# Fan Control Fan Control is a free Windows application by Rémi Mercier that takes over every fan in your machine and lets you decide, precisely, how each one responds to temperature. Its own tagline says it well: lean, bloat-free, deeply customizable. The problem it solves is the one every PC builder eventually hits. Motherboard fan curves live in the BIOS, they only read motherboard sensors, and they cannot see your GPU. The GPU has its own curve, controlled by yet another tool. The AIO has vendor software. So your case fans ramp to full speed because the CPU spiked for two seconds during a compile, while your GPU quietly cooks at 80°C because nothing links the two. You end up with a machine that is both loud and hot. ## What you get - **Seven curve types**, including graph curves, target curves, flat curves, and trigger curves - **Mix curves**: the feature that makes the whole thing work. Combine several curves and apply a function (max, average) so one fan can react to CPU *and* GPU temperature at once, taking whichever is worse - **Every fan in one place**: CPU cooler, case fans, GPU, AIO pumps, across motherboard and vendor controllers - **Serious tuning parameters**: calibration, hysteresis, response time, step-up and step-down delays, RPM avoidance zones for fans that resonate at certain speeds, and clean 0 RPM operation where hardware supports it - **Plugin system** based on .NET, for third-party sensors and controls - **Built on LibreHardwareMonitor**, the open source hardware monitoring library, so sensor coverage improves through community work rather than vendor goodwill ## Notes from using it Start with calibration. Fan Control measures each fan's actual RPM range instead of assuming a linear percentage, which is what makes 0 RPM and low-speed behavior trustworthy. Then build the mix curve first and point every fan at it. Trying to tune six fans independently is how people give up. One well-shaped mix curve, driven by the hottest relevant sensor, handles almost every real workload. Hysteresis and response time deserve attention too. Noise is not really about how fast fans spin; it is about how often the speed *changes*. A fan holding 900 RPM disappears into the room. The same fan oscillating between 700 and 1100 every few seconds is maddening. Widen the hysteresis and slow the response, and a machine that felt loud becomes silent without running any hotter. Set it to start with Windows, minimized to tray, and forget it exists. ## My take This is the single best quality-of-life change you can make to a desktop PC, and it costs nothing. Not a new cooler, not more fans, not a new case: just software that finally lets the fans respond to the right sensor. It is also a lesson in scope. One developer, one platform, one problem, solved better than every hardware vendor solved it for their own products. The Windows-only limitation is real, but it is the honest consequence of doing one thing properly instead of five things badly. ## References - Official website: https://getfancontrol.com/ - Source code and releases: https://github.com/Rem0o/FanControl.Releases - LibreHardwareMonitor (the sensor backend): https://github.com/LibreHardwareMonitor/LibreHardwareMonitor - Plugin list: https://github.com/Rem0o/FanControl.Releases/blob/master/PLUGINS.md ## Related - [[OpenRGB]]: same philosophy, applied to lighting instead of cooling - [[OCBase (OCCT)]]: what I use to load the system while shaping curves - [[FurMark]]: for the GPU side of that same load testing - [[HWiNFO]]: the sensor readings worth building curves against - [[Winget]]: how I install it