Are Cooling Pads for the Macbook Pro Unnecessary?
March 1, 2009 by Rico Mossesgeld
Filed under Laptops
Reader Rico (no relation) recently told me about smcFanControl, an Intel Mac OS X utility that provides the user with direct control over a Macbook Pro’s set of cooling fans. By setting the minimum fan speed of the laptop, smcFanControl basically sets how fast the cooling fans run.
So how does this make cooling pads unnecessary? Rico’s personal testimony revealed that he was able to make his hot-running MBP, at 65 degrees Celsius, drop by 7 degrees by forcing the fans to run at full speed. As a safety feature, smcFanControl will not allow the user to slow fan speed below the minimum as dictated by Apple’s defaults.
While this makes a cooling pad mostly unnecessary, I wonder what the effect of running your CPU, hard disk, and optical drive fans at a consistently high speed? Will such direct and manual control of an MBP’s fans also void the warranty? At the very least, I’m pretty sure high fan speeds drain the battery faster.
