New to Macs, looking for some software

[Noisebox]

Good Morning,

I have just picked myself up a 2013 Mac Pro for a few hundred (6 core, 16GB RAM, dual D500 Video cards) to explore the modern Mac ecosystem. I'm slightly familiar with MacOSX, having briefly had an iMac g5 AIO, but that has been some years ago. My current Windows 8.1 rig is a Dell precision T7610 which houses a similar Xeon CPU, albeit in a twin physical CPU configuration, so I'm comfortable with the specs of the Mac Pro.

I understand these old Mac Pros are prone to run on the hot side, and from my reading there is a bit of software to manually adjust the fan speed. This is the software I am looking for, can you help pointing me to it? Also, and I do not know if this is something built in to the OS (10.9 I think is installed on the computer) but a CPU activity monitor would be a plus to have.

Cheers!

 

[ferrarr]

Activity Monitor is in the Utilities folder. And for fan control look for SMCfancontrol.

Activity Monitor User Guide for Mac, this is for newer versions of macOS, but should be the same for the version you are running.

eidac

www.eidac.de

 

[Noisebox]

@ferrarr

Thank you kindly for the help

 

[IWT]

from my reading there is a bit of software to manually adjust the fan speed. This is the software I am looking for,

You could try "Macs Fan Control" which is just one of several options. The Link below takes you to OS X Daily which tells how to use the app and offers a direct link to the Deveolper's site, if interested. It is free.

How to Adjust Mac Fan Speed Manually with Macs Fan Control

Advanced Mac users may wish to occasionally manually control their Macs fan speed, along with monitoring the active fan speed and keeping an eye on the various internal temperature gauges of their …

osxdaily.com

Ian

 

[Noisebox]

You could try "Macs Fan Control" which is just one of several options. The Link below takes you to OS X Daily which tells how to use the app and offers a direct link to the Deveolper's site, if interested. It is free.

How to Adjust Mac Fan Speed Manually with Macs Fan Control

Advanced Mac users may wish to occasionally manually control their Macs fan speed, along with monitoring the active fan speed and keeping an eye on the various internal temperature gauges of their …

osxdaily.com

Ian

Thank you, I believe that is the one I ran across in a video. If there a reason to use one over the other one listed, or are they two sides of the same coin?

 

[pm-r]

Thank you, I believe that is the one I ran across in a video. If there a reason to use one over the other one listed, or are they two sides of the same coin?

That is also the same application I have prefered to use for the last several years but I guess it is mainly personal preference.

You can read about them both and users comments here:

Macs Fan Control

Download the latest version of Macs Fan Control for free. Read 3542 user reviews and compare with similar apps on MacUpdate.

www.macupdate.com

Download smcFanControl for Mac | MacUpdate

Download the latest version of smcFanControl for Mac for free. Read 240 user reviews and compare with similar apps on MacUpdate.

www.macupdate.com

And MFC has a slight preference according to the scoreboard.

By the way, that site is a good place to browse through and search if you are looking for information about Mac software and something that may do a job for you using their search tools.

Unless a more recent version of SMCfancontrol has changed how it's settings work, you will probably need to reset the old Mac's PRAM and SMC if and when you stop using it to get the default Apple temperatures settings back. But certainly no big deal at all, and probably a good maintenance routine to be run occasionally, like once or maybe twice a year maybe???




- Patrick
=======

 

[Noisebox]

So yeah, got my Applelith up and running. Have installed Firefox Browser (with Safari as a backup) Steam and my old copy of LightRoom 5. So far, so good! Got multiple screens working via a Thunderbolt to DP adapter (turns out, these are simply mini-DP to DP adapters, and I have tons laying about)
Hooked up to my NAS, watching vids with VLC, got the beast cooled with Mac Fan Control and activity monitor running so I can see what my CPU is doing.

And there's the catch. While I love the little window that shows all the cores/threads bouncing up and down, it's in a window and I can't seem to move it to the menu bar....if such a thing ispossible with this program? If not, can someone point me to a program that will do that? Additionally, at least on the Windows side, there is a wonderful little prgram called "CoreTemp" (Core Temp) that allows me to monitor the temps of each core in the taskbar (under Windows...for the Mac I'd assume it should sit resident in the Menu Bar the thumbnail for this short video will explain what I am looking for

) all the programs I have tried will only show the temp of one core, I'd like to see them all in action. Any advice?

Cheers!

 

[Lifeisabeach]

There definitely are apps that let you watch your stats from the menubar. One I've used in the past is iStat Menus. It's not free, but does have a wide range of options. It does have a free trial.

iStat Menus

An advanced Mac system monitor for your menu bar, with CPU, GPU, memory, network, disk usage, disk activity, temperatures, fans, battery info and more.

bjango.com

There's a freebie called MenuMeters that may fit the bill.

MenuMeters for OS X El Capitan 10.11 and later

member.ipmu.jp

And one more candidate: Menubar Stats

MenuBar Stats

MenuBar Stats, an Advanced Mac system monitor with Temperature & Fans plugins

www.seense.com

A good source to look for software is MacUpdate.com. You can plug in search terms; find something that looks promising; and see a list of alternatives that others have suggested. A couple caveats here. They offer to let you download some apps through them rather than the developer. Absolutely don't do that. They were bundling adware into installers downloaded through them at one point. I don't know that they are still doing that, but I wouldn't trust what they host. Also, they were bought out by the company that develops MacKeeper, which is software that should be avoided like the plague. That all said, still a very useful resource to hunt for software. That's how I got my latter suggestions above.

 

[pm-r]

They offer to let you download some apps through them rather than the developer. Absolutely don't do that. They were bundling adware into installers downloaded through them at one point. I don't know that they are still doing that, but I wouldn't trust what they host.

I believe they stopped doing that years ago, at least I have not seen any recent indications of them doing so.

Also, they were bought out by the company that develops MacKeeper, which is software that should be avoided like the plague.

Yikes... I did not know that. How unfortunate.

That all said, still a very useful resource to hunt for software.

I would agree, and at least their application software is not crippled as some of the same software is when downloaded from the Apple Store. But most times they make access to the developer site for info or download readily available. A nice extra benefit.




- Patrick
=======

 

[Noisebox]

One I've used in the past is iStat Menus. It's not free, but does have a wide range of options. It does have a free trial.

This seems to be the item I was looking for. Most excellent, thank you

Also, they were bought out by the company that develops MacKeeper, which is software that should be avoided like the plague. That all said, still a very useful resource to hunt for software. That's how I got my latter suggestions above.

Thank you for the info, I shall keep my eye out on such abuses.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

A good source to look for software is MacUpdate.com.

MacUpdate IS a good source for locating Macintosh software. But this bears repeating: **Don't download Macintosh software from ANYWHERE other than Apple's Mac App Store, or from the Web site of the developer of the software you are interested in**.

This includes MacUpdate:

Has MacUpdate fallen to the adware plague? | Malwarebytes Labs

MacUpdate has succumbed to what has ruined most other download aggregation sites: adware distribution.

www.malwarebytes.com

Third party software download sites simply can't be trusted anymore. If you are looking for software, it's okay to peruse such a site, and if you find any software that you would like to try, do a Google search for the developer's Web site and download it from there.