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Fan control for Windows in Bootcamp?

Hi,

actually Input Remapper could be the best solution, but it doesn't work on new MBP Unibody (with NVidia 9x).

As sad by campliu, my (ehm our) program works only with speedfan installed (or at least the GIVEIO.sys installed in the system).

I'm guessing in the apple forum what are the MBP fans specs to set the max fan speed to a safetly rpm, I've received no useful response, so for now I suggest to not set above 6000 rpm (actually in the automatic mode max rpm are 6000).

I haven't spent to much time on output logs :rolleyes: ...
but "Error...OK!" means that it failed the first attemp (Error), it re-tried for 3 times (...) and at the end it worked (OK!)

I'm improving the program day by day to add following features:

1) Reading the 9600M GT GPU temp, actually the SMC can read only 9400M temp. (using nvapi)
2) Adding hotkeys to manage keyboard special keys (brightness, volume, CD eject, etc)
3) GUI
4) More meaningful output logs

For next versions probably I'll make a website ... I'll let you known.
I'm nice to know that this program it's useful for someone.
Don't hesitate to contact me directly for any reason about it, any suggestion and help will be very appreciated. (lubboster@gmail.com)

See you soon
 
Not sure if this is relevant or not but I noticed that my overheating problems went away once I installed the latest nVidia Windows 7 drivers from www.nvidia.com.
 
I'm using Win7 x64 on a new MBP 17" 2.8 GHz I got 3 days ago, and I have to say it's nowhere near as bad as some reports would have it.

The GPU diode temp typically stays between 60-70°C (140-158°F) during normal use, which is pretty much the same as under OS X where I'm currently at 66°C doing nothing but typing in Safari.

HW Monitor reports 2000 RPM for both fans, but that number is bullcrap -- fan control is dynamic and I can hear the fans revving up when the load gets heavier. Battery life isn't bad either, it reports around 4:30-5:00 left when I'm using the Balanced scheme and up to 7:00 when I'm using the Energy Saver scheme.

Sure, the fans could be working a little harder in both OS X and Windows, but Apple have clearly tuned the uMBP's to be quiet, not cold. This is an unbelievably quiet laptop; the hard disk makes more noise than the fans.
 
Anuba said:
I'm using Win7 x64 on a new MBP 17" 2.8 GHz I got 3 days ago, and I have to say it's nowhere near as bad as some reports would have it.

The GPU diode temp typically stays between 60-70°C (140-158°F) during normal use, which is pretty much the same as under OS X where I'm currently at 66°C doing nothing but typing in Safari.

HW Monitor reports 2000 RPM for both fans, but that number is bullcrap -- fan control is dynamic and I can hear the fans revving up when the load gets heavier. Battery life isn't bad either, it reports around 4:30-5:00 left when I'm using the Balanced scheme and up to 7:00 when I'm using the Energy Saver scheme.

Sure, the fans could be working a little harder in both OS X and Windows, but Apple have clearly tuned the uMBP's to be quiet, not cold. This is an unbelievably quiet laptop; the hard disk makes more noise than the fans.
Click to expand...


I haven't tried Windows 7 on BootCamp (is not supported and it's beta I wait for a supported and stable release) but probably Apple have fixed some fans control problem with new MBP series (3 days ago means that you have buy the latest MBP? Do you have an SD slot instead of Express Card?).
I've tryed Vista 64 and my fans don't speed up (90 C° and above when I run games, the same as XP 32), but I've bought my MBP on April 2009....
 
lubbbo said:
I haven't tried Windows 7 on BootCamp (is not supported and it's beta I wait for a supported and stable release) but probably Apple have fixed some fans control problem with new MBP series (3 days ago means that you have buy the latest MBP? Do you have an SD slot instead of Express Card?).
Click to expand...
No, I have the 17" model so the ExpressCard slot is still there.

I've tryed Vista 64 and my fans don't speed up (90 C° and above when I run games, the same as XP 32), but I've bought my MBP on April 2009....
Click to expand...
OK. Well, like I said the HW Monitor app reports 2000 RPM on both fans no matter if they speed up or not. I did something... I think it was the Windows Experience Index test or whatever, the machine got rather hot on a couple of spots and I heard the fans speed up for half a minute or so, then slow down again, but the HW monitor showed 2000 RPM the whole time.

2000 RPM is the same default speed they run at in OS X. The iStat widget reports something like 1998 RPM on fan 1 and 2003 on fan 2. When I was encoding in iTunes I heard them spin up a little. I haven't tried any games in Windows yet, but I'm sure MBP will get smoking hot. But that's the nature of laptop gaming, it would get just as hot in OS X if the same games existed for that platform. It's a task that maxes out CPU and GPU usage non-stop. The MBP really doesn't have the thermal space to handle that kind of load... that's why gaming laptops like Alienware and Dell XPS are frickin' huge. Alienware's latest m17x is twice as thick as a MBP 17" and nearly twice as heavy.
 
Anuba said:
OK. Well, like I said the HW Monitor app reports 2000 RPM on both fans no matter if they speed up or not. I did something... I think it was the Windows Experience Index test or whatever, the machine got rather hot on a couple of spots and I heard the fans speed up for half a minute or so, then slow down again, but the HW monitor showed 2000 RPM the whole time.

2000 RPM is the same default speed they run at in OS X. The iStat widget reports something like 1998 RPM on fan 1 and 2003 on fan 2. When I was encoding in iTunes I heard them spin up a little.
Click to expand...

I think HW monitor shows only the minimum fan speed set.
Actually there are 5 values for fan speed: Actual, Minimum, Maximum, Target and Safe. Actual is the value read by iStat widget (I read it in my program) and Minimum is the low RPM the fans can run (The only value we can change to increase/decrease fans speeds, used in my program).

Anuba said:
I haven't tried any games in Windows yet, but I'm sure MBP will get smoking hot. But that's the nature of laptop gaming, it would get just as hot in OS X if the same games existed for that platform. It's a task that maxes out CPU and GPU usage non-stop. The MBP really doesn't have the thermal space to handle that kind of load... that's why gaming laptops like Alienware and Dell XPS are frickin' huge. Alienware's latest m17x is twice as thick as a MBP 17" and nearly twice as heavy.
Click to expand...

Using my program with this settings:

Lower Temp 55
Upper Temp 78
Minimum Fans Speeds (Left/Right) 2000/2100

In idle:
59 C° GPU (9600)
56 C° CPU
Fans 2300 RPM c.a. (it's quiet)

Playing Crysis at High detail 1440x900:
CPU and GPU temps are near 80 C°
Fans 6000 RPM

This temp is acceptable, the MBP is not too hot.
Note that I put 2 rubbers under the MBP to let the air flows better.

We cannot ask to a laptop to work as a server 24/7 but if it's created with a great CPU and GPU it must be able use they at full of capabilities, nothing more.
I've bought a Mac not a AnonimPlasticCheaperLaptop, I want to use it.
 
cdavi060 said:
Im running Vista in bootcamp on my MacBook Pro and the temp at idle is around 165 and if I do anything else on it like games or such its around 180+. The thing is I bearly hear the fans, unlike in OSX they kick on when needed. Can someone let me in on a program like fan control but for windows that will allow me to control my macbook fans while in vista? I dont like this temp issue!!!
Click to expand...

I've found that if you set SMC fan control while you are in leopard, and restart the machine to your bootcamp partition, the fans keep running at the previously set speed.

You can't change the speed while in bootcamp, but at least it is a temporary solution if it gets too hot in bootcamp.

My 7200 rpm MBP got burning hot in bootcamp, but my 5400 rpm unit is cool--surprisingly, sometimes cooler than in leopard.
 
OK, so I'm using the GUI version of Lubbo's fan control (Early '09 MBP 17") in Windows 7 RC (in which everything from Vista works exactly the same, only better; RC is Release Candidate and is about as good as the final product will be), and aside from the issue of it using the same IO resources as Keyboard Manager (kbdmgr) thus requiring it to be shut down, I'm having another problem. If I set the minimum fan speed for both fans to 6000RPM, the left fan only sets the target speed to 2600RPM--and the fan itself doesn't budge from 2000RPM. The right fan does as its told; it's a good little fan and makes its way all the way up to 6000RPM, albeit slowly (in both speeding up and slowing down). Though, this might be by design to avoid temperature-shocking the electronics. If it is, that's a great feature. Good thinking!

BTW, in the unibody MacBook Pros, the CPU and both GPU's all share a single dual-heatpipe heatsink which splits to each of the two fans, so I don't see any benefit to having the fans set at different speeds according to different temperature sensors.

I had a thought though:
Would it be at all possible to take the programming from kbdmgr and then add to it the code for Lubbo's fan control, and just have it all in one? More so that it can be an integrated, automatic process that functions like stock rather than an add-on application.

EDIT: Both fans are working fine now. Not sure why the left fan wasn't stepping up before.
 
Fan Control for all Macs

Apologies for the bump.

Lubbo's Mac Book Pro Fan Control is an excellent program and works great. I encourage anyone who desires improved fan control for their MacBook Pro to give it a try.

However, MacBook Pros are not the only machines that can benefit from extra fan control. I have both a first gen Mac Pro and a unibody MacBook Pro. Unfortunately, the MacBook Pros fans work, in my opinion, acceptably in Windows yet my MacPro's do not. They don't even change speed at all while playing Crysis.

I sought Lubbo's help in modifying the command line version of his program to work on my MacPro and I did so, but decided I wanted to improve further on it and make a much more flexible program that can be much more easily modified to work with future releases and with every Intel Mac. The result of these improvements is MacFan, a command line utility. ( https://sourceforge.net/projects/macfan/ ).

MacFan works on all Intel based Macs except for iMacs at the moment. If you have an iMac, please send me a message on sourceforge or post in the Open Discussion there - all I need is about 5 minutes of your time and I can add support for your computer very quickly and easily.

MacFan allows control of each individual fan in your computer. Usage is simple. Simply run the program like so, from an administrator command prompt:

MacFan.exe RPM RPM RPM RPM

Of course, pass only as many RPM arguments as there are fans.

In the future, I am going to be adding an auto temperature function to MacFan as well, but will make it very flexible and allow the user to create rules that specify what fan should change to what RPM when what temperature sensor hits a certain threshold. You'll also be able to use MacFan to set the speed of your fans and then run it in temperature monitoring mode to see how well that speed is working for you. I might even have to add a logging feature to this. Until I add temperature monitoring capability, I would suggest you use Everest (www.lavalys.com) to monitor your temps. It also confirms that your fan speeds are really being adjusted. Just make sure Everest, and KbdMgr.exe (for BootCamp versions previous to 3.0) or BootCamp.exe (for BootCamp 3.0) are not running when you attempt to change your fans.

Also, in case someone with a MacPro is so excited to use this and fails to read the release notes, let me warn you - control of the Power Supply Fan does not work at the moment, so make sure you always pass 0 as the fourth argument and number to set your fourth fan to. This will tell MacFan to not attempt to control the PSU fan. Failure to do so could cause damage to your computer, you have been warned. This will, of course, be fixed in the next release. But I felt it was important to get the program out there ASAP.

I hope some of you find this program useful.
 
Again, sorry for the bump but this page is still high up on Google and the information in the previous post is quite out of date.

MacFan supports all Intel Macs, including iMacs for fan control as well as temperature monitoring.

Temperature monitoring is used with the /temperature option. You can also specify a number ( for example, MacFan /temperature 20 ) in order to have MacFan monitor temperature sensors in the background.

I'm still working on the MacPro power supply fan control, as well as automatic fan control based on user defined rules. In the meantime, one handy tip: keep MacFan monitoring temperatures in the background and simply push the 'h' key to pause it when you want to change temperatures, which you can do in a separate command prompt. Then push the 'h' key to resume.

Also, there is no longer any need to manually close everest, bootcamp or kbdmgr before running MacFan. It automatically closes them and reopens them after it is done running.
 
Will this work on a macbook air? I could never get Lubbos program to work on my air.
 
I cannot get it to work. I'm using Windows 7 64-bit on an early-09 MBP 17" (OS X 10.6 installed). When running MacFanx64.exe, it gets as far as closing BootCamp, then prints "PROBLEM LOADING IO DRIVERS. EXECUTION STOPPED."
I tried running it with pre-defined arguments as well (MacFanx64.exe 6000 6000, which I know are the max speeds for the two fans in the MBP), which came up with (after the disclaimer text):
Checking running processes for conflicting programs...
PROBLEM LOADING IO DRIVERS. EXECUTION STOPPED.

Number of fans in the system: -1

Reading fan data...


Machine not found in database. MacFan should still work normally.
Recording fan speeds to file...

All values successfully recorded. Please copy and paste the above
minimum and maximum values and post them in the Open Discussion forum
at sourceforge.net/MacFan along with your computer model (you can get
this in the System Profiler in Mac OS X) so I can add your computer to
the MacFan database. Thanks in advance.

Unexpected error. Make sure number of arguments passed matches number of fans
in your computer.
Click to expand...
It then does not restart BootCamp, but that's understandable as it halted before it ever got that far.

Edit: The same error occurs in Lubbo's Fan Control. Anyone have any ideas as to why the IO driver is inaccessible?
 
getting error for trying to run lubbo's fan control
"This application has failed tos tart because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.
 
waffle911 said:
I cannot get it to work. I'm using Windows 7 64-bit on an early-09 MBP 17" (OS X 10.6 installed). When running MacFanx64.exe, it gets as far as closing BootCamp, then prints "PROBLEM LOADING IO DRIVERS. EXECUTION STOPPED."
I tried running it with pre-defined arguments as well (MacFanx64.exe 6000 6000, which I know are the max speeds for the two fans in the MBP), which came up with (after the disclaimer text):

It then does not restart BootCamp, but that's understandable as it halted before it ever got that far.

Edit: The same error occurs in Lubbo's Fan Control. Anyone have any ideas as to why the IO driver is inaccessible?
Click to expand...

dudeitsjay said:
getting error for trying to run lubbo's fan control
"This application has failed tos tart because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.
Click to expand...

Bumpity bump here, but I felt pretty much obliged to register and respond to let you know that you need to right click those apps and select "Run as administrator". Solved that problem for me completely, and I don't see why it wouldn't for you.
 
It Works!!

cdavi060 said:
Im running Vista in bootcamp on my MacBook Pro and the temp at idle is around 165 and if I do anything else on it like games or such its around 180+. The thing is I bearly hear the fans, unlike in OSX they kick on when needed. Can someone let me in on a program like fan control but for windows that will allow me to control my macbook fans while in vista? I dont like this temp issue!!!
Click to expand...

Running Win7 64, the ONLY program that works for me: MacFan.

It's a DOS Based n in my MBP Unibody works perfectly.

Using Lubbos, my MAC turned into a turtle and almost crashed. The other programs didn`t work either.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/macfan/
 
Lubbos fan works perfect in my 2010 MBP 13" glad there's a solution. I forget to set my fan sometimes in OSX via SMC fan.
 
Restart into Windows XP Problems

aki said:
i use smbfancontrol and it works well until there is a windows app....basically i have a hifanspeed setting for windows and u can set the speeds then reboot - not shutdown and startup - and the same fan settings will last for the windows

for everyday apps its not important i think but for games my hd gets too hot after some playing so i think its good to use
Click to expand...

Hi,

I have a 2010, 21.5 inch iMac, core i3 processor and I have Windows XP with boot camp so I can play games.

Sometimes when I am playing games, the top of the computer gets hot and sometimes cause the game to crash. I have smc fan control and I set it to about 4000 rpm when using OS X but when I restart the computer and hold the option key to boot into windows, it just boots straight into Mac OS X again.

Please someone help!

Thanks Jonathon
 
I'm not entirely sure how Bootcamp works, but if you are able to enter the system BIOS if Bootcamp simulates that.

Most BIOS's will have an option for 'Allow fans on' which will make them spin constantly and not just when Windows detects a rise in temp.
 
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