How to Control Your PC’s Fans with an Open-Source Tool
For years I’ve been looking for an app that would allow me to manage all of my PC’s case fans from one place and relate case fan speed to GPU temperature. About five years ago I found it. Since then, Fan Control has become a staple on my PC. I recommend it to anyone who needs a fan management app.
Fan management on Windows PCs leaves a lot to be desired
After building a new PC in late 2020, I realized that I couldn’t let the temperature of my GPU dictate the speed of my case’s fans. I tried a few fan management apps I was familiar with, but none allowed me to create a custom case fan curve with GPU temperature as the trigger. I could only relate my case fan speed to CPU or motherboard temperature.
Since I could also do this in BIOS, I deleted the applications, went into BIOS and created a custom case fan curve based on CPU temperature. It worked well, but it wasn’t what I needed. I wanted to wire my case fans to the GPU thermals so that they only speed up when the graphics card is under load, which more or less only happens when gaming.
On the other hand, tying case fan RPM to CPU thermal temperatures is less than ideal, as various tasks can temporarily tax the CPU and, in turn, increase the power of your case fans. For example, I opened my browser, my CPU temperature spiked, and the case fans skyrocketed. I then opened a bunch of tabs and the fans became loud again. The process repeated over and over throughout the day when opening and using programs, opening new browser tabs, and doing any action that taxed the CPU.
This annoyed me because I wanted the case fans to be quiet most of the time, only getting louder during games. So I hopped around the web to try to find an app that supports this feature. After a surprisingly brief search, I found a relatively new open source application, Fan Control. It was everything I was looking for.
Fan control is easy to use yet packed with features
At the end of 2020, Fan Control was just out of the oven. The initial version was released in June of the same year. Despite its lack of features at the time, the app allowed me to create a custom case fan curve based on triggers that tied their speed to GPU temperature. It was pretty much everything I was looking for.
In the years since, Fan Control has gained a ton of valuable features. Nowadays, it is the ultimate fan management solution for Windows PCs. It supports many different fan curves, allows very detailed control of each fan inside your case, has a simple setup, is easy to use, and is packed with features.
You can create seven different types of fan curves, manually control your fans with sliders, and use many different temperature sensors as sources for custom fan curves.
Fan Control supports multiple CPU and GPU sensors, as well as VRM, RAM, SSD, and even PSU thermal sensors if you have a Corsair PSU.
The application allows you to combine different thermal sensors into a single custom fan curve source, or include several existing fan curves as multiple sources for a new custom fan curve.
For example, you can create a custom case fan curve that uses both CPU and GPU fan curves as sources. You can then set the active source to be the one under the highest load, allowing your case fans to match the speed of the GPU or CPU, whichever is under higher load at any given time.
You can also create custom sensor files and upload them to the app, install third-party plugins, export your fan configurations and use them on another PC with the same fan layout, and much more.
When it comes to changing custom fan curves, you can change a number of variables: the sensors that trigger the fan to turn on, response time (the time after which the fan speed increases or decreases), hysteresis (the temperature difference after which the fan speed increases or decreases), fan speed in RPM and percentage, number of steps in chart-based fan curves, and more.
The app supports CPU, GPU, and case fans, AIOs, and even small fans found in active M.2 SSD heatsinks. As long as you connect the fan to one of your motherboard’s fan connectors, you can control it. In short, Fan Control should recognize and control every fan you have inside your case.
Fan Control also includes custom themes, uses the open source LibreHardwareMonitor software as a backend, allows you to rename each thermal sensor and is completely free to use. In short, it’s packed with features, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The fan control setup process is a breeze
Having access to such a mountain of features can seem daunting, especially if you only want to match your case fan speed to GPU temperature, as I did. Fortunately, the Fan Control setup procedure is quite simple.
First, download the latest version of the app from the app download page. It is recommended to download the “.NET 8.0” installer if you are using Windows 11, as it is based on the latest version of .NET Framework. Feel free to download the “.NET 4.8” installer instead if you are using an older version of Windows that is not compatible with the latest version of the .NET Framework.
Windows may warn you against installing the application; just click “More information”, then click the “Run anyway” button. Once the app is installed, open it. You can now read the EULA or simply click the “OK” button.
Next, the app will ask you if you want to run an assisted setup. I recommend doing this.
You can now choose which sensors you want to use. If you have an NVIDIA GPU and want to create a custom fan curve for it, make sure to check the “NVAPI” and “NVIDIA Hardware Curve Override 0%” boxes. If you have an AMD RDNA GPU, check the “AMD ADLX” box. Then click “OK” to continue.
Now let the app detect and associate the fan control sensors with the appropriate speed sensors. Your fans will go all the way up, but that’s normal. This may take some time as Fan Control will test every fan header found on your motherboard as well as your GPU fans.
Next comes the automatic fan calibration, during which each fan will return to 100%. This step will complete in a few minutes, just after Fan Control finishes calibrating the detected fans. If your case fans are connected in series, Fan Control will show them as a single fan, because they only use a single fan header.
You can now test the detected fans and name each one. Since my two case fans are connected in series to a single fan connector, they appear as a single fan. If your case fans are individually connected to the motherboard, adjust the slider for each fan and check which one speeds up or slows down. Once you’ve identified which is which, name them accordingly. You can rename the fans whatever you want.
Once you’re done, click “OK.”
The app will then ask you to adjust a few more settings, like startup behavior, and that’s it! Now you can create custom fan curves, further test each fan and do whatever you want.
Personally I use two custom fan curves. The first is a flat CPU fan curve set to 80%, which means my CPU fan is always running at 80% of its maximum speed. The second curve is a case fan curve with the GPU hotspot sensor selected as the source. When the GPU hot spot is below 50 degrees Celsius, both case fans spin at 600 RPM and are inaudible. Once the GPU is under load and its hot spot reaches 60 degrees Celsius, the case fans crank up to 1,200 RPM.
I didn’t create a custom GPU fan curve because the default one works pretty well.
Although creating custom fan curves is relatively simple, you can watch JayzTwoCents’ video if you need a tutorial on how to create and edit different fan curves.
If you want an in-depth video tutorial, the Onslaught PC YouTube channel has created an impressive over an hour tutorial that covers everything you can do in Fan Control.
If you ask me, Fan Control is the ultimate Windows fan management software. The most impressive thing is that a single developer has created an app that is light years ahead of what big brands in the PC fan space like Corsair and Lian Li are offering.
Fan Control works great on virtually any Windows PC, receives regular updates (the latest version at the time of writing is 245), and is one of the best open source applications for Windows. I wholeheartedly recommend it to any PC owner who wants to control their system’s fans, whether by creating a simple fan curve where the temperature of the GPU controls the speed of the case fans, or by setting up a complete fan control system with a set of custom curves that cover every scenario.
