SMC Fan Control Q.

When I run SMC my fans kick to 4000rpm and SMC shows that my default speed is 4000rpm, I cannot put it lower then 4000 only higher. I have tried uninstalling the program and reinstalling. Any suggestions?

xDC

 

What model Mac do you have?

 

2010 macbook pro i5 2.4 ghz

 

you need to quit SMCfancontrol, then delete the plist for it...
com.eidac.smcFanControl2.plist

it should be in your home folder -> Library -> Preferences

when you run it again, it should re-create that plist with default settings for your machine, including 2000 rpm minimum settings.

 

Thats didnt work it still starts and goes default 4000rpm ...

I had it working, but I reinstalled OSX and now its doing this.

 

This is coming from a person who is just about to receive his first ever Mac in two days so, I might sound stupid and make a complete fool of myself but...

Could you manually change the settings in that preferences file? Are they writable text files or is it just not that simple in OS X?

 

I'm experiencing the same problem.

 

Dont worry macs are great.

 

you can open the plist up and find the entry for the fan speeds and manually change them...

I did this on my old Mac to downspeed my fans to 1000rpm... but sadly that didn't work on my 2010 model, even setting for 1000, they keep going 2000. Somehow SMCFancontrol is just not detecting your machine right when it runs. You do have the latest version right?

 

When I open the file on text edit it gives me this ? bplist00”
_SUCheckAtStartupZSelDefault_SULastCheckTime 

 

its not a standard text version plist... usually you'll want to edit plists in Property List Editor that is part of Xcode.... or you can just convert it to a text version plist where it will be XML and you can edit it in TextEdit.

To convert the binary plist to XML...

Code:

plutil -convert xml1 $HOME/Library/Preferences/com.eidac.smcFanControl2.plist

it should still work fine that way... after you edit it, but if for some reason it doesn't you can always convert it back to binary.

Code:

plutil -convert binary1 $HOME/Library/Preferences/com.eidac.smcFanControl2.plist

when you open the XML formatted one, you should find the settings for favorites you've made, and the default ones that were put in. They will have settings for min speed and max speed... I'm guessing your min speed will say 4000, and you can change it to 2000.

 

Okay well I have no idea what any of that means, I just got a mac so i'm not familiar at all with the os, so can you explain that in order for a OSX noob to do it.

xDC

 

Terminal.app in Applications/Utilities gives you a command line.

If you copy and paste that first command I put in, it will convert the plist (preferences list for a program) to an XML format so you can edit it easily. You can then open it up in TextEdit.app and look through it (it'll be XML formatted so it'll have tags and stuff int here you have to figure it out). You'll find the place where it has settings about fan usage... you can edit them carefully and save and exit and it should have changed.

close SMCfancontrol then open Terminal.app and copy and paste these lines in separately.

Code:

plutil -convert xml1 $HOME/Library/Preferences/com.eidac.smcFanControl2.plist

open -e $HOME/Library/Preferences/com.eidac.smcFanControl2.plist

looking at that picture, you'll see a couple settings where minspeed is set to 2000 and maxspeed is set to 6200. Make sure your min speed in all entries says 2000 and not 4000. if it says 2000 already... then I'm not sure whats wrong.

if you want to make it easier.. you can install Xcode tools... then you can double click and open a plist super easy in a reader made to look at it all correctly... no tags and junk, and no XML conversion needed..

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>SUCheckAtStartup</key>
<true/>
<key>SULastCheckTime</key>
<date>2010-08-11T03:35:10Z</date>
<key>SelDefault</key>
<integer>0</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

That is what im getting now ?? It does not show any min or max speeds like in the picture above

 

What version of SMC Fan Control do you have?

 

Curious.... Why don't you guys open the file in BBEdit? Mucho better than the regular text editor.

 

latest version

 

Dude your the man, fixed my problem, I just decided to retry your suggestions and they worked

 

cool! I guess if SMCfancontrol ever gets another update, it'll probably have that problem fixed, but you might wanna try bug reporting it, that it always set min speed to 4000.

 

Is there something similar for win7 in bootcamp? since most seem to using that for gaming id expect people to force the fan on there too?

 

I haven't used it personally, but I hear good things about Lubbos...

Browse Lubbo's MacBook Pro Fan Control Files on SourceForge.net

 

great thanks!

 

Anyway that we can set certain RPMs to activate at certain temperatures, like it activates by itself to keep it constantly under X degrees?
Also what are normal temps for a macbook 2010 320m?