How to fix the erratic fan noise on the Thermalright PA120 V3?
This cooler sounded like a miniature helicopter taking off inside my case; every time a new scene loaded, the fans would just scream, nearly blowing my eardrums out. I joked that it was trying to fly me back to the island. I first tried capping the fans at 1100 RPM, but the CPU temp shot up to 95℃ almost instantly and the game started chugging—a total suicide mission for noise reduction. I then dug into the BIOS fan step settings and increased the temperature response hysteresis from 0.1s to 2.5s, while smoothing out the curve between 60℃ - 85℃. Using a decibel meter, the peak noise dropped from 52dB to 38dB, and that annoying 'revving' sound finally died. I actually accidentally triggered 'Full Speed' mode during the tweak and nearly jumped out of my skin from the roar. CPU temps now hover between 74℃ - 80℃ with zero performance loss. Exported the fan-temp logs and the scheduling is finally optimized.
