How to control Fan Speed on Windows computers

Typically, CPU fan noises are heard when you reboot your PC (the whirring sound you may have heard upon startup) and it goes on to decline as the startup process completes. The purpose of fans on your CPU is to blow off the heat that your processor may generate when a process is going through. You may have felt your PC getting hot when it’s riddled with many windows and applications and it subsequently cooling down in a while; it’s the fans at play. In this article, we will be discussing how you can control the speed of your CPU fans on Windows.

Why is it important to monitor CPU Fan Speed in Windows?

The mechanism of CPU fans is pretty straightforward. They keep a periodic check on your PC’s temperature and get turned on and off accordingly. Every PC has air vents to allow the heat to escape. If you find your CPU fans to be running constantly, it’s a sign that your system is overloading and that may cause problems with your power adapter too. Thus, it can be very important to maintain a balance with the CPU fan speed while also keeping your PC’s temperature in check.

How to control Fan Speed on Windows 11/10

You can check, control, increase, monitor or change the CPU Fan Speed safely in Windows 11/10 by following these steps. Here, we will be primarily discussing how you can keep your CPU fan speed in check using the Control Panel, your PC’s BIOS control, or a third-party fan controller SpeedFan.

Control CPU fan speed via the Control Panel
Use BIOS/UEFI to control the CPU fan speed
Control CPU Fan speed using SpeedFan.

1] Control CPU fan speed via the Control Panel

Here’s how you can access fan control settings in your Control Panel:

Open the Control Panel and click on Hardware and Sound
Here, click on Power Options and further select Choose when to turn off the display
Open the Advanced power settings page
From this subsequent dialog box, locate Process power management
Here, select System Cooling Policy and toggle the setting to ‘Active’

Save these changes by clicking on Apply and you can then exit the window. The System Cooling option is absent in Windows 11 computers, so if you’re using that version of the Windows OS then you should go for the second and third ways.

Read: Best Laptop cooling software.

2] Use BIOS/UEFI to control the CPU fan speed

The Advanced Startup option BIOS has fan controlling settings in it which may differ based on your computer. Here’s how you can access and modify those settings:

How to open BIOS settings

You can either, restart your PC and when it boots back up, press the ‘Delete’ and ‘F12’ keys together
Alternatively, you can follow this trajectory: Settings > Update & security > Recovery > Advanced Startup > Restart Now > Troubleshoot > Advanced options > UEFI Firmware settings > Click Restart

How to use BIOS

On the BIOS front page, locate Fan Control Settings
Go to Monitor > Status > Fan speed control
Here, look for RPM settings. Once found, select the CPU fan to increase or decrease its speed with RPM as a unit
Save these changes and press Esc till you reach the menu option.

Read: Best practices to keep your computer cool.

3] Control CPU Fan speed using SpeedFan

The free app SpeedFan can help you find the cause behind a heightened CPU fan speed with ease. It searches your computer for informative chips and puts up voltages, speeds, and temperatures on display (things that your BIOS may fall short on). SpeedFan’s technology known as S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) runs through your motherboard and video cards to extract relevant data. Here’s how you can use it.

Download, install and run the app on your PC
When the app’s main window opens, select Configure
Now, visit the Fans tab and wait for a list of all the fans on your PC to show up
Select the CPU fan and use the Response curve to adjust its speed

The Response curve plots down the PC’s temperature and the relevant fan speed. The upward-sloping graph suggests that higher temperature leads to higher fan speed, but you can configure that to your liking.

There are several free fan speed controller software like SpeedFan and HWinFo, so if you don’t find its interface or control effective enough, you have got other options. If you’re looking to go overboard, you can always purchase an external fan hub (for your desktop) or a cooling pad for your laptop.

Note: The CPU Fan error is usually triggered when you’ve turned on your PC. As such, the fan error occurs before Windows 10 OS boots and is probably caused due to some hardware issue, and It may not be due to overheating. The most common cause why a CPU fan would run at full speed is that its sensor is not working properly. The solution here is to replace the fan itself. But you need to see that the processor is not always hot. You can use third-party applications for this purpose. These posts will help you if a CPU Fan Speed Error is detected or your CPU Fan runs at full speed always. You may want to also to check your PC’s total power consumption.

How do I check my fan speed in Windows?

Open your UEFI and head to the Monitor section. Here you can see the fan speeds and temperature. Alternatively, you can use a free third-party temperature and fan monitoring tool like SpeedFan to check your PC’s fan speed.

How do I adjust my fan speed?

There are mainly three different ways to adjust your fan speed on your computer. For example, you can do that using Control Panel, BIOS/UEFI, and third-party software. In case you want to use a third-party tool, you can opt for SpeedFan. On the other hand, you need to look for the Processor power management setting in the Power Options to get the job done.