Pankha is a unified hardware fan control and telemetry application designed specifically for 64-bit Windows systems. Its primary purpose is to consolidate disparate cooling channels across a PC into a centralized, low-latency control interface.
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Hardware Coverage
- Motherboard Headers: Detection and control of fan headers managed by Super I/O controllers (Nuvoton, ITE, Fintek, Winbond).
- CPU Cooling: Monitoring and regulation of CPU fan headers and AIO pump tachometers.
- Discrete GPUs: Readout and duty-cycle control for supported NVIDIA and AMD graphics card fans.
- Thermal Telemetry: Aggregated real-time temperature polling across CPU cores, GPU dies, and motherboard thermistors.
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Control Modes
- BIOS / Firmware Default: Restoring hardware curve regulation back to native motherboard/GPU firmware.
- Manual Speed Override: Direct manual PWM duty cycle control from 0% to 100%.
- Custom Fan Curves: Mapping arbitrary temperature sensor inputs to dynamic fan duty response curves.
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System & Safety Features
- Automated Calibration: Stepping fan channels through duty cycle ranges to detect physical minimum and maximum operating RPM limits.
- Hardware Clamping Awareness: Detecting and advising when motherboard firmware enforces minimum fan speeds or requires UEFI "Fan Stop" configuration.
- Thermal Safety Cutoff: Automatic fail-safe threshold (80°C) that aborts overrides and restores BIOS defaults during unsafe temperatures.
- Driver Management: Automated detection and silent provisioning of the required PawnIO kernel driver with Windows HVCI (Core Isolation) compliance.
- Windows Integration: Zero-file registry configuration (
HKCU), minimize-to-tray execution, and optional silent launch on Windows startup.
- Non-Windows Operating Systems: macOS and Linux are not supported (Linux natively uses
sysfs/hwmon). - Overclocking & Voltage Tuning: No manipulation of clock multipliers, power limits, or voltage offsets.
- RGB & Lighting Control: No synchronization or control of ARGB/RGB lighting protocols.
- Proprietary Closed Ecosystems: Proprietary USB-only controllers without standard SMBus/Super I/O interfaces or open driver access.