2018 MacBook Pro Buggy

[WillGreen98]

@hholtmann I just bought the 2018 i7-8850H MBP and it seems to be thermal throttling, (I have been using SMCFanControl for over 3 years) so I installed SMCFanControl on the new MPB and it returns an error along the lines of this product has not been tested on this device, I proceed and the fan status is insanely off... numbers around 6000000+

Is there going to be a release of update for the 2018 models?

[hholtmann]

I do not have access to a MBP 2018 currently and therefore can't test smcFanControl on such a device. There are quite a lot of changes in the MBP 2018 regarding how the control of fan works (T2 chip, different data types). If you are willing to help with making smcFanControl compatible to the MBP 2018 by testing changes and beta versions on your device, I am more than happy.

[Ultima2876]

I also have a 2018 MacBook Pro and would be more than happy to assist with testing changes. The current version seems to work perfectly apart from incorrect fan RPM readings. Here is how it currently looks:

[WillGreen98]

That's odd, when I installed SMC the only similarity I had to you is the fan RPM being vastly different. Other than that, it did not function at all for me, in terms of controlling fan speeds.

Will edit this post later this evening - attach screenshots and system info.

[Ultima2876]

That is odd. I use it quite a lot to set my fan speeds to 4000 and 6000rpm, and haven't had any problems (I can hear them spinning up and see the difference in temps). Mine is the i9 model.

I did a bit of additional research to see if I could easy prepare a Pull Request to fix this and found this thread: rugarciap/Turbo-Boost-Switcher#59. It seems like the T2 chip encrypts output from the SMC, which explains the weird and constantly fluctuating display values for RPM. I'm guessing there's some (undocumented, presumably) way to decrypt that value and get the true RPM... but I imagine that's going to be difficult without someone 'breaking the ice' first.

@WillGreen98 did you try obvious 'fixes' such as SMC reset, reinstalling the app and such to address other issues you have running smcFanControl?

[hholtmann]

My initial research points to just the datatypes being changed. What is interesting is that controlling the fan still seems to work for some of you. Please not that most likely in this MBP the minimum fan speed can't be controlled, when the Fans are IDLE (only when the force bit it set, which however disabled automatic fan ramp up). See this issue: #58

[WillGreen98]

@Ultima2876, I read over a few previous issues, I did try to reset it but nothing worked. I am attaching my system info, a screenshot of when I first open the app and a screenshot of the toolbar info.

System

Opening SMC Fan Control

Finder Tool Bar

I also uninstalled and reinstalled a twice.

[Poopi]

I've just created a pull request with fixes for MacBookPro 2018

[hholtmann]

@Poopi Cool. What machine did you test this on? I will create a beta build of this tomorrow so other people can test it. I am still considering of making the force fan bit stuff optional (e.g. an option called "Allow fan control when fans are off") as controlling the fan entirely manually (with target speed) is not 100% failsafe in my opinion.

[Poopi]

I tested it with MacBookPro15,1 ( i9 ). I couldn't manage to do anything with the fan speed with the mode set to auto. It was working ok with manual though.

[hholtmann]

Interesting. So auto mode also did not work, when the fans were already running (not at 0 rpm)?

[WillGreen98]

@hholtmann, as @Poopi tested this build on an i9, I am happy to test on my i7. Will look into it when I get home. Hope that helps or makes a difference :)

[Poopi]

@hholtmann Auto mode forced the fans to slowly go to min speed without any load. Hope that this is default behaviour as I stated to play with different Smc control software and finally decided to fix the open source ones as none of them (I've tested) were working.

[touchbyte]

@Poopi I am referring to this:
#58
From my understanding (have no test device) the force bit is only needed when the fans are off. When the fans are already running, things should be working and a minimum fan speed can be set in auto mode.

[Poopi]

@touchbyte @hholtmann First of all I haven't see them off so far ( speed is always equal or higher than min in auto - in forced the lowest I've managed was ~180). Take a look onto the screenshot. Settings are ignored when auto is on. Only when set to forced Tg is accepting the changes. Mn nad Mx seems to be read-only values ( don't have other Mac with me to test at the moment).

[hholtmann]

Please use this beta for testing on MBP 2018:
https://github.com/hholtmann/smcFanControl/releases/tag/2.6.1%C3%9F1
Feedback much appreciated!