I have a number of Lenovo M70q G3 computers around our campus, including a few public computer banks.
These computers will frequently and repeatedly spin up their fans, even while sleeping. If the machines were placed in single offices that would be fine, because the noise would be less and generally no one there while they sleep. But when arranged in a bank of public stations like this the noise pollutes the space; the behavior is constant and annoying.
The video linked above is for a bank of just six machines. The fan noise pretty much never stops, but never evens out either; there’s always another fan about to spin up. Unfortunately, when I upload the video the service post-processing filters down the noise (it’s still audible, but barely; the original is much louder). In the video, every one of the machines has been asleep and idle for at least two hours. We also have a classroom downstairs from this location with 15 that is even worse, and few other locations around campus with 2 to 4. They all make noise.
I looked at all the sleep state settings I can find both in Windows and in the BIOS. But I also don’t want to kneecap performance by being overly aggressive with thermal management. The computers are all running Windows 11 24H2, and also recently updated to the latest firmware. But this was also an issue when they were newer and still ran Windows 10.
Note: the problem is NOT that the fans continue to run after the machine first goes to sleep. I would expect that. If a device is still warm the fan should continue to run until it becomes cool. But a machine that has been idle for a long time should stay cool and not need to spin up a fan at all. This, and the fact I’m already at the most recent bios, makes this question distinct from other similar requests.
How can I stop this? Or, at least, how can I make it so the fan noise evens out, perhaps spinning slower but longer?
