Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
my mbp 40f cooler!
- Thread starter Fearless Leader
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Forget about all the terminal stuff, go to http://homepage.mac.com/holtmann/eidac/software/page5/page5.html and download a nice little app that does everything you want for you. It even controls the fan after sleep and reboot.
the rock said:
Good job. I love this. very nice and easy to use. I am stopping the development of my scripts now that these apps have surfaced.
merc669 said:
I'm not sure if anyone else has, but personally I'm working on creating a piece of software that would run constantly, and actually just override the current fan settings by constantly checking the temp & adjusting from there automatically.
Gurutech said:
Hmm. Now when you refer to with or without, do you mean with being the scripts, and without being the manual entry of the code in the terminal?
I'm just asking to be clear, but I'm sure you probably mean that if you attempt no alteration of your fan speed, only one fan spins. In that case, I would say that you need to get your left fan replaced. What does your temperature usually run at when idle? Just out of curiosity.
I have that app (from http://homepage.mac.com/holtmann/eidac/index.html) and i'm wondering what is a safe RPM rate is to keep both fans at. I want to keep my system cool, but I don't know if you can damage the fans or anything by making them run this high or something. Thank you for your help! 
(I have them synced right now at around 3,000 RPM. It brought my temperature down from around 160F to an average of 130F which is wonderful. I want to know if I can do more. Thanks again for your help!)
(I have them synced right now at around 3,000 RPM. It brought my temperature down from around 160F to an average of 130F which is wonderful. I want to know if I can do more. Thanks again for your help!)
TaylorB said:I have that app (from http://homepage.mac.com/holtmann/eidac/index.html) and i'm wondering what is a safe RPM rate is to keep both fans at. I want to keep my system cool, but I don't know if you can damage the fans or anything by making them run this high or something. Thank you for your help!
(I have them synced right now at around 3,000 RPM. It brought my temperature down from around 160F to an average of 130F which is wonderful. I want to know if I can do more. Thanks again for your help!)
I'd say 2000-2500 is a great low end speed. But 3000 is ok as well (that's what I usually keep mine at). But don't plan on leaving your laptop working on something while you leave the house...I used the program to put the minimum speed at 3000rpm, and walked away as I rendered a video. I returned & my laptop had reached 200F, I had to force the fan to 6000rpm & close the software just to keep it from getting any hotter. It seems that right now, if you want to change your fan speed, there is actually no decent option that doesn't require you to be in constant watch of your temp for fear of something not working right.
Wow! You just made me really scared. I was told that MacBook's and MacBook Pro's all have a shut-off temperatuer of 180 degrees F. I've been keeping my temperature under 100F, with 5,000 RMP on both fans. Now i'm a little concerned because of what you said..
TaylorB said:
Well, try it, see what your experience is. But if you're going to leave your macbook alone for a while, I would reboot & let the original settings fall back in place & not re-open the program. Right now I'm working on a program that would constantly check your processor temperature & automatically change the fan speed based on that value. Basically it would do exactly what the OS does, but it would be a little less tolerant of high temperatures. It seems that anytime we alter these temperatures with the system already in place, the result can vary too much for different people...which just isn't acceptable for most people.
tokyovigilante said:I've spent the last wee while playing round with this on my iBook G4, as I've always wished it would run a few degrees cooler.
A few things - the PPC Macs don't have a System Management Controller (SMC) so the smc utility won't work. The reason it won't run at all is that it appears to be built Intel-only. I've built it on PPC and it complains about a missing SMC, funnily-enough
Having eliminated that option I went back to the AppleFan and AppleBlower kexts. Reviewing them and the OpenDarwin sources, I've come up with the basic process for fan control on Mac OS -
1. The kernel communicates with the hardware (CPU) thermal sensors via AppleCPUThermo.kext.
2. The kernel looks up this temperature against the AppleFan.kext speed table. As Rokem found, this is indeed a range of temperatures multiplied by 256, which increase the fan speed by increasing the voltage incrementally (0.5v steps?) until the highest set temperature is reached, at which time the fan runs at maximum.
3. The kernel sets a new fan speed based on the lookup table.
4. The fan runs until the CPU temperature reaches the hysteresis-temp defined in AppleFan.kext, at which time the fan shuts down.
The default temperature range is 57-62 degrees celcius, and the hysteresis temp is 55, ie the fan comes on at increasing speeds up to 62 degrees, then cools the system to 55 and shuts off.
With this in mind I came up with a modified AppleFan.kext Info.plist with a range of 45-50, and a hysteresis temp of 42. However on regenerating the extension cache and rebooting, I found the same thing as Rokem, namely that these lower values had no effect, and that the fan runs the same as before.
Re-examining the AppleFan source, I found that the default values are hardcoded into the extension, and that it will use these if it cannot find an external source.
My next step would be to rebuild AppleFan.kext with new values encoded, but I'd be interested to know what other peoples experiences have been on PPC, as I won't have a chance to do this for a wee while.
I just hopped on this thread today - I'm also interested in getting this method to work on a PPC (Powerbook 12"). It's funny that the default hysteresis temp is that high, as mine will easily kick in by 45-46 C. Like another post I saw on this thread, I'm not interested in keeping the fans running more, but rather the opposite. One of the things I hate the most about this laptop is that I can't even idle with a cooling fan pad using an external monitor without running a 4500RPM fan. 9000RPM is brutal.
Given there's a number of sensors, does anyone know which one the fan is linked to? CPU?
I set my AppleFan settings to all about 3 degrees higher, but since the fan kicks in a lot lower than the settings, I'm wondering if there isn't another factor involved. Have people figured out how the AppleBlower extension works? The default values for UniProcessor (in my case) could mean a bunch of things, to me.
Thanks everyone.
PowerMac G5 & fan speed control
I'd also be interested in lowering the fans speed for a PowerMac G5, especially the HDD one.
But I lack coding skills, so if others are in the mood of silencing those, please let me know ! Thanks !
timmer said:
I'd also be interested in lowering the fans speed for a PowerMac G5, especially the HDD one.
But I lack coding skills, so if others are in the mood of silencing those, please let me know ! Thanks !
Currently I have mine set for 1800RPM and it is running just fine. Runs about 130 to 140F if I put a load on it. If it gets higher than that I slide it up some. However the two buttons for Start Hidden I can select but the Auto Apply Settings does NOT. If I select it it shuts off the "Start Hidden". Anybody else having this problem. Also I assume that Auto Apply means it should boot up to that. But mine defaults to 1000 RPM and I have to apply it to get it to speed up.TaylorB said:I have that app (from http://homepage.mac.com/holtmann/eidac/index.html) and i'm wondering what is a safe RPM rate is to keep both fans at. I want to keep my system cool, but I don't know if you can damage the fans or anything by making them run this high or something. Thank you for your help!
(I have them synced right now at around 3,000 RPM. It brought my temperature down from around 160F to an average of 130F which is wonderful. I want to know if I can do more. Thanks again for your help!)
Bill......