Fan speeds

[Kurrosh]

So, I have had lag whilst playing games under windows (CoD , AoC , L4D) and changed my video card drivers to nvidia's. This helped a bit, but not enough. I read somewhere that the problem is likely due to heat problems, to install smcFanControl and then restart.

I did exactly that and it works fine, but the only problem is I am not sure how safe it is. For games like Age of Conan, (with reasonably high graphics) it will need high fan speeds, I have it set to near the maximum on all 3 options (ODD - 4k , HDD 4k , CPU 2.4k) Is this safe or should I spend a while finding the best fan speed before lagging? The noise doesn't bother me so don't include that in your reasoning.

Edit: I am using a 24" iMac 3.06ghz, with 4gb RAM , 500gb 5400 rpm HDD and nvidia 8800 GS 512mb card.

 

[jakeguy99]

It def is not good for a fan to be running on 4000rpm for long periods of time and i would assume that is what you would be doing while gaming. However, it is also bad if your computer is overheating and becoming ungodly hot. Leaving the fans on would just ware down the fan and cause them not to last as long, the replacement would not be as expensive as a new GPU for over heating. It is your call really to how you want to push it. I used to use SMC fan control, but now i just let the computer do what it has to do.

 

[kemo]

Im now using my macbook pro even for gaming, my fans are at speed 3500rpm max and Im cooling bottom side of latop by 2x 80x80mm computer fans - Ive home made latop cooler - its more than 100% effective than those craps what are you see in stores! I tried about 4 of them (cuz I worked in one..so I just unpack some and tried it out) and it didnt cool my laptop much, there were only °C lower than without coller under it, but now, Im getting maximal temperatures about 60 °C ( did I said Max?!) normally it is about 55 °C...with those craps I had about 75 °C and once I said 81 °C...on my processor..Ive used smcFanControl...