Re. smcfancontrol: I like Apple menu menu, but found installation not so perfect. In these days of spyware, I need every reassurance of integrity, this app seems a bit tatty (hence not so confidence building). But it seems to work well.
My use is on 09 Mac Pro 8 core on Leopard 10.5.8. I find that playing any sound roasts the CPU. The smallest sound play can cook Core A up to 90C. Internet radio (Firefox or Safari) can leave temps high (this under virgin Leopard 10.5.8) until app quit. However Quicktime Player sound causes temp jump until sound stops, then temps decline.
This seems a serious MacOS bug.
Testing with 100% load on 16 cores for several minutes only got the temperature up to 61C (no smcfancontrol).
I made 3 settings for smcfancontrol, names 1, 2, 3, ... Each higher fan settings. So I can easily boost fan as temps rise.
My setting 3 is:
EXHAUST 889
INTAKE 889
BOOSTA 938
BOOTSB 800
It would be useful if i could see my setting number in the Apple menu.
Anyone have pointers to temperature limits for Nehalen CPU?
Or links to info relating to 2009 Mac Pro sound/heat problems?
I like smcfancontrol, thumbs up to developer and I hope he continues to refine it. I'd quiet like to see a graph of historical fan speeds overlaid with temps, but perhaps this is more in Temperature monitor's domain.
Of course I'd like fan speed to automatically respond to hardware temps, but that is the OS's responsibility. Apple seems buggy or weak in this area.