PC cooler/fan control

 PC cooler/fan control

PC cooler/fan control

Hi all! Not all computer users know that the rotation speed of coolers (cooling fans) can be controlled if the motherboard and the cooling devices themselves support the appropriate functionality (this does not apply to video cards whose coolers can be controlled separately). But the Windows operating system itself lacks tools that allow you to control the operation of coolers, so you have to use special programs for these tasks. Let's see how this is implemented in practice.

PC cooler/fan control

Content

At one's own risk

Controlling the CPU cooler and additional coolers

BIOS/UEFI Settings

Using SpeedFan

Video card cooler control

At one's own risk

When experimenting with a computer cooling system, it should be understood that a complete stop or a strong drop in the speed of rotation of coolers can lead to overheating of the device cooled by them. To a greater extent, this applies to the central processor and video card. All other fans usually have an auxiliary function, however, if the level of cooling of these devices still depends on their operation, then you need to be careful with their control.

However, even old motherboards and video cards were equipped with an overheating protection mechanism that instantly turns off the power supply when they reach a certain temperature. But this should not be a reason to test the reliability and efficiency of this mechanism.

In other words, do everything at your own peril and risk.

Controlling the CPU cooler and additional coolers

First, let's say a few words about motherboards and coolers. To be able to control the rotation speed of the fans that cool the processor and other components of the motherboard, the latter must be supported by the corresponding function. Although most modern (as, indeed, already considered obsolete) motherboards support this feature at the hardware level, in the BIOS / UEFI settings, i.e. at the software level, the required option can be disabled.

The cooler is also not suitable for everyone. But this is easy to verify. If only two contact wires leave it (only power, that is, without a control wire, usually yellow), most likely it will not be possible to control it. But most modern coolers have at least 3 wires in their design (but usually 4), i.e. they support the ability to control the speed of rotation.

BIOS/UEFI Settings

For some motherboards, the CPU fan control feature can be enabled or disabled in the BIOS/UEFI chip settings. And in most cases, the user just needs to disable the function that intercepts the control of the speed of rotation of the coolers.

Here's what it's about. The BIOS / UEFI may have its own mechanism that monitors the heating temperature, for example, of the processor and, depending on its current value, sets the optimal fan speed. If this mechanism is activated, then, most likely, it will be impossible to get access to the coolers from the outside (from the operating system and boot programs). We need to disable it by setting the value "Disabled" opposite its name or otherwise provided for in a specific version of the BIOS / UEFI interface. The option responsible for this may have different names, for example, “CPU Smart Fan Control” or “CPU Q-Fan Function”. As a rule, this option contains the abbreviation "CPU" and the word "Fan" in its name (it can only contain "Fan").

But it is not necessary to immediately go to the BIOS / UEFI settings in order to activate the desired function. First, try changing its rotation speed according to the following instructions, and after that, if nothing works, you can check the BIOS / UEFI settings.

Using SpeedFan

The SpeedFan program is known to every user who has attempted to increase the power of the central processor. In general, this utility is able to control any coolers connected to the motherboard. Let's say more, SpeedFan can even control the operation of the fans of the video card, but we will not consider this point.

To change the current rotation speed of the CPU cooler, just follow these steps:

For convenience, you can first activate the Russian language in the SpeedFan program: in the “Readings” tab, click on the “Configure” button, go to the “Options” tab in the new window and select the Russian language in the “Language” list.

Pay attention to the current fan speeds (RPM) listed under CPU usage. If there is “0” there, it means that the SpeedFan program could not access the specified coolers, or they are not connected to the appropriate connectors on the board (conditionally “Sys Fan”, “CPU0 Fan”, etc.). On the other hand, at least one socket name must still contain the current RPM value.

Under the list of connectors, you can see the fields of the same name, opposite which in

percentage is set to the rotation speed of the coolers. All that is required of us is to change this value. The CPU cooling fan header is usually named "CPU0", but this is optional. It needs to be changed. For example, let's reduce the cooler rotation speed by 5%, i.e. up to 95%.

As you can see, the speed has dropped from 1918 rpm to 1834. The same can be done with additional fans. For example, a cooler for cooling the system unit is usually connected to the “Sys” connector, and a cooler for cooling, say, the south or north bridge of the motherboard, is connected to one of the “Aux” connectors.

The fan speed in SpeedFan can also be automated. In this case, the program will behave like a fan control mechanism that is built into the BIOS / UEFI. But we will not consider this point.

Video card cooler control

To control the rotation speeds of video card coolers, you can use the appropriate device driver tool or third-party programs that specialize in this. We are interested in the latter, because they are usually not tied to video cards from a particular manufacturer (although there are such). The most famous utility from this category is MSI Afterburner. We will work with her.

And here everything is extremely simple:

Run MSI Afterburner as administrator.

The adjustment tools we need are located in the lower left corner in the “Fan” block. By default, the automatic fan speed control option works in automatic mode. Therefore, the first step is to switch it to manual control mode, for which you need to press two buttons - "Auto" (the one with the letter "A") and "User Defined" (with the image of a little man):

Screenshot 6

Immediately after that, the "Fan Speed" slider is unlocked, which is located above the buttons. By moving it back and forth, you can set the required rotation speed of the video card cooler as a percentage.

As in the case of SpeedFan, MSI Afterburner can also automate the function of controlling the fan speed from the video card. This is the same as leaving the "Auto" button pressed, only the user himself sets the fan speed when the video card is heated to a certain temperature.