Fan silencing a 32GQ950-B

[TommyH]

Purchased a LG 32GQ950-B monitor that does so many things right, but there's a fan built-in that gives a constant high-pitched and warbling whine that's just incredibly annoying to be around. Anyone have suggestions for how to silence this if mods are on the table?

I can disable the inbuilt fan from spinning and verified there's no coil whine, but without the fan running the display shuts itself off after about 30 seconds. Best guess is that it's checking whether the fan is spinning and not the internal temperature, which should be low the way it's being used. That makes it difficult to work around and I'd appreciate any suggestions others might have.

Like I said the combination of size/resolution/ATW is awesome, but I'll have to return it if I can't get it to be quiet. If there's something on the horizon with similarly good viewing angles I'm up for waiting a few more months.

 

[TommyH]

I recently bought this monitor and can sometimes hear the fan. The room has to be very quiet and I have to listen for it. How did you stop the fan? Did you open up the back and physically disconnect it?

It is possible to decrease the fan speed in the hidden service menu. I found that reducing from 45 to 35 was enough to silence the fan in a quiet room. However, this setting is a pain to get to and resets to 45 when the monitor is powered off.

If the fan connection is accessible, perhaps fitting an inline 20% reduction cable would do the trick.

Thanks for the suggestions. Here's what I've tried so far:

I opened it and both unplugged it and stopped it mechanically from spinning. In both cases the display turns itself off after about 30 seconds. The fan is PWM so the controller is looking for something to show it's operating.

I have inline reducer cables, but this fan uses a much smaller 4-pin connector that I've not seen before. It's only about 5-6mm wide and 2mm tall. Would require me to splice the reducer in, and I'm not prepared to go that far yet without knowing it would succeed and not trip-up the fan detection.

The hidden service menu on this particular model does not seem to have a fan speed setting like some other LG displays do. Agreed that it would not be a real solution anyway because it resets so easily.

I'm really not sure why the fan is in there though. It's a low-profile blower like you'd see in a laptop, but just empties into a large empty cavity in the back and is not directed over any particular components nor any fins or other things to assist with heat transferal. In fact several parts of the main board have silicone (I think) thermal pads, but are taped-over with something that looks like it would reduce heat transfer. There's no direct thermal connection of components with the metal mainboard backing nor the metal backing of the LCD panel itself where the air reaches, the latter of which is also not cooled at all by the fan. If the fan is meant to cool something in the monitor, there's no way it's doing this effectively. It would be like trying to cool a CPU by attaching a flat metal plate to the top of it and relying on only the case intake fans.

 

[TommyH]

It does. You first have to enable "Aging" then exit the service settings.

Ah, ok. I did not find a description of that process elsewhere.

Is the fan just trying to encourage some airflow from the bottom, across the mainboard and out of the top vents. Molex Pico-EZmate connectors are sometimes used in cases like this. I think there are number third-party clones. Did it look like this?

https://www.molex.com/molex/products/family/picoezmate

LG often use a Sunon EF60151S3-1C010-S99 blower in their displays. Not sure if that is the case with this monitor.

Similar, but it's a Sunon EF60151S3-1C020-S99. Yes, looks like it's trying to get some airflow across the mainboard, but that's a LOT of airflow for something that's only pulling ~45W total under high frame rates and HDR during normal use. A large cavity like that probably also won't do heat transfer any favors, nor do the multiple layers of plastic over and around it. Might not be better than an entirely passive convective layout in the same form factor.

Here's what that fan connector looks like.
https://imgur.com/a/BlkhKet

 

[TommyH]

Ah yes, I've found the LG part now: EAL61800805

It is possible to buy tiny fan simulator boards which will spoof a 12V PWM fan (used for passive CPU cooling). Not sure if running the monitor without any fan is a good idea though.

That connector is a tricky one, I've looked at a number of manufacturers but haven't found an exact match.

Connector identification online - The electronic connector book

connectorbook.com

Thanks for the detective work! I've looked for a matching connector as well and couldn't find one, though it doesn't look particularly non-standard. I'm just not sure what to search for there. At least maybe the 4-pin wires are the standard arrangement for splicing.

I would not hesitate to run it without the fan at any normal brightness levels. During normal use (35% brightness) the entire monitor pulls about 43W, and at max brightness 67W. That's at 144Hz and HDR doesn't change the numbers much. The controller really can't be pulling much power. Yes, there's the consideration of heat density for some components, but from what I've seen cooling this device was an afterthought and multiple layers of insulation surrounding the controller were designed-in. Not saying it was a good design, but that heat control was not a priority.

Would you be willing to share a link to those fan simulator boards?

 

[TommyH]

Damn. I was dead-set on getting this monitor over the Alienware QD-OLED but reading this post gives me pause.

Maybe wait for the new 27" ASUS OLED instead...

Mine is due to arrive Thursday, TBH I didn't realise it actually had active cooling, so this is a little worrying. My usage will be 60/40 productivity/gaming as I work from home so I hope the fan isn't too bad, I'll be trying the service menu trick if it is. (how do you get into the service menu?)

The reddit post says the Asus one runs at 100% all the time is that the same for the LG? or does it run a fan curved based on temperature?

The fan is fixed speed and always on. I tried various settings and it did not change in pitch, volume, or apparent speed.

If you're ok with the fan noise and coil whine from something like an average gaming PC you may be ok with this monitor. At least the copy I have has a pretty high-pitched wavering fan whine that permeates the room, but from experience I'd expect not everyone can hear it. The lower-pitched component of the fan noise is not as bad, but still very obvious next to a machine I've tuned for quietness (not a silent machine, but quiet). To its credit I did not have any coil whine from the monitor. To me personally it's not acceptable because of the fan.

The panel itself is very nice. A little grainier than I'd prefer coming from a display with no coating, but IPS glow is almost zero and helps keep contrast in the corners much higher than other displays in the 27"+ size. Probably the visually best LCD overall I've seen, which is why I'm even bothering to look into fixing it.