smcFanControl icon indicating copy to clipboard operation
smcFanControl copied to clipboard

Doesn't work with my new MacBook Air

Open forthrin opened this issue 5 years ago • 9 comments
trafficstars

MacBook Air (2017). macOS 10.14.6. smcFanControl 2.6.

Changes to fan speeds don't take.

Some times the fan speeds up after a while, but mostly not.

Doesn't work via the CLI either. (Reading back the fan value gives the value I've asked for, though the fan itself does not adhere to the value.)

Had no problems with this with earlier Macs, so may be related to this particular model.

PS! Enclosing my CLI tools, maybe they could be of use to someone (or could be included in the basic product for ease of use.)

alias smc="/Applications/smcFanControl.app/Contents/Resources/smc"

smcr() {
  smc -k $1 -r | cut -d " " -f 7
}

fan() {
  if [[ $# -eq 1 ]]; then
    smc -k F0Mn -w $(printf "%x" $(echo $(($1 << 2))))
  else
    printf "%.0f\n" $(smcr F0Mn)
  fi
}

forthrin avatar Jan 09 '20 10:01 forthrin

After reading around, I have found that the values that the tool expects is not a decimal to hex conversion. Here's my snippets file:

## To convert decimal to string of bytes

# RPM value is 4400
python3 -c "import struct; print(bytearray(struct.pack('f', 4400)).hex())"

# RPM value is 1100
python3 -c "import struct; print(bytearray(struct.pack('f', 1100)).hex())"

# Activate 'forced' mode
/Applications/smcFanControl.app/Contents/Resources/smc -k "F0Md" -w 01
/Applications/smcFanControl.app/Contents/Resources/smc -k "F0Tg" -w 00007a44

# To restore to auto mode.
/Applications/smcFanControl.app/Contents/Resources/smc -k "F0Md" -w 00

Razique avatar Nov 12 '21 19:11 Razique

Thanks. However I'm getting an error similar to #131. sudo doesn't help. Building the lastest Git doesn't help. Maybe @hholtmann knows the status here?

Error: SMCWriteKey() = e00002bc
Error: SMCWriteKey() = e00002c1

forthrin avatar Nov 13 '21 13:11 forthrin

To confirm, you are running the M1 CPU? If so, AFAIK, the tool isn't compatible with that yet :/

Razique avatar Nov 13 '21 20:11 Razique

An important clarification:

WORKS: Changing fan speed from the macOS top bar WORKS: Reading fan speed from CLI FAILS: Writing fan speeds from CLI

$ sudo /Applications/smcFanControl.app/Contents/Resources/smc -k F0Md -w 01
Error: SMCWriteKey() = e00002bc

MacBook Air (2017). macOS 11.6. smcFanControl 2.6 (latest Homebrew / Git).

forthrin avatar Nov 14 '21 07:11 forthrin

@forthrin do these commands work without sudo? They do here. In theory, you shouldn't need sudo since you should be able to make changes to your session without escalating privileges? Does this one give you the same output?

/Applications/smcFanControl.app/Contents/Resources/smc -k "F0Md" -w 00

Razique avatar Nov 14 '21 19:11 Razique

$ /Applications/smcFanControl.app/Contents/Resources/smc -k "F0Md" -w 00
Error: SMCWriteKey() = e00002bc

forthrin avatar Nov 14 '21 20:11 forthrin

Oh I see that you have the 2.6 version, try this one: https://github.com/hholtmann/smcFanControl/releases/tag/2.6.1%C3%9F1 (2.6.1 beta). I believe that it fixes that issue.

Razique avatar Nov 14 '21 20:11 Razique

$ git log
commit de3988463a8fbabb4887c16cb3ac0acb212f1405 (grafted, HEAD, tag: 2.6.1ß1)
Date:   Sun Aug 12 00:53:25 2018 +0200
$ ./smc -k F0Md -w 01
Error: SMCWriteKey() = e00002bc

forthrin avatar Nov 16 '21 06:11 forthrin

hmmm, I don't know then :/ sorry for that

Razique avatar Nov 16 '21 16:11 Razique