
The active fans usually show “SmartGuardian” as value, which stands for chip-based control. Where it shows “NO”, no fan is connected.

If you don’t have an IT-ISA entry, your PC may not support fan control, but you can click each chip and look for switches with “PWM 1 mode”, PW 2 mode”, etc., which stand for the available fan controllers and respectively fans. In the “Advanced” tab, click the drop-down next to “Chip” and select the entry that starts with “IT” and ends with “ISA”. Once you’ve noted this information down, click “Configure”. Maximum rated temps vary depending on the hardware, but you should generally be very concerned if a temperature is over 85C. A tick means that your hardware is running within expected temperatures, a down-arrow that it’s nice and cool, and a flame that it’s too hot. You should check this both at rest and under load before we get started. On the left-hand side are the fans’ revolutions per minute, or RPM, while the right-hand side crucially shows the temperature of your core components. You’ll be bombarded with some information on opening Speed Fan. We won’t insult your intelligence by walking you through the install wizard, but here’s a handy link to a download page.

The first step to check fan speed is to download and install SpeedFan. How to Use Speed Fan for Windows Fan Control We’re going to show you how to use speed fan to control and check your fan speed in Windows 10 in search of that perfect middle-ground. You don’t need your blowers at 100% 24/7 either – the ideal curve will have your device quiet under load but ramp things up once you start doing intensive tasks like gaming. Thankfully, most OEMs build in laptop fan speed control, and in it’s basically guaranteed that a PC fan speed controller will work. Laptops often ship with slower processors than their desktop counterparts to begin with, and thermal throttling can further reduce clock speeds and other factors until your PC starts to slow down. Naturally, blowing hot air out of a PC does a lot to keep all of the internals cool, ensuring it doesn’t become an oven for your internals.Īn optimized profile is particularly important when it comes to CPU fan control, especially in laptops. If you have a low fan speed in Windows 10, it can lead to thermal throttling as soon as the device comes under load. As a result, manual fan speed control is often a necessity to maximize performance or silence, with SpeedFan the widely accepted fan controller to achieve that goal.Ī device with high-spec internals but poor cooling may as well just ship with worse hardware.

All too often, the fan profiles that PCs and laptop ship with fit into two categories: they sound like a vacuum cleaner or they’re so quiet that your CPU is essentially on fire.
