smcFanControl
June 23rd, 2007 by jennsbl
Rating: 5/5
I happened across a nifty utility app for Intel Macs. As many folks have noted the MacBook Pro, in particular, runs a bit hot. My 17?¢‚Ǩ¬ù consistently got hot enough that I always made sure I had something to toss under it if I was planning to work with it sitting on my lap. Some folks also have some Intel Mini’s that run a bit hot as well.
No more! smcFanControl comes to our rescue. The only very minor downside I can find with it is that, because you are forcing it to run the fans at a faster RPM than the default setting Apple set, you will hear the fans more. If “absolute” quiet is your primary goal you’ll want to get external things like a CoolPad or something similar, at least for your laptop.
I have smcFanControl set low enough on my 17?¢‚Ǩ¬ù MacBook Pro that it hasn’t been too horrible. Playing music or movies at a regular volume I don’t hear the fans at all. I do hear them if I keep the volume really low (sleeping 5 year old not far away in those moments). 
It’s a straightforward, easy install. Loads nicely in the menu bar with temp and fan rpm. It allows you to have it auto start after login as well as auto apply specific settings for battery, AC-power or when charging (laptops only). It doesn’t override the automatic mode that causes the fans to rev higher when CPU load increases enough to warrant even stronger cooling. I find that mine doesn’t need to rev nearly as often now though.
An earlier version had a memory leak that could ramp up the memory use if running for extended periods. The developer released an updated version that addressed that. I’ve seen no issues with it since I started using it about 2 weeks ago, so be sure you are downloading at least version 2.1
Quite a nice little app if you want to keep the heat down on your Intel Mac. Now, if I could just find something similar for a really toasty AlBook (PPC)!
Version Reviewed: 2.1
Retail Price: Free (Donationware)
Site: http://81.169.182.62/~eidac/software/smcfancontrol2/index.html
