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Cooling fans on constantly while in editor

Discussion in 'Editor & General Support' started by NotQuiteSmith, Apr 9, 2020.

  1. NotQuiteSmith

    NotQuiteSmith

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    Oct 27, 2013
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    Using 2019.2.6f1 and my CPU/GPU fans are on constantly while using the editor. No games running, even tried switching tabs so that no "3D" views are displayed. Task manager shows "Very High" power usage and around 20% processor usage. This even happens while Unity is in background/minimized.

    Weird thing is, if I click any of the menus and just leave them open, all the fans stop instantly!

    Tried turning off "animated textures" in view but didn't do anything (saw this on another post).
     
  2. NotQuiteSmith

    NotQuiteSmith

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    Tried updating graphics driver and using "Profile editor". No joy.
     
  3. Foxwarrior

    Foxwarrior

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    I too have this problem. Thanks for the "leaving the menu open" trick.
     
  4. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    Fans are typically controlled based on temperature sensors. Fans ramp up because temperature is higher. Temperature is higher because the component being cooled is doing work. Often you'll have some control over this behavior in the BIOS or a tool provided by the motherboard manufacturer for the CPU and chassis fans, and from NVidia or AMD for setting fan curves for the GPU.

    Sometimes fans can prematurely ramp up because their underlying heat sinks are blocked with dust and need cleaning. This results in the fans being unable to cool properly, and having to spin up to maximum under a much lower workload than they would normally need to. Something to check. I typically blow out these heat sinks once a year with canned air.

    But regardless, the editor is constantly updating both the scene view and the game view similar to the rendering which happens in a regular game, even when not in play mode (or you wouldn't see anything in those windows). So it is doing work. If that work is enough on your hardware to cause temperatures to increase to whatever threshold your computer is configured to trigger increasing fan speeds, then fan speeds will increase. It is really just as simple as that.

    You can use the profiler to investigate what work the editor is actually doing if you're interested.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2020
  5. Foxwarrior

    Foxwarrior

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    To be clear, I'm using 2019.2.9f1, and the CPU is still at 11-15% when the program's minimized, I'm in a scene that just has a few UI panels, and I've closed the Scene and Game tabs entirely. I figured it was indeed just a major drawback of the "the game is always running even when the play button isn't pressed" basic design of Unity, but I've heard that apparently some people can get 0.5% when minimized even without the great "leaving a file open dialog open" trick.
     
  6. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    But percentage of CPU use is a meaningless metric. There's a certain amount of work that Unity is going to do. If you've got a several year old dual core i7 like my laptop has it is going to be a much higher percentage of CPU usage reported than a new 16 core Ryzen 3950. What would be 20% for the dual core will report as about 1.5% on the Ryzen, and if you picked up the new 64 core Threadripper around 0.3%., for the exact same amount of processing getting done, and the dual core will probably kick the fans up while the others won't need to.

    So you're looking entirely at the wrong things here. What you're saying doesn't mean anything without context, so no idea if you're even having a real issue or not besides that you don't like the noise.
     
  7. DroidifyDevs

    DroidifyDevs

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    You're literally making games, and fans are regulated by temperature of CPU/GPU, so I would expect them to turn on and I wouldn't characterize it as a "major drawback". You're doing stuff that's intensive, that heats your device, and it needs to cool down with fans. Why the fans turns on is totally dependent on how powerful your hardware is, what's the fan curve, and how good the cooling design is.

    I'm stuck with an i5 Macbook Pro right now (forced by university) and it gets so hot with maximum fans you could probably get skin burns from it. Unity is made to perform smoothly and quickly, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's always rendering stuff in the background. I think the main question here is, should Unity still be rendering stuff even with scene and game view tabs closed? It seems like it is and I don't mind - you aren't going to make a game without them anyways so I don't think the devs thought too much about how turning them off should lower CPU usage...
     
    Joe-Censored likes this.
  8. Foxwarrior

    Foxwarrior

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    It's a "major drawback" compared to game maker studio, which I could comfortably have running in the background at all times of day and night with no performance hit to anything else I do. And it's a "major drawback" compared to using Unity but remembering to open that load file dialog before switching to look at some other program :p.

    Sorry I missed your "profile the editor" suggestion earlier, I took a peek at it now:
    Unless I'm looking at the wrong part, it seems like the profiler isn't looking at whatever the problem must be. Most of the frames take much less than 1 ms.
     
  9. MartinTilo

    MartinTilo

    Unity Technologies

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    That's actually exactly the problem. The editor is running at >1000fps without taking any breathers (waiting for a bit) that's a bit excessive, especially if game and scene view aren't shown. You can set the interaction mode in the preference to bring this down to more sane levels but please also file a bug report that burning through frames this fast outside of playtesting is excessive.
     
    AlfieBooth likes this.
  10. MartinTilo

    MartinTilo

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    Also try to go to Edit>Preferences>General>Interaction Mode and set that to something that's a NOT "No Throttling" and see if any of these options help.
     
  11. nsmith1024

    nsmith1024

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    Mar 18, 2014
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    Im having the same problem Unity 2020.3.25 , as soon as i start unity, even with a blank scene and nothing else running, the CPU fan starts going like a jet engine as if it wants to take off like SpaceX.

    Having the fan on constantly is really annoying, hard to think straight.

    I tried changing the interaction setting to 2 and 2 but still the same result.

    Any other ideas?
     
  12. bart_the_13th

    bart_the_13th

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    If your laptop has dual GPU, try running unity using integrated/weaker GPU
     
  13. nsmith1024

    nsmith1024

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    Mar 18, 2014
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    Anybody still has this problem, the fan is constantly going when unity is open,even if its doing nothing, is hard to concentrate and write code when the fan is on all the time. Its extremely annoying, to the point of me wanting to throw the damm computer outside for real. Is unity mining bit coin or something? i mean what the hell, no other program does that. Do they want us to pay to turn off the fan? whats the deal???

    Im using Unity 2021.2.17f1
     
  14. MartinTilo

    MartinTilo

    Unity Technologies

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    Cross posting my reply in the other thread:

     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2022
  15. WARW0LF

    WARW0LF

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    Oct 1, 2016
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    it's the interaction mode in preferences > general, default is either broken or it runs at max fps possible, i set it to monitor refresh rate and the fans have gone silent
     
  16. Tyavel

    Tyavel

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    Nov 27, 2020
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    1
    I use the Fan Control program, in which I set fan curves, in which I indicated that the fans should work at 30 percent until the CPU temperature reaches 70 (i have tried even 100 with unity) degrees. Unity doesn't seem to care about the system settings and some kind of fan controller is installed there. Then I went in bios and set up the same curves. Nothing has changed anyway. Also, delays are indicated everywhere so that random temperature spikes do not turn on the cooler to full, but unity works according to its own logic. How to fix that? I just installed 2022.2.9 (latest version), it still didn't help. I set the interaction mode to Monitor refresh rate. It didn't help. Unity > Linpack stresstest. I have no complaints about the sound, but it will kill the fans like that. Sometimes you turn on the play mod for a second, remember that you forgot to add a button, turn it off, turn it on again, remember something else, etc. And so I have a fans with a pump that will accelerate to 100 percent every 30 seconds

    UPD: I found the only solution. File -> Build Settings and switch platform to Windows, Mac, Linux. Then go to Edit-> Project Settings -> Quality -> VSync count -> Every V bank. Why Unity ignores all the fans settings is still a mystery to me. And did I encounter problems making a game on android using Windows in the project settings?

    UPD2: I found out that the fanof the power supply starts spinning. I also figured out that you can fix everything without switching the build platform, just with a script where there will be a line at the start:
    Application.targetFrameRate = 60;
     
    Last edited: Mar 25, 2023