Speedfan question - Switching controls and knowing my fans

[GigaG]

I recently downloaded Speedfan. Despite having a rather obscure, PC-specific motherboard and having some bad temp sensors (one sensor consistently reports 127C while another reports -66C) , it works with some configuration. (Although the other system temp is always 22C, so that might be unreliable.)

Question 1-
However, I'd like to be able to turn it off and go to "default" mode and only push my fans while gaming (when my CPU has been observed to get into the 70s Celsius or even 80 at one point.) I also want to keep my computer from sounding like a jet on takeoff unless I need it to sound like this. Would I go about doing this by setting my fans from "SmartGuardian" to "Software Control" to go back to my normal, self-regulating (somewhat hot) system? As long as I have SmartGuardian on my fans, will SpeedFan stay out of it?

Question 2-

I have 5 fans listed, 3 PWMs (To my knowledge only PWM fans work with Speedfan) and 2 fans with listed RPMs. I also have a graphics card fan which never has a listed RPM to my knowlege, but I hear it running. I know Fan1 is my CPU cooler (as Speccy says.) What might Fan 2 be? My PSU fan? A back case fan? I have a Dell Studio XPS 8100.

Question 3-
Which fans associate with which PWMs? My stock settings involve PWMs 1 and 2 being set to "SmartGuardian" and PWM 3 being set to "On/off." I imagine PWM1 is Fan1 and PWM2 is Fan2 (I tried manually controlling one and got it to work, so I know at least one of these PWMs has a connected fan.) I'm guessing PWM3 is unoccupied. Is my understanding correct?

Question 4-
Do I have to change my settings back to "stock" within SpeedFan before uninstalling SpeedFan?

System Stats-
Studio XPS 8100
ATI Radeon 5450
Core i5 650 3.2GHz
1TB WD hard drive
Dell 0G3HR7 motherboard

 

[poppy48]

I've used Speedfan software (freeware, but small donations accepted) and it is evolving and EXCELLENT software. I have a legacy 2005 mid-tower build, Windows XP, 2 GB, Athlon 64bit 2 X 4200 dual core with four fans: decent AMD CPU fan, Rear tower venting fan (blows OUT), power supply fan (blows IN per ATX specification), and an XFX GeForce6800XT with an 80mm fan screwed on in place of the stock 20mm fan and thin metal cover (which I removed) over the GPU and 256Mb of DDR3. The motherboard is an Asus A8N-LA. Speedfan finds and reports temperature in 11 different locations as follows: 1)power supply temp, 2)northbridge chip temp, 3)southbridge chip temp, 4)CPU 1st core temp and 5)CPU 2nd core temp, 6)ambient temp near rear facing outlet fan, 7)GPU core temp, 8)GPU memory temp, 9)system RAM temp, 10)ambient temp near lower right side of motherboard and 11) local temp near left side of motherboard near the Realtek sound chip.

It displays this by doing a scan that takes about 1min when you initiate the program which I recommend you do automatically when you boot up. It will minimize to your taskbar as a single temperature which you can specify as to which one you want to keep an eye on. When you run your mouse over the digit displayed, a little unobtrusive pop-up block will display all 11 temperatures for a "quick look".

Several years ago, when playing Counterstrike on Steam, I was experiencing flickering and strange video effects. I hadn't bothered to learn how to use Speedfan then, but I shut down quickly to cool things down. After an hour, I rebooted and delved into Speedfan. It found that the fan on my GeForce6800XT had failed!!! You know what those cost. I added an 80mm/2700rpm case fan by screwing it into place on top of the heat sink. The GPU temperatures, which had run as high as 93C.(199.4F) which would clearly END the GPU had it continued, now fell to a much more reasonable 44C (111F) when browsing the internet and a mean temperature of 54C (129.2F) when playing games such as Counterstrike Source. Highest its gotten since the "new and improved" air cooler is 61C (141.8F). How do I know this? I run in a Window playing internet games and occasionally minimize the window (when I'm dead and waiting for respawn) and look at the temperatures on the taskbar. But aslo I know it because Speedfan tracks the temperatures and tells you the minimum, maximum, mean and average temperatures of each sensor during each session which can be saved to a file if you want them.

Speedfan softare goes much, much further. It can tell you the condition of your hard drive because it will read all the S.M.A.R.T information that your hard drive tracks continually. It can warn you of an impending failure and also of bad sectors (as in the case of my WD "Black" 1TB drive which runs excellent but has a single bad sector that was causing some funny effects which is now isolated against reading and writing...thanks to Speedfan. It has a lot of tweaks that you can apply (with appropriate caution!) and graphs to track temperature changes, VOLTAGE changes (can tell you if your power supply is sufficient or inadequate, or having an issue on one of its many voltage outputs. I highly recommend Speedfan, The programmer of Speedfan clearly says its meant to be for enthusiasts and power users. Its not the programmers fault that some fans don't report their rpm or allow fan control. For my part, Speedfan is able to control two of my fans: the CPU and the Rear Exhaust Case Fan. The power supply fan takes care of the power supply and my "custom" GeForce fan is happy as a clam at a rather quiet 2,700 rpm and is keeping things nice in cool on the video card.

By the way, I play games at 1920X1080 with deatil reductions here and there. I experience no lag. I've also run with Speedfan recording voltage, temperature and fan speeds, as well as with taskmanager running to see how theCPU is performing. I'm happy to say that the on-line games make good use of both CPU cores, The hottest place in the case right now is the northbridge and system ram. The GPUis actually hotter but its made to take that heat up to 158F. The CPU runs under 100 most of the time and the case temperature, tracked by the three ambient sensors on the motherboard, has not gotten past 98F. That still pretty warm though and I'm thinking of a two fan push-pull solution. I'm aware of the "vortex" and will try to assist it while increasing total case inflow and outflow.

It would be wise, by the way, to set everything back to normal and restore to the previous control (whatever chipset it may be) before you uninstall Speedfan. But then, how will you know when something is failing or running too hot? Its helped me twice to date, saving me money and aggravation and I feel as though I owe the programmer a voluntary PayPal. I consider it a necessity since computers are far more complicated and cost more than several major appliances.

You can turn its fan control "off"....just uncheck the boxes for "automatic control". Works for me.