DellFanManagement & DellFanKeepAlive – Tools for managing the fan speed in Dell laptops

New release: 3.0 beta 2.
Binary download: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AsIwJHFk4EFdqIFyg4N3ia2vkaj0lg?e=5CDL2m

I'm releasing "Dell Fan Management, version 3.0 beta 2" today with some enhancements from the past month of work. I plan to continue with beta releases monthly until I am satisfied that the product is "done" enough for a final release.

Requirements/setup for this release are the same as the previous one, so I'll refer back to that post. Visual C++ redistributable is not required anymore though.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...d-in-dell-laptops.833340/page-8#post-11104029

I was hoping to have a final release for this month. However, my plans were derailed when I learned that the new Precision 7560 and 7760 systems do not support the currently used method of fan control. This actually caused the planned scope of my 3.0 release to increase somewhat.

I spent a great deal of time learning about other ways to interact with the Dell BIOS, with particular focus on Dell's SMI/WMI interface, to the point where I actually feel that this program is becoming the result of my own learning rather than just slapping together work done by other people. Dell's libsmbios code and contributions to the Linux kernel were helpful in understanding this. I already used this interface for reading and setting the "thermal mode", so I had some base code in place for this interaction. (This code was reverse-engineered from Dell Power Manager.)

I am using the SMI/WMI interface to read the fan speeds on the Precision 7560 and 7760. I have proof-of-concept code for fan control using this interface that works with the Precision 7530, but I have not yet had time to explore the possibilities on the 7X60 systems, so it is not activated in this release.

• First pull request on GitHub; GimpArm implemented the minimize-to-tray function, and that is included in this release.
• All of the C++ code left over from "Dell Fan Utility" by 424778940z has been migrated to C#/.NET; as such, the C++ redistributable is no longer required in order to run the program. (Other requirements are the same as before; in the future, the BZH driver will not be required to run the program on newer systems, but for now the program will not run without it loaded.)
• Now supports multiple methods of reading the fan speed: the BZH driver, WMI (requires Dell Command | Monitor), and SMI (no additional requirements – no extra software or driver needed at all, actually). The best method for your system will be automatically selected at startup. This allows for the fan speed of the new Precision 7560 and 7760 systems to be read and displayed. (Fan control on these systems is not yet available.)
• Added framework for supporting multiple methods of fan control, but for now, the BZH driver is the only method that the program uses.
• A "use at your own risk" disclaimer message appears when the program is loaded for the first time.
• All temperature values now show the minimum and maximum value observed for the duration of the session, in addition to the current value.
• Added some "sanity check" logic on the fan speed RPMs in "consistency mode"; the EC in my M6700 was periodically reporting very high fan speeds which would cause the application to erroneously enable EC fan control when the program was set to "consistency mode", which would usually just cause the fans to shut off.
• Fixed an issue with the tray icon not changing color in "consistency mode" when it should.
• With the "audio keep alive" feature, if it was activated for an audio device and that audio device disappears and then reappears, audio keep alive will be re-enabled on that device automatically. (My specific use case was connecting to the system via Remote Desktop which would disable audio for the duration of the session.)
• The NVAPI reader won't crash if the NVIDIA card disappears (i.e. during an NVIDIA driver update).
• Various small refinements.

 

Hello,
Thank you for this tool, works like a charm on my Inspirion 7580 !
Is there a way to go higher than 4800 rpm?

 

Sorry, no, the BIOS interface only allows for setting three speeds.

 

My Inspiron 7590 says:

Fan 1 level 0 speed: 0
Fan 1 level 1 speed: 2123
Fan 1 level 2 speed: 4769

Fan 2 level 0 speed: 0
Fan 2 level 1 speed: 2134
Fan 2 level 2 speed: 4761


DellFanManagement-3.0beta2 works fine, but I have a humble request. Dell thermal management has nothing between 3150 and 0 rpm, and if the speed is fixed at 3200 (consistency) the fans are quite loud. I would like to be able to select the "medium speed" of 2200 rpm instead when the consistency condtions (< 3200 rpm and low temps) are met.

Background: the Inspiron 7590 is badly designed with a potent processor (i7 - 9750H in my case which would like a package power of 45 Watts even without the GPU) and a puny cooling system wich is good for a package power of something like 15 Watts. Restricting the power limit to 10 Watts (with the help of throttlestop) leaves me with half the computing power and a quarter of the heat. But Dell still lets the fans roar or be quiet and then roar some more.

 

I'll see if I can work something like this out for the next release.

 

Am getting a missing dll error despite it being in the directory. Thoughts?

 

Check the top of this thread for a registry change that you have to make to allow drivers without a Microsoft signature to load. Have you done that?

 

Right, I added that reg key, still errors out saying the same thing.

 

I don't know...
I will add some log entries to the code that loads the driver and see if that can help narrow down where exactly it is failing.

 

Hello - I have just installed the latest beta, 3.0 B2 on Windows 10 20H2.

I currently have a new Inspiron 7320 and neither Manual nor Consistency modes work. The beta is able to properly read the fan RPM and CPU temperatures but I am not able adjust the fans. Is there anything I can test or provide to you to get this working for my model in a future version? Thank you.