to low/mid/high. If I set them all to low and then play a game like Crysis, the over-heat protection shuts down the PC. So guess what? That noise is not going to going away.

[kvncooper]

Also, the PC is in a cab. I just took the back off and the fan went quiet. But.... the pause thing - why did it stop when on pause. Surely its not just about me taking the back off the cab.

[severdhed]

when the game is paused, the processor is not being used as heavily, so it is not generating as much heat.  if it is really too loud, perhaps you could replace the fan with a larger one.  i had an old Athlon XP  PC that had a 60mm cpu cooling fan that was crazy loud.  i took it off and rigged up a way to mount an 80mm case fan onto the heat sink, this made a huge difference.  a larger fan can move more air, so therefore it doesn't need to spin as fast.  now i can barely hear it at all

[Dr Zero]

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=bph07110&dlc=en&lc=en&cc=us#N860

Here this might help explain the bios some.

There should be a fan speed control option I would not go lower than med as far as speed you dont want to smoke the chip.

[I/O]

......and here I thought you were talking about a person.....

[kvncooper]

......and here I thought you were talking about a person.....

  i like it