Best temp/fan manager for windows 7?

[sugosugita]

Yo guys I've been trying out a few different programs for monitoring temps and controlling fan speeds but I haven't found an elegant solution yet.

I've tried Speedfan, which is great, but you have to start up the program to view/change stuff. Plus it's kinda ugly.

Some people say Everest is cool but I'm not really into paid software for something like this.

There are a couple good Rainmeter skins out there but I haven't seen one with a fan controller. This would be the ideal solution since it's super nice looking integrated onto the desktop.

Thoughts?

 

[ThePriestMike]

Bump

 

[BillParrish]

Well, short answer, there is none available that I have seen that works on all motherboards etc. Asus has some fan header control in the bios for system fans, Gigabyte has little or none blah blah.

It would have helped if you mentioned your motherboard and how many of what kind of fans.

I recently found this.
http://www.akasa.com.tw/update.php?tpl=product/product.detail.tpl&no=181&type=Cables&type_sub=Fan Cable Adapters&model=AK-CB002
(google "PWM fan splitter" there are sure to be others)

I personally think EIST is about the best fan control software. Its calibrated by Intel, built into the bios so little or no resourse usage, always there, etc. etc. etc.

The trouble with the above cable is that most motherboards only have PWM fan control on the CPU fan header and one of the 3 connections will need to be used by the CPU fan leaving only room for 2 more fans and of course those fans need to be PWM fans. Hiding the cable for neatness is also an issue.

Other than that, your pretty much out of luck as far as I know. Hopefully someone else had found something new I am not aware of.

If the computer is kept within reach a fan controller might be your best option. If speedfan will control the headers on your mother board set it to start with windows and minimized to the task bar. Who the hell wants to watch speedfan anyway, set it up and forget it.

 

[sugosugita]

thanks billparish. Sounds like what i'm asking for doesn't exist because it doesn't need to. People can set up fan speed from a program or a hardware control panel, and then forget about it. The monitoring can come from an elegant solution like rainmeter skins, which can display temp/rpm, which is all you really need.

Thanks for the in-depth response, it made me think again about what I need and why.

 

[Mickey21]

Gigabyte has little or none blah blah.

Gigabyte do have one and they call it Easytune which is available for most of their motherboards. It works very well for fan controls and temp sensor monitoring/alarms/fan responses to increased heat. For instance, Bill's P965 motherboard supports Easytune 5 found here:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2295&dl=1#utility

But many newer motherboard support the much better Easytune 6 and newer which has more control and a better interface.

If the OP has a Gigabyte motherboard, I would suggest trying it out. Helps with overclocking too for novices that don't want to research how to do it, but want to be safe about it.

 

[triarii3]

good stuff thanks for hte post i needed this too...you life saver you

 

[haste]

If speedfan will control the headers on your mother board set it to start with windows and minimized to the task bar. Who the hell wants to watch speedfan anyway, set it up and forget it.

^ this.

u can set whichever temperature sensor you want to show up in the system tray/notification area. hovering the mouse over the icon quickly shows you the rest of the temps. luckily my gigabyte board has 2 PWM fan headers so all of my case fans are controlled via speedfan. been loving it so far.