Thursday, February 27, 2014

Control (Monitor, Adjust) Your CPU Fan Speed with Hardware and Software (SpeedFan 4.41) and Cpu Fan Average, Normal, Low, High Speeds


CPU Fans come with a wide range of speeds depending upon motherboards, cpus, cpu speeds, motherboard controls, temperature and external hardware/software controls. Average speeds at 3000 rpm for general use above 36c temperatures, most run at high speed to get a longer life cpu. You can use SpeedFan software to minitor and contro (adjust) cpu fan speeds in your computer.

Average CPU Fan speed will be about 2000 rpm on most CPUs/motherboards. But a CPU Fan Speed is dependent on the temperature of the CPU at any time, its specified speed range (manufacture), its voltage supply (12+, 12-), the motherboard controls, external sensor based monitoring and additional software based controls. Lower CPU Fan speeds are typically about 1500rpm and larger can be about 3800 rpm. The cpu fan speed range itself can vary from one computer configuration to another because of the processor performance, motherboard type etc.

While higher speeds can make cpu fans feel like jet engines making lot of noise in your office/house, this ensures that the CPU is always cool whether it loaded or not. That means cpu will have longer life than otherwise. But if your needs do not need the life of cpu to more than the specification of the manufacturer, then it is better to control it automatically or through softwares like SpeedFan 4.41 (also get related hardware, sensors, extra wires for connectivity etc.) to make your work a quiet experience. On some motherboards, CPU Fans change speed while others are fixed at high speeds all the time.

The download link for SpeedFan 4.41 software from download.cnet.com is below. It is totally free software and helps you get hands on experience with CPU fan speed monitoring and controlling. It takes some time to work around with it, so be ready for that. It can also monitor voltages along with speeds and temperatures of CPU and hard disk also. It can also access S.M.A.R.T. information from motherboard. It can work with Windows 7, XP, Vista, 2000, 9x, 2003, ME, NT, 64 etc.
http://download.cnet.com/SpeedFan/3000-2094_4-10067444.html

For many desktops or laptops, the BIOS itself will have some sensors installed to measure CPU temperature and also automatic software coded in BIOS to control CPU Fan speed. For ex, on ECS Goal3+(1.1C) AMD Sempron 3000+ 754 SiS 761 GX Micro ATX Motherboard/CPU configuration, if CPU temp. goes above 40c, BIOS changes CPU fan speed to run at full speeds of upto 5400 rpm (like a jet engine).

On a Gigabyte motherboard with AMD XP 1800 (similar to Asus' Q-Fan), cpu fan speed switches from 300 to 1200 rpm. On FIC K7M-NF18G nForce2 IGP motherboard too cpu fan speed automatically changes. AMD Athlon64 3200+, 3800+ X2 cpus have fans that are lowered in speed when CPU is idle. On a system with ZeroTherm Nirvana Cooler (ASRock Quad core) the cpu fan doesn’t spin at start-up but slowly starts and reaches highest speeds when cpu temperature goes above 36c. In some computers they won’t boot at all if cpu fan is removed or failed to rotate. Fancier motherboards like Intel D865GBFL, ASUS A7N8X-E, have smart Q-control enabled in their BIOS to control cpu fan speed. Dell Inspiron 1150 has Dell precision fan control.

It is worthy to note that CPU fans may have three wire connectivity or four wires. Adding extra hardware to monitor Cpu temperature and control cpu fan speed will require expertise or care on your part and also four wires for cpu fan. While the yellow and black wires go to +12 and -12/ground power supplies, green wire is for a tachometer that measures RPM of cpu fan and feeds it to motherboard for information only. A fourth wire is required which is used for pulse-width-modulation signal to adjust fan speed. It is however not a good idea to mess with these wires on your own!

References:
  1. Personal experience
  2. download.cnet.com
  3. forums.whirlpool.net.au
  4. computing.net
  5. almico.com
  6. techspot.com
  7. en.wikipedia.org
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Posted by Dinesh Raju at 12:53 PM
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