Open Source Fan Control Software

SpeedFan lets you take a deeper view at the status of your computer. Almost every computer includes support for hardware monitoring. Accessing digital temperature sensors is really useful. If you are trying to figure out why your PC hangs when under heavy load or after some hours of usage, SpeedFan might help you find the real cause. Very often it is a poor power supply, or an improperly installed heatsink that lead to behaviours that we tend to associate (incorrectly) with errors from the operating system. SpeedFan automatically searches your computer for informative chips: the hardware monitor chips. SpeedFan can display voltages, fan speeds and temperatures. On rare occasions, the BIOS doesn't activate such features. SpeedFan tries to enable them as long as this is a safe thing to do. Not only the motherboard is searched, but also some video cards and almost every currently sold hard disk. SpeedFan can access status info from EIDE, SATA and even SCSI drives

AlienFX Tools is a suite of utilities aimed at controlling lighting, fan, and power behaviors on Alienware systems, directly interfacing with USB or ACPI hardware rather than relying on official drivers. This project supports a broad range of effects and modes, allowing users to customize RGB lighting zones, create and switch profiles based on system states (like power source or running applications), and generate lighting behaviors tied to thermal and performance events. Because it operates at a low level, alienfx-tools can offer faster update rates and more flexible configurations compared to some manufacturer software. It includes both command-line and graphical frontend elements to support different user preferences, making it suitable for automation as well as interactive use. Enthusiasts use it to tailor lighting aesthetics and system responsiveness, especially on systems where official Alienware control panels are unavailable or problematic.

Argus Monitor is a powerful fan-control and system-monitoring tool that gives you complete control over cooling behavior across your entire PC. It allows you to manage CPU, GPU, motherboard, and AIO fans using fixed values or advanced temperature-based control curves sourced from any sensor in your system. With multi-controller support, fan profiles, hysteresis, and temperature averaging, Argus Monitor offers smooth, precise fan adjustments with minimal noise fluctuation. The software also includes robust temperature monitoring for CPUs, GPUs, SSDs, RAM, and additional sensor channels. For supported devices, it provides RGB control as well as gadget and tray-icon displays for quick system insights. Lightweight, stable, privacy-respecting, and fully customizable, Argus Monitor is one of the most comprehensive PC cooling and monitoring solutions available.

lm-sensors is the canonical Linux project for reading motherboard and peripheral hardware sensors—temperatures, fan speeds, voltages—and exposing them to userspace. It ships a probing utility (sensors-detect) that identifies I²C/SMBus chips and kernel drivers, then a runtime tool (sensors) that prints human-readable readings for quick diagnostics. The companion library, libsensors, gives applications a stable API to query sensor values, enabling desktop applets, monitoring daemons, and alerting systems to build on a common foundation. Configuration files map raw chip registers to friendly labels and scaling factors, so outputs reflect real hardware characteristics across many vendors. With this foundation, higher-level tools (like fancontrol or graphical monitors) can automate cooling policies and warn about thermal or power issues before they become failures.