A program to control your computer's fan speed and monitor other aspects of the hardware
A program to control your computer's fan speed and monitor other aspects of the hardware
Popular programs in Analysis & Optimization
What is SpeedFan
SpeedFan puts you in control of your computer's sensors, enabling you to monitor the system's voltages, fan speeds and component temperatures. This application is ideal for diagnosing heat issues inside your computer and making adjustments to combat them. If cooling isn't an issue, use SpeedFan to lower the speeds of fans inside of your computer and reduce the noise they generate. SpeedFan is an invaluable application for any user who repairs, tweaks and upgrades the components inside their computers.
Monitoring Abilities
SpeedFan's Readings tab displays a full report of your system's fan speeds, temperatures and voltages. Fans are flanked by their RPMs, or revolutions per minute, but only the GPU fan is identified by name. Other fans are listed generically as "Fan1" or "Fan2." To determine which fan cools your CPU, the program's developers recommend revving your CPU and monitoring which fan responds; because you can monitor your CPU's usage in SpeedFan, you can quickly determine which fan corresponds to your CPU, graphics card and other key components.
SpeedFan also lets you monitor your system's internal temperatures and voltages under the Readings tab. Hard drive, GPU and GPU core temperatures are displayed in Celsius, so users who are used to Fahrenheit readings will have to do a little math or get used to seeing temperatures in the 70s as blazing instead of balmy.
The application's Charts tab helps you visualize temperatures, fan speeds and voltage in a graph. You can select which elements you'd like to visualize, and the tab's graph will chart it for you. Being able to customize your graphs is handy for seeing trouble spots quickly.
Fan and Voltage Adjustments
SpeedFan's configuration options allow you to define fan controllers and specify the PWMs, or pulse-width modulations, for the controllers. However, the software's developer describes linking PWMs and fan controllers a matter of trial and error, so be ready to return to default settings if the changes you make don't work well for your system.
The Verdict
SpeedFan is as reliable as the sensors inside of your computer; in other words, any erroneous data you receive is likely the fault of your sensors. The system's chief virtue is that it lets you monitor your computer's components from your operating system instead of forcing you to launch your computer's BIOS. SpeedFan has been evolving for years now, increasing its support for motherboards and temperature sensors, so each iteration of the application has shown improvements over its earlier versions. It's independently developed software and isn't perfect, but it offers invaluable monitoring capabilities.
Pros
- Thorough reporting of sensor data
- Compact user interface
- Includes charting capabilities
Cons
- Some features are incomplete