Controlling the fans of MacBook

[panurge]

I think I've messed up the fan speeds of my MacBook. I can't change the values anymore by smcFanControl. It stays at 2500 rpm no matter what I enter in the field.

Here's what I've done:

1. First I installed smcFanControl 1.23, which worked nice.
2. After a while I discovored Fan Control, which turned out to be a really confusing program. There weren't any documents in the installation package and I couldn't find any help from the program's home page. It took quite a while to realize where it even installed itself (i.e. in System Preferences)
3. Because Fan Control was such a disappointment, I decided to go back to smcFanControl. At least it's so simple you can't go wrong with it. Though now I found out that there's a 2.x.x version too. So I installed it, and found it to be too restricted. You can't enter RPM values anymore, you have to save preset options. So I changed back to 1.23.

However smcFanControl doesn't work anymore. When I enter and apply new RPM values, the fans don't co-operate. I suppose this has something to do with Fan Control. I haven't found out how to uninstall it though. Any help?

 

[Osarkon]

If you want to remove the Fan Control, right click on the icon in the System Preferences and choose 'Remove Fan Control'. That should get rid of the old program.

 

[Jack Flash]

Is there any risk in adjusting the speeds?

 

[panurge]

If you want to remove the Fan Control, right click on the icon in the System Preferences and choose 'Remove Fan Control'. That should get rid of the old program.

Thanks, that worked. I also removed /Library/Preferences/com.lobotomo.MacProFan.plist.

Yet smcFanControl still doesn't work. If the fan is originally let's say at 1800 rpm, and I change it to 4000 rpm with smcFanControl, the fan starts to speed up... but it reaches just about 3700 rpm and then falls back to the original 1800 rpm. So what keeps tuning it down?

Spotlight found this:

/Library/StartupItems/FanControlDaemon/FanControlDaemon: Mach-O executable i386​

Is that Apple's program or what is it?

I just can't figure what keeps overriding my smcFanControl settings?

 

[panurge]

Spotlight found this:

/Library/StartupItems/FanControlDaemon/FanControlDaemon: Mach-O executable i386​

Is that Apple's program or what is it?

I finally found the uninstalling instructions to Fan Control:

Please follow these instructions to uninstall FanControl permanently:

1. Remove the following files and folders (both on your start disk):

/Library/StartupItems/FanControlDaemon
/Library/PreferencePanes/Fan Control.prefPane

You will be prompted for the Administrator's password when deleting these items.

2. Reboot

3. If you have a newer Mac model (i.e. with Core 2 Duo), use the utility smcFanControl http://www.conscius.de/~eidac/files/f7b52b971fc18dc506cc18a52bae5fdc-16. html to reset all settings to Apple's defaults.

4. Reboot again.

Problem solved.

 

[durruti]

i just want to add how i did it.

I installed 'imac fan control' (similiar to 'fan control')

1. delete smcfancontrol (if you already have this installed.)
2. delete imac fan control' or 'fan control' as described, deleting the daemon + pref. pane in the library folder
3. restart. now empty the trash can (that couldn't be deleted because files were being used). restart again.
4. after a clean restart. once at the desktop, do a SMC reset. you'll hear a long beep that'll confirm.
5. do a PRAM reset as you boot up. do this atleast twice. For a total of 3 startup beeps.
6. confirm with istat widget that fans follows factory setting rpms.
7. download and install smcfancontrol
8. confirm with istat

my contribution to stress free, headache free fan control