How to Increase Fan Speed on Laptop in Windows 10

Your PC is made of a large number of components. All these components function together to make your PC work as intended. Out of these components, when even a single piece stops doing what it is supposed to, your PC may not function properly or even fail to work. One of these components that are essential for your PC to work seamlessly is the CPU fan. Depending on the laptop build, your PC may house one or more than one fan.

With CPU fans malfunctioning or running at a slower speed, your PC will eventually heat up. And as we all know, operating a laptop under high temperatures could lower the CPU performance and damage the hardware. With that being said, if you notice your PC heating up more than usual under typical or heavy circumstances, it is quite possible that the CPU fan is not performing as expected. But before we get to know how to increase the fan speed on a laptop, it’s essential to see if you need to do that.

Do I Need to Increase CPU Fan Speed in my Laptop?

Your laptop comes loaded with the mechanism to detect the CPU conditions and automatically adjust the fan speed. Temperature sensors are actually at play here, and usually, they do their job pretty well.

If your PC is heating up unusually, you might feel the need to increase the CPU fan speed. The CPU fans usually may not work as intended if the temperature sensors in your laptop are fried. But before jumping to that conclusion, you should check on a couple of things first:

a) Is your laptop clean enough? If your computer is not clean and a lot of dust has build-up inside the computer, your laptop WILL overheat, regardless of the fan speed. At times, dust accumulation on the CPU fan causes its mechanism to jam and run at a relatively slower speed. Make sure to get your PC cleaned up at a regular interval of time. If you can do it yourself, right, but if you are skeptical about it, get it cleaned by a professional. After cleanup, your laptop will run smoother than before.

b) Are you placing your laptop on the right surface? Although the name says lap-top, you are not supposed to operate it on your lap. Neither are you supposed to operate your laptop on cushioned surfaces like a mattress nor a couch? When you do that, these surfaces block your laptop’s air vents, not allowing the free flow of air. And when that happens, your laptop will heat up, even if you are operating it under normal circumstances. It is highly recommended to place your laptop on a solid surface, like a table or a desk. If you work on your bed, we recommend keeping it on a solid surface like a book. This will allow for apt air ventilation.

But what if your laptop neither requires cleanup nor is being operated on a surface it’s not supposed to place on, and it still heats up? In that case, the CPU fan control unit may be fried or malfunctioning because of any reason. There could be other reasons as well that may lead to the laptop fan not work efficiently.

Here in this article, we look at various methods that will give you access to CPU fan speed control to increase laptop fan speed.

Methods to Increase Laptop Fan Speed in Windows 10

Solution 1: Use Software to Increase Fan speed of Laptop

At times, the built-in resources of PC fail to control the CPU’s fan speed, causing laptops to heat up unexpectedly. If you are an advanced user, you may want to control the fan speed of the CPU manually. Whatever be the case, you can take control of the CPU fan speed in your own hands using a third-party software designed for this very purpose.

One such software that you can download to increase laptop fan speed manually is SpeedFan. SpeedFan is a free to use software to change the fan speed according to your requirements. And that is not just it. This software actively monitors your PC’s voltages, temperatures, fan speeds, and more throughout your laptop’s hardware.

SpeedFan also allows you to automate fan speed according to the temperature rise in your PC.

Before you download and install this software on your laptop, here are a couple of things that you must make a note of.

PC components are safe to operate at around 50 degrees Celsius, which can extend to 60 degrees over a long period. Seventy degrees is the maximum limit for your PC to operate. CPU operating at temperatures beyond 70 degrees must be considered as a red-flag. In that case, we recommend you to get the PC fan checked and replace if required.

Download SpeedFan from here.

Solution 2: Increase Laptop CPU Fan Speed in Control Panel

If you do not wish to deal with complex software settings like SpeedFan, you can make a couple of tweaks in the Control Panel to increase the fan speed on laptops. Although making these changes does not directly change or improve the fan speed, it tells the fan speed control unit to increase the fan speed in general. The speed, however, is controlled by the fan control unit.

We recommend not to skip this method as it has helped many users with CPU high-temperature issues by directing the control unit to increase fan speed.

Here are the steps to follow:

Step 1: Press Win + X keys on your keyboard to open the Windows Power Menu. In the menu, select the Control Panel option.

Step 2: In the Control Panel window, click on Power Options.

Step 3: In the next window, select the Change plan settings option located in front of the power plan you are operating your laptop on.

Step 4: Next up, make a selection on the Change advanced power settings option.

Step 5: The Power Options window will open now. Here, in the list of options, expand the Processor power management option. Under this list, expand the System cooling policy option. For both the On battery and Plugged in options, select the options from respective dropdowns as Active. When done, click on Ok to apply the changes you made.

Exit the Control Panel window now, and if you can, restart your PC. After the restart, see whether the CPU fan(s) speed increased or not.

Method 3: Increase Fan Speed in BIOS Settings

Software like SpeedFan and Control Panel settings can sometimes be useless in increasing the fan speed of CPU on laptops. If that is the case with your PC, the only option you are left with is making changes in the BIOS settings.

Irrespective of the manufacturer of your motherboard, you will find fan control settings in its BIOS menu. Through BIOS settings of your motherboard, you can easily manage your laptop’s fan speed to increase or decrease its speed. But for this, you will need to enter the BIOS settings first.

There are two ways in which you can enter the BIOS menu of your laptop.

a) Restart your laptop. As soon as your laptop boots, press Del or F12 key on your keyboard to enter the BIOS settings. The key that you need to press is mentioned on the startup page of your PC.

b) You can also enter your laptop’s BIOS settings through the Settings app of Windows 10. For this, open the Settings app by pressing the Win + I keys. In the Settings menu, select the Update & Security option. In the following window, go to the left pane and select the Recovery option. Now, go to the right pane and select the Restart now an option under the Advanced startup section. Your PC will restart and enter the Advanced startup environment. Here, select the following options: Troubleshoot > Advanced > UEFI Firmware settings > Restart

Now, your PC will restart, and you will enter the BIOS menu on your PC.

Here, look for Fan Speed settings. The location of this setting changes for different motherboard manufacturers. We suggest you take a look at your motherboard’s user manual to find the fan control settings. If you are good with computers, you can go ahead and find the settings yourself. Use the fan settings option in BIOS to increase or decrease fan settings according to your needs. Some of the motherboards also come with advanced CPU fan settings that you can use to automate fan speed according to temperatures.

I hope we were able to help you increase the fan speed on laptops in Windows 10. Before you try out the BIOS settings to increase CPU’s fan speed, we highly recommend you make use of third-party software to tweak the CPU fan speed. In case the software doesn’t work, then only try to enter the BIOS settings of your PC. BIOS settings are sensitive and must only be entered if you know what you are doing.