Summer moves away from some regions, approaches others, and history repeats itself: your computer's sensors start reporting values that don't inspire much confidence. The price of peace is eternal vigilance, and the same can be said for the stability of our systems, so it's never a bad idea to have an app that lets you easily control your fans. That app is FanCtrl, which is not only free, portable, and open-source, but also offers wide compatibility.
With the new Ryzen 7000 series processors, AMD dared to "normalize" a CPU temperature of 95 degrees Celsius. Naturally, any user sees that number and panics, but the situation would be much more serious if we detected such a temperature on other platforms.
Summer is approaching for half the planet, meaning users must anticipate any problems by combining a good cleaning, a thermal paste change, and strict monitoring of sensors and fans. The software offer is quite broad for that third step, but today I want to mention FanCtrl, a free, portable, and open-source solution.
Control any computer's fans with FanCtrl
On first run, FanCtrl will try to automatically detect all fans and control systems with the help of the LibreHardwareMonitor module. Obviously, correct detection doesn't guarantee accurate data (my motherboard has errors in certain readings), but what matters here is fan adjustment, and that works wonders.
In its options menu we find NvAPIWrapper support (Nvidia cards), DIMM sensor readings, compatibility with NZXT and EVGA products, a module that gets readings from HWiNFO, and liquidctl which controls smart AIO units. The program comes with Celsius by default, but has an option to enable Fahrenheit, as well as start with the operating system, and minimized to the system tray. The OSD (on-screen display) mode uses RivaTuner Statistics Server (which accompanies MSI Afterburner).
Also worth highlighting is automatic fan control. In this section you can create different profiles combining sensors and fans, but the simplest approach is to add a sensor, configure the relevant fans, and finally define the curve on the graph. FanCtrl includes some presets, and personally I recommend using the Performance value as a starting point.
FanCtrl has received many updates in recent months, and I believe the software is already going through a solid phase of stability, functionality, and compatibility. The rest is a matter of adjusting percentages and finding the best balance between cooling and noise. Link below!
Official site and download: Click here
