1) Under Windows, the fan spun up to full revs - not quite hairdryer-level noisy but far too loud for a home environment. I don't know how to fix this for Windows but as soon as I booted from a Linux installation USB the fan was fully silent.2) If you are looking to install a non-Windows OS, like Linux, enabling boot from USB in the BIOS doesn't seem to work. Instead, just press F9 during boot to go to a boot menu.