Control Fans

[PringlesInside]

Hello PCS forums


Most of the time i am using my pc for general use mostly every day such as word processing, msn chat, and a few tabs open in firefox.

...the fan noises are just too anooying.. i can not stand it while im working.

Can someone help me, i would like to control the chassis fan speeds and the cpu fan.

Thanks


P.S. I have gone into the bios and i changed the Qfan thing from "standard" to "silent" but this had not made any difference at all.

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X6 1055T (2.80GHz/9MB CACHE/AM3/)

Motherboard
ASUS® M4A87TD/USB3: DUAL DDR3,SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0

Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)

Graphics Card
1GB ATI RADEON™ HD 5750 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD6400AARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE

Power Supply
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

 

[PringlesInside]

info on the case which i randomly found online

(btw this case is called IN WIN Fanqua)

 

[IrishTech]

You could try a program called Speed fan it should allow you to control the speed of your fans

 

[pengipete]

I'm a fan (no pun intended) of SpeedFan - it would be my first choice - but if it doesn't support your motherboard, check your motherboard's support disk or better still, check the Asus website for the latest downloads as they make their own fan controller software.

As for the Q profiles not working - can you confirm that you've changed the profile and saved BIOS before rebooting? Those profiles are hardcoded into BIOS - they should work no matter what - but I read that they stopped working on one of the P5 series mobo's a couple of years ago. That was down to a bug in a couple of BIOS releases - it may be worth checking the Asus website and forums to ss if there is a BOS update and if this is a known issue.

For what it's worth, Speedfan doesn't work too well with my latest mobo so I use Q-fan and the results are excellent - nice and quiet and ramps ups very quickly when needed.

 

[Gorman]

If the Qfan profile is not working and you feel confident enough it might be worth seeing which fans are plugged into the mainboard (therefore enabling qfan on those fans) and which are connected via molex.

 

[PringlesInside]

hi,
i opened the pc to have a lil look around in it.

TOP FAN

This is not connected to mobo! .... the wire from this fan goes behind the motherboard and seems to be connected to something


REAR FAN
connectd to mobo @ PWR_FAN (marking on mobo)

Front HDD Fan
connected to mobo @ CHA_FAN 1 (marking on mobo)

pic of the front hdd fan:

whats it connect to pic:

(its the white lil plug/pin thing next to the blue thing)

CPU fan
connected to mobo @ PWR_FAN (marking on mobo)

Side Cover Big Fan
umm its connected to mobo at all..

pic of big side fan:

connectors coming from this side fan:

------
btw, this motherboard has "- ASUS Fan Xpert " .......how do i use that???? were

 

[PringlesInside]

.... so. zelpni told me i could get a hardware fan controller, but that would be a last resort i guess

 

[pengipete]

I just looked at the owner's manual for that board and it only has three fan connectors - one pwr fan at the rear, one cou fan at the top and a single channel fan at the lower front.

The PWR connector is usually not controllable by BIOS - it only reports sipn speeds rather than setting them - as it was originally intended for a fw PSU's that have a fly-lead to give that info to the mobo. The CPU fan speed is controlled through PWM based on the tempeture of the CPU but should still respond to Q-Fan. The Channel fan - you're front fan in this case - should respond to Q-fan.

The large fan on the side panel has a molex connector and the speed is fixed (unless you add a hardware controller) but due to it's large size and relatively low spin speedit is very quiet already.) It sounds like your has become disconnected - to connect it, just connect that female socket to a spare molex plug (the sort that useed to be used for hard-drives).

Your top fan may not be connected to anything as you lack the number of headers on the motherboard to match the number of fans in your PC's case. If it is connected, it would mean that PCS used a Molex adaptor which would provide power to the fan but the speed will be fixed.

Taking all of that into account - can you set all Q-fan settings to disabled then reboot and go back in to BIOS and make a note of the fan speeds reported by BIOS. Then set all of the Q-fan settings to "Silent", save and exit BIOS to reboot and again, go into BIOS and see if the fan speeds have dropped. I suspect that Q-fan may be working but that it is actually only able to control the single front fan in your case.

One quick pointer - if that top fan is not connected or connected through a Molex adaptor, you may be able to use a Y-Splitter from that CHA fan header - that would allow you to control both the front and top fan's speeds together.

 

[PringlesInside]

http://i54.tinypic.com/1ibi1w.jpg

http://i52.tinypic.com/2899dhj.jpg

http://i54.tinypic.com/fydgea.jpg

http://i52.tinypic.com/sp7z9l.jpg


for each profile-> i slected it in bios and then saved+exited.
the figures generally changed every 2-3seconds but not by much i think..

 

[PringlesInside]

Im guessing i need to go for a hardware controller :/

..if so..

then will this be good ? >>> http://www.nzxt.com/new/products/fan_control/sentry_2

will it work fully for me? i would really appreciate help, before buying such thing.

thanks

p.s.

Fan Channel 5
Max watt per channel 10W
Temperature Module Channel 5
Temperature Range 0 ~ 120℃
Measurement Frequency Every 2 Seconds
Temperature Alarm Range 30℃ to 90℃
(AUTO) Min 40%, Under 0-25℃，fan RPM 40%
(MANUAL) Min 40%
Screen Size 4.63 inches

is that wattage of 10w per channel ok? or my fans need more..????

and is says manually "min 40%" <- so i cant put my fans off? (i only intend to put a few off)

 

[pengipete]

Q-Fan is definitely controlling the CPU - ~2100rpm on standard upto ~3500rpm when disabled (though I have to say - that's a hell of a fast fan if the readings are accurate - if it is, that's the source of the noise). I'm not surprised that the PWR fan doesn't move (much) as that is normal - it's only capable of reporting the speed rather than controlling it. However, the user guide for your motherboard says that Q-fan should control the chassis fan as well as the CPU one so we're left with four options...

The chassis fan is incorrectly reporting the spin speed - you can confirm that visually.

The motherboard is not controlling the voltage to that header due to a fault - possible but extremely unlikely.

The temperature inside your case is such that the motherboard needs to spin the chassis fan at full speed regardless of the selected profile.

The motherboard doesn't support Q-fan on the CHA header despite having the option in BIOS.

I had a look at the Asus support forums for your motherboard and found a thread where someone states that their chassis fan is not controlled by the Q-fan profiles. Unfortunately, there's little information and the response that quoted from the user-manual - saying that only the CPU can be controlled - is actually referring to a different feature which - in typical Asus style - is only named and not described. It certainly seems odd that the option would exist in BIOS but not actually be supported but it is possible. I also checked Asus' adverts and description of that board and they all say that Q-fan controls the CPU fan - no mention of the chassis fan or case cooling. The user manual also does not show any option or settings for the chassis fan - despite earlier saying that they are supported.

I checked around as many forums as I could find but they seem to be full of people who own the board saying that chassis fans aren't controlled and others - who don't own the board - saying that they must be. Obviously, I won't have found every reference so you may want to look further.

In terms of checking things for yourself, you could check the voltages on the header - but don't even try that yourself unless you know what you are doing as there's a risk of shorting the motherbord out - or you could try connecting another fan - just to remove any doubt over the existing one.

Going by what I've read - the forums, the Asus website and the user manual - I'm drawn to the conclusion that Q-fan simply does not support the chassis fan header. You're okay with the CPU fan - that's obviously working with Q-fan and the side fan (when you connect it up) has no speed control. The rear fan is not touched by Q-fan anyway.

None of that means that you have no way of reducing the noise. Firstly, there are a number of apps that can be used to monitor and control fan speeds. Asus themselves have a few and you can check if there's one for your board at http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?model=P6X58D%20Premium&os=30&SLanguage=en-us If Asus have nothing, you can look at a third-party app called SpeedFan - it doesn't work with every motherboard and it may need configuring for those that it does but if it's suitable for your mobo it is a superb program (and it's free). If no software allows control of the fans, you can either swap the existing fans out for quieter ones - expensive - or add a small in-line cable with a built-in resistor to slow the fans down. What you must do though before reducing case fan speeds is make sure that your motherboard is not already running warm as you will be reducing the amount of cool air being sucked into the case. Purely by way of illustration, here's an example of those in-line resistors (I'm not recommending that store or that particular product) -http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-006-GE As you can see, they're only a couple of quid and they really can make a huge difference to the noise coming from fans. A word of warning though - not all fans will work with reduced voltage (though I can confirm that the In Win branded fans in my Maestrom case are fine).

Finally, you could invest in a fan controller - that's a hardware add-on that controls the fans directly without needing any input from BIOS. For most people, they're hardly necessary but with so few headers on your board and case that can support many more fans it may be an ideal choice. The neatest and most practical ones fit into a drive bay - like a DVD drive - and will either have real knobs to turn or (better and prettier) and LCD screen and virtual controls. What they do is basically take a 12V connectionfrom a standard Molex connection (the sort used to power IDE drives) and it will have a number of three and four pin fan header so you connect all of your fans (with the possible exception of the CPU fan) to the controller and set the speeds there. Again, not recommending anything in particular but this is what you can get for around £10 - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-021-AK&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=189 and this is a but fancier with an LCD display etc for around £30 - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BB-002-LL&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=189

A long post - sorry - but difficult to say all of that without waffling on. (as usual)

[EDIT - it took me so long to type all that that it looks like you've already sussed most of it. Never mind. Regarding switching fans off, once any 12cm fan slows down below about 6-700rpm, you can't hear it - in fact, they don't even register on most sound level tests so they are "silent" to all intents and purposes]

 

[PringlesInside]

hi thanks for all the replys.

will this be good? http://www.nzxt.com/new/products/fan_control/sentry_2

NZXT Sentry 2

would all my fans be able to go in there?.. like my fan wires are all compatiable?

thanks

..

reading some reviews and i came across this:

you’re not limited and that the fans can have either a 3 pin or a Molex connector.

One thing that I didn’t really like about this unit however was the fact that there isn’t a four pin connector for PWM fans for your CPU cooler. Other than that I think that this is a great fan controller.

Will this affect me?

 

[PringlesInside]

reading revieews that controlelr is bad!

Going to get this now::

Scythe Kaze Master 5.25inch Fan Controller (4 channel)

>>> http://www.scythe-eu.com/en/products/pc-accessory/kaze-master.html , i will be connecting all the fans and the cpu fan aswell

can someone help me out and check the specs to see if everything will be good? I dont kno a great deal about this sort of stuff (im still learning as we go)
thanks! (hopefully someone from PCS can help me!)

(do you guys at pcs have any by any chance?)

 

[Gorman]

I will gladly check it out in the morning, we have quite a few guys using different types so will post some links

 

[Gorman]

Scythe Kaze Master 5.25inch Fan Controller (4 channel)

This one looks good, there a few NZXT sentry owners here too and they havnt had anything bad to report.

My machine has a bigNG controller as its responsible for the watercooling loop too. I use it for 8 fans, the water pump and all the lights.

http://www.t-balancer.com/english/Modelle.htm

 

[misterdave]

My machine has a bigNG controller as its responsible for the watercooling loop too.

As was mine, Now waiting on the delivery of an AquaComputer Aquaero 4.00 in black.

Scythe make good fan controllers I've had 2 and have no complaints about either. With the first incarnation of my Watercooling loop I had everything plugged into my Scythe Kama and was great.

 

[PringlesInside]

ok looks like i will be going for the Scythe Kaze Master 5.25" 4 Channel Fan and Temerature Controller. I see there is 2 versions, KM01-BK or KM02-BK --->>

The Kaze Master Ace is an updated version of the Kaze Master. The only difference is the fact that Ace version has an aluminium front bezel to further increase the good looks of this already good looking product!

Does anyone know were to get any of theese from? (only need 1) , i cant seem to find a reasonable price with postage aswell




ok looks like i will be going for the Scythe Kaze Master 5.25" 4 Channel Fan and Temerature Controller. I see there is 2 versions, KM01-BK or KM02-BK --->>

The Kaze Master Ace is an updated version of the Kaze Master. The only difference is the fact that Ace version has an aluminium front bezel to further increase the good looks of this already good looking product!

Does anyone know were to get any of theese from? (only need 1) , i cant seem to find a reasonable price with postage aswell




oh and are the voltages of this fan controller ok for my InWin Fanqua Case Fans + AMD PHENOM II X6 standard/stock CPU Fan ?

DC Input 5V or 12V (from PSU)
Fan Adjustment Range 3.7 V (±10%) ~ 12 V (±10%)
Fan Speed Range 0 ~ 7000 RPM (displayed in 30 RPM steps)

from the kaze controller specs

 

[Modular]

Help

I cant connect the 220mm side fan, everything is screwed on place, but the connecters just dont fit? call me stupid

also the fan is squeezed up against the CPU Cooler (Titan Fenrir Xtreme)

 

[luksta]

Quick solution would be to buy a fan resistor which will drop the fan from 12v to around 7-10v which will drop the fan speed. Chances are it's the fan on the side of the case making most of the noise so just get 1 from maplin for that.