Can you suggest a silent laptop? I've just got a QuietPC, which is very nice, but someone I know needs a totally silent laptop. It needs to be Windows/Office capable (so no Chromebooks) but not particularly powerful – no heavy games etc. I'm guessing an SSD HD with low-spec CPU would do it, perhaps with a laptop cooler tray? Julian
QuietPC, which is based near York, has launched an Apache Pro high-performance quiet laptop, but you're thinking along the right lines. The main sources of noise in most laptops are cooling fans and hard drives. Any laptop that has a cool-running processor and a solid-state drive (SSD) – made of memory chips instead of rotating platters – is probably quiet enough for most practical purposes.
In fact, the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 that I have on loan at the moment seems to me to be silent when used for normal word processing and web browsing. That is to say, any sounds it makes don't rise above the background noise created by fridges, boilers, radios, passing traffic, people breathing, and so on. It would be nice if manufacturers measured laptop noise in decibels in anechoic chambers and listed that in the specification, but they don't, and I don't expect them to start soon.
Noise was more of a problem in previous decades when both laptops and microprocessors were designed to deliver maximum performance. Fast chips run hot, and hot chips need fast cooling fans. Nowadays, Intel focuses on performance per watt, which means newer chips don't run a lot faster, but they run cooler, consume less power, and generate less heat (some of which is silently carried away by heat pipes). This enables PC and tablet manufacturers to use these chips in slimmer cases – which are fashionable, for some reason – and get longer battery life. The performance of ultrathin laptops may be noticeably worse than thicker ones, and very much worse than a decent desktop PC, but users rarely seem to notice or care.
Hot chips
Intel publishes a "thermal design power " (TDP) number for all its processors, which tells the PC manufacturers how much heat they need to shift when they're running. A more recent idea is "scenario design power" (SDP), which means running a chip with a lower TDP than it was designed for. For example, an Intel Y-series processor with a TDP of 13W in a laptop has an SDP of 7W in a tablet. This recognises what some PC manufacturers have done for a while, which is to throttle the processor's performance rather than increase the amount of cooling.
Notebookcheck has a big table, Comparison of Mobile Processors (CPU Benchmarks) , which provides a quick way to compare the TDP ratings of different processors. The top spot for performance is occupied by the Intel Core i7-4960X, which has a TDP of 130W. The Intel Core i7-4600U is in 93rd place, which is spectacular for a chip with a TDP of only 15W. Much lower down are the Intel Pentium J and Celeron N series chips (N2910 etc) that run at 8W or even 6W, but these are based on the "Bay Trail" Atom design not the Core iX design used previously. In fact, a Bay Trail Atom like the Z3740, which is 400th on the list, might be a good choice for a silent laptop. The next-generation Cherry Trail – due in September – and Willow Trail versions should be even better.
Some gamers like to "overclock" their PC processors – run them at higher speeds – which generates more heat. The opposite idea is to throttle the processor to limit the amount of power used and increase battery life. This should also reduce fan noise. Some laptops have a power-saving mode that you can set in the BIOS chip before starting Windows. In some Dell laptops, for example, you can select Acoustic Mode and then Quiet Mode from the options menu.
All Windows laptops also offer a choice of power settings, available from the battery icon in the Task Bar's notification area (bottom right) or via the Control Panel. Choosing a power-saving mode will slow the processor, reducing the heat generated and therefore the fan noise. For even finer control, you can run ThrottleStop software designed for use with Intel Core processors.
ThrottleStop was created so that users could find out if their laptop manufacturer was throttling the processor, and if so, speed it up. The current version enables users to "undervolt" the processor and therefore – again – reduce power, heat and noise. The only drawback is that you are deliberately reducing your PC's performance, though not having tried ThrottleStop myself, I'm not sure if it will have much effect. Modern processors have built-in sleep modes that turn off most of the chip most of the time. At gigahertz frequencies (a billion cycles per second), the time between keystrokes must feel like an eternity.
Coolers
As you know, the way you use a laptop can make a big difference. It's a very bad idea to use one on something soft, such as a bed or carpet, as this could block ventilation holes. Worse, fibres get sucked in and eventually clog the fan. It's also a bad idea to use a laptop on your lap, for the same reasons, and because it's bad for your neck and upper spine. Desks are good, but a laptop riser or cooler tray may be even better. These allow more air to circulate around the laptop, which helps dissipate heat.
Some laptop coolers, such as the Zalman ZM-NC3 Ultra Quiet Cooler, have built-tin fans, but I suspect even a quiet fan will make more noise than a laptop that uses the latest chips, heat-pipes and SSDs. There are also passive cooling pads that use gels or crystals to absorb heat. Examples include the Targus Heat Defence Panel and theLaptop/Notebook Gel Cooling Pad .
How can you tell whether these things make a difference? The simple answer is to run CPUID's small, free hardware monitor, HWMonitor. This will tell you things like fan speeds, voltage levels, and chip temperatures. It will even give temperatures for the different cores in a multicore processor such as the Core i5-2500 in my desktop PC.
Laptop options
The Asus Transformer Book T100 must be worth a look because, although plastic, it's terrific value for money. It's a Windows 8 hybrid where you can detach the screen from the keyboard and use it as a tablet. It has a low-voltage Intel Atom Z3740QC processor, 2GB of memory, and 32GB of Flash storage instead of a hard drive. If that's not enough, you can expand it with a 64GB or smaller microSD card. The current price is £319.97 on Amazon or £329.95 at PC World , and that includes a free copy of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2013, worth about £100.
The silver Lenovo Yoga 2 convertible laptop is a more solid alternative with a better keyboard. It has a bigger screen (11.6in against 10.1in), a much faster processor in the 1.4GHz Intel Core i3-3229Y, twice as much memory (4GB), and a 128GB SSD. Naturally, the higher specification is reflected in the price: £599.99 at Amazon.co.uk .
A Lenovo Yoga 2 with a 13.3in touch screen and the latest Haswell-based 1.6GHz Core i5-4200U processor and 256GB SSD pushes the price up to £999.99 , or maybe £899.99 if you shop around. The main drawback with this machine is that the screen resolution is still only 1366 x 768 pixels.
The Microsoft Surface tablet is also worth considering, particularly if you need Wacom-style digitising pen input. A Surface Pro 2 with a 10.6in (1920 x 1080-pixel) screen, 1.6GHz Core i5-4200U processor and 64GB SSD costs about £719 , though you will also need to buy a Type Cover 2 keyboard for £109.99 -- unless you'd prefer to use a Bluetooth keyboard instead. Someone on a budget could also consider the original Surface with a Core i5-3317U and a 128GB SSD, heavily discounted to£499 .
Whichever quiet laptop your friend decides to buy, he should search reviews and user forums for reports of excess noise. Ideally, he also should try it in a shop, and run some videos to see if this results in fan noise.
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