Feature Request: restore automatic fans control after exit

mark3785 · Post by **mark3785** » 04 Mar 2015, 07:02

I've noticed a problem with Macs Fan Control in that when quit, it doesn't reinstate the OS's control over the fans, with the CPU temperature only being regulated by its internal thermal protection (which lowers the clock speed). IOW, if MFC is quit, the fans just sit at minimum and don't react to CPU temperature fluctuations. It takes a complete uninstall and an SMC reset to get the fans working normally.

I'm running a 2012 rMBP (MacBookPro10,1) under 10.10.2 and the most current version of MFC with no other fan control utilities installed.

Mark

Steven · Post by **Steven** » 04 Mar 2015, 09:46

I've renamed the topic as feature request. Yes, that would be a nice improvement.

mark3785 · Post by **mark3785** » 04 Mar 2015, 12:44

Thanks. This caused me a great deal of confusion. I didn't figure out what was going on until I did an SMC reset and booted from a cleanly installed OS on a blank disk.

What sensor(s) does the default firmware use to control the fans? The limits?

Mark

Steven · Post by **Steven** » 05 Mar 2015, 17:09

What sensor(s) does the default firmware use to control the fans? The limits?

Apple doesn't share any technical information of their fan controlling algorithms

mark3785 · Post by **mark3785** » 05 Mar 2015, 18:21

How times change. I remember having a schematic and a technical reference manual for my Apple //c.

mark3785 · Post by **mark3785** » 27 Apr 2015, 09:59

Steven wrote:I've renamed the topic as feature request. Yes, that would be a nice improvement.

Any ETA on the upgrade?

Steven · Post by **Steven** » 29 Apr 2015, 06:35

mark3785
I'm sorry, no ETA at the moment

mark3785 · Post by **mark3785** » 21 Jun 2015, 22:23

Has this made it into the current version?

DreamSeason · Post by **DreamSeason** » 22 Jun 2015, 05:51

mark3785 wrote:Has this made it into the current version?

I think it's not yet.

IdiotBoy911 · Post by **IdiotBoy911** » 29 Jul 2015, 05:51

What mark3785 is saying is that after I exit (quit) Macs Fan Control the default Mac Pro fan controls no longer work properly or at all unless as mark3785 says "It takes a complete uninstall* and an SMC reset to get the fans working normally."? Is this correct?!

*By 'uninstall do you mean dragging Macs Fan Control.app to the trash?

Thanks.

mark3785 · Post by **mark3785** » 29 Jul 2015, 09:06

IdiotBoy911 wrote:What mark3785 is saying is that after I exit (quit) Macs Fan Control the default Mac Pro fan controls no longer work properly or at all unless as mark3785 says "It takes a complete uninstall* and an SMC reset to get the fans working normally."? Is this correct?!

*By 'uninstall do you mean dragging Macs Fan Control.app to the trash?

Thanks.

On my particular Macs, quitting MFC leaves the fans in the state they were put in by MFC. It takes an SMC reset to get back to normal. Until MFC has the ability to put things back to the default values, I'm sticking with smcFanControl 2.4 (not 2.5) for monitoring temperatures.

By uninstall I mean make it as if the program was never installed. I use Find Any File to search on the developer name and then program name, deleting anything I find. Programmers know what files will be written and should provide a means to remove every single one.

mark3785 · Post by **mark3785** » 27 Nov 2015, 17:25

Anything yet?

Steven · Post by **Steven** » 02 Dec 2015, 19:41

mark3785
sorry, not yet

mark3785 · Post by **mark3785** » 11 Jun 2016, 11:50

Anything yet or should I just give up?

Steven · Post by **Steven** » 11 Jun 2016, 16:54

mark3785
sorry, not yet

dantesrevenge · Post by **dantesrevenge** » 21 Jun 2016, 18:07

You can use something like Lingon from Peter Borg to create a /Library/LaunchAgents .plist file to start up when the computer boots and stays on through logouts. The plist I created is attached in .zip.

Save it to /Library/LaunchAgents, make sure it has the same owner/group & permissions as the other items in this location.

srpsrp · Post by **srpsrp** » 19 Oct 2016, 11:20

I think this is a potentially very serious issue. Unlike SMC fan control which simply alters the SMC setting for the MINIMUM speed that the fans work at, I am starting to think that using MFC to auto adjust the speeds may actually be making my problems worse.

I've had at least one occasion where after a restart MFC was sat waiting at a prompt to do an upgrade and the machine got very hot. Could this be because of the issue in this thread ?

Also some times if there are a lot of start up items it does not start until the machine has sat there getting hot. According to this thread it would appear that it's because the fans are running too slow ( i.e.. below the apple default SMC settings for a given sensor values) For this reason I've gone back to SMC fan controller.

I do like the idea of software control, I remember my old SunBlade 2000 workstation used to start up with the fans running full speed until the deamon that controlled the fans kicked in, so that had SAFE defaults. Good idea but maybe not in a user level application on a MAC that is designed to have fans controlled by the SMC.

Any software like this must absolutely leave auto control by the system intact at all times IMHO, see this from the SMC faq:

Wouldn't it be even better to read out the temperature and set the fan speeds depending on the readout than just set the minimum fan speed and let automatic fan control as defined by apple do the rest?
Yes, that approach is even better and could make your machine running cooler, when you are at higher loads. BUT: I did not take this route for smcFanControl, cause it has some risks. Adjusting the fan speed to CPU temperature requires you have a program running in the background (e.g. a daemon) that adjust fan speed continuously . If that program ever crashes or becomes incompatible cause of a System Update (or the readouts of the temperature sensor get inappropriate) , the fans could get set to a wrong (too low) speed and this could probably damage the machine. In addition to that the fan-control-logic is quite complicate. An intel mac has about 10 temperature sensors, that are continuously read out and are used for monitoring and setting the right fan speeds. So it would be "not so great" to read out just the CPU temperature as a foundation for the fan-controlling.

mark3785 · Post by **mark3785** » 19 Oct 2016, 11:31

srpsrp wrote:I think this is a potentially very serious issue. Unlike SMC fan control which simply alters the SMC setting for the MINIMUM speed that the fans work at, I am starting to think that using MFC to auto adjust the speeds may actually be making my problems worse.

I've had at least one occasion where after a restart MFC was sat waiting at a prompt to do an upgrade and the machine got very hot. Could this be because of the issue in this thread ?

Also some times if there are a lot of start up items it does not start until the machine has sat there getting hot. According to this thread it would appear that it's because the fans are running too slow ( i.e.. below the apple default SMC settings for a given sensor values) For this reason I've gone back to SMC fan controller, although I do like the idea of software control, but maybe not in a user level application.

Any software like this must absolutely leave auto control by the system intact at all times IMHO, see this from the SMC faq:

Wouldn't it be even better to read out the temperature and set the fan speeds depending on the readout than just set the minimum fan speed and let automatic fan control as defined by apple do the rest?
Yes, that approach is even better and could make your machine running cooler, when you are at higher loads. BUT: I did not take this route for smcFanControl, cause it has some risks. Adjusting the fan speed to CPU temperature requires you have a program running in the background (e.g. a daemon) that adjust fan speed continuously . If that program ever crashes or becomes incompatible cause of a System Update (or the readouts of the temperature sensor get inappropriate) , the fans could get set to a wrong (too low) speed and this could probably damage the machine. In addition to that the fan-control-logic is quite complicate. An intel mac has about 10 temperature sensors, that are continuously read out and are used for monitoring and setting the right fan speeds. So it would be "not so great" to read out just the CPU temperature as a foundation for the fan-controlling.

Which is why I gave up and and went back to SMC despite it being virtually orphanware.

Steven · Post by **Steven** » 19 Oct 2016, 14:10

This feature will be done in the next update!

Jar0d- · Post by **Jar0d-** » 14 Jan 2017, 14:47

Hello,

Please allow the former behavior (no automatic switch to standard fan) to be restored ! (as a preference decision ?)
I have a Mac Mini where the DVD sensor is faulty, hence resulting in fan running at full speed. With Mac Fan Control, I've been able to control the fan speed to approx 2200 rpm, which is enough for the use as a media center beneath my TV.
The new version makes the fan run at full speed at sleep, wake, etc (which it is designed to do) - however, this is really a bummer as I have to connect (either by the TV or by AppleRemoteManager) to activate MacFan Control controlling feature and keep the fan noise down.

Congrats for this amazing piece of software !

Thanks

Regards

J. Turion

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