MBP (Late '08) fan settings? What do you use?

[J the Ninja]

What is everybody using? Some of my smcFanControl settings...

Idle/light work, 9400 - 2000rpm

Idle/light work, 9600 - 2800rpm

Audio processing (light; ripping, simple editing) - 3250rpm

Number crunching (CPU-heavy work) - 4500rpm

Most of these are for keeping the CPU under ~60C, and the GPU maybe a little above that.

I also have an emergency setting for 6200rpm. What about you guys? Anybody using another app? What speeds and settings? What temps do you get?



NOTE: This thread is NOT for the discussion of the safety or necessity of fan controlling software! Those discussions can be found elsewhere, or you are welcome to start your own. This thread is for Glassbook Pro owners who have already made the decision to use these apps to get together and discuss how to use them effectively.

 

[hari-bhari]

I let the MBP control its fans on its own. No point in decreasing battery life keeping the fans ramped up for no reason. Apple engineers are smarter than you and know when the fans should be ramped up.

 

[puma1552]

I let the MBP control its fans on its own. No point in decreasing battery life keeping the fans ramped up for no reason. Apple engineers are smarter than you and know when the fans should be ramped up.

Agreed, though I'm curious to know, what is the stock speed?

 

[megamouse]

Agreed, though I'm curious to know, what is the stock speed?

Before using Fan Control, I could tell my fans' speed from iStat Pro are both 2000 RPM


I would recommend Fan Control since my unibody MBP would not increase fan speed automatically even when using 9600M GT

 

[J the Ninja]

I let the MBP control its fans on its own. No point in decreasing battery life keeping the fans ramped up for no reason. Apple engineers are smarter than you and know when the fans should be ramped up.

Well, for starters, I asked people to keep this sort of discussion out of this thread, because it will send it into a tailspin and defeat the thread's purpose. But I'll oblige you:

I'm sure Apple's engineers know craploads about thermal management, and I'm sure they tested many, many designs. Does that mean the best one necessarily made it? No. I'm sure the Xbox 360 engineers knew sticking a gaming video card into a 1in cavity under a DVD drive and not even giving it any spot cooling - just a duct to a 60mm axial exhaust fan - wasn't such a great idea either. That didn't stop it from getting made anyway. Why? Because someone in accounting, or aesthetics design, or wherever, decided the suffocated-GPU design better fit THEIR goals, and rammed it through.

The cooling hardware on the MBP is perfectly fine, but the engineers may have submitted a fan ramp setup that was killed off by the design team for being too loud. Not to mention, how much fan noise is too much is somewhat subjective, as is "how hot is too hot" so sometimes, there's good reason to override a even perfectly good set of fan settings.

If you'd like to continue this discussion, feel free to make your own thread, or pm me, but PLEASE KEEP THIS THREAD ON TOPIC!

 

[chaos86]

I use Fan Control with a base speed of 2000RPM
The lower threshold is 122F, the upper is 158F. (So it ramps between 2000 at 122 to 6000 at 158)

This means it usually sits right at 2000RPM, but if it starts doing even basic computations, getting just a little warm, it spins up quite quickly so it never gets really hot. I had a problem with my last MBP's smc and it fried the GPU, so now I'm overly cautious. I'd rather have a few percent lower battery life than a hot lap and thermal stress on the components, even if Apple engineers say think it's fine.