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hehe299792458

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 13, 2008
772
3
What is the minimum fan speed for the 2011 Sandy Bridge MBPs? I tried smcFan and the lowest it'd go is 3000rpm. smcfan used to go to 2000rpm for old MBP. iStat Menu is still able to go to 2000rpm on my NEW MBP. Why the discrepancy on between the two? Has the baseline speed been changed?
 

ZombieZakk

macrumors 6502
Feb 23, 2011
353
25
ive seen my fans go as low as 1997-1995 when im literally doing nothing but average they are usually 1998-2001 each sometimes a few rpms difference but i do not use smcfancontrol i use istat pro widget
 

2499723

Cancelled
Dec 10, 2009
812
412
What is the minimum fan speed for the 2011 Sandy Bridge MBPs? I tried smcFan and the lowest it'd go is 3000rpm. smcfan used to go to 2000rpm for old MBP. iStat Menu is still able to go to 2000rpm on my NEW MBP. Why the discrepancy on between the two? Has the baseline speed been changed?

My 2011 MBP goes down to 2000RPM and up to 6200RPM according to smcFanControl. My previous 2009 MBP had a max of 6000RPM. That extra 200 really pushes it that extra mile. =P It needs to, considering how hot the i5 gets in this thing. Ugh.
 

hehe299792458

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 13, 2008
772
3
interesting. here's a screenshot of smcfan I took. As you can clearly see, won't go lower than 2000rpm. Any ideas?
 

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adrian1480

macrumors 6502
Sep 2, 2010
270
0
interesting. here's a screenshot of smcfan I took. As you can clearly see, won't go lower than 2000rpm. Any ideas?

you can manually edit the file SMCfancontrol uses to create your own custom settings...but I really don't know why you 2000rpm isn't there by default.
 

alust2013

macrumors 601
Feb 6, 2010
4,779
2
On the fence
Try Fan Control, which I think is a generally nicer app than smcFanControl. It actually allows you to drop the fan speeds lower than 2000 RPM, then have it gradually increase with temperature, rather than have it hit 90C then the fans zoom up to 6200 RPM. I'm just doing basic browsing now, and my fan is around 1350 RPM, with temps around 50C, which is perfectly normal.
 

1quick1

macrumors member
Sep 10, 2008
87
0
SmcFancontrol I just have settings for 2k, 3, 4k, 5k, and max. If I'm doing anything I usually just leave it on 3k.
 

WillEH

macrumors 6502a
Feb 8, 2011
769
5
United Kingdom
I started having issues with smcfancontrol. Before I could go down to 2k, now it won't go below 3k. I have stopped using it, as I have read that I really don't need it. The MBP does all the work and changes it when needed.
 

bangable

macrumors newbie
Jul 15, 2011
26
0
I started having issues with smcfancontrol. Before I could go down to 2k, now it won't go below 3k. I have stopped using it, as I have read that I really don't need it. The MBP does all the work and changes it when needed.

do yo guys find 2k rpm noisy? is there a way to make it go even slower.
 

Michael383

macrumors 6502a
Mar 17, 2011
624
17
At idle my base 2011 15" MBP fans are at 2000 RPM. It's the quietest laptop computer I've owned.
 

snaky69

macrumors 603
Mar 14, 2008
5,908
488
do yo guys find 2k rpm noisy? is there a way to make it go even slower.

If you find 2k RPM noisy, you either have bad fans or you are hearing your hard drive, some of them make a constant, wooshing fan-like sound.
 

317342

Cancelled
May 21, 2009
785
569
My 2011 i7 2.2Ghz MBP is near-silent at 2k RPM. The only noise I hear is the hard drive in a quiet room.
 
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