Mobos with built-in thermal fan control??

Post by **MikeC** » Sun Oct 13, 2002 10:05 pm

Does anyone have experience with these? I am referring to things like the Asus Q-fan - http://usa.asus.com/mb/qfan.htm or the thermal management features in the Fujitsu-Siemens mobos http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/rl/perip ... rds_5.html# sold by http://www.siliconacoustics.com/motherboards.html. Does anyone have experience with either of these -- or with any other motherboards that feature this kind of thermal sensor / fan voltage control loop? Or even know of any others? Am working on a piece on this topic. Your responses are appreciated.

deeseeel · Post by **deeseeel** » Mon Oct 14, 2002 1:56 am

One other system that has the thermal fan control feature is the Shuttle SS51G. They have a pretty good description of how it works on page 70 of the manual.

Post by **MikeC** » Mon Oct 14, 2002 7:52 am

You're right deeseel, that does look pretty good. Thanks for the tip! Anyone know of others??

jsw · Post by **jsw** » Wed Oct 23, 2002 12:27 pm

Mike,
I've got a couple of ASUS P4 boards with Q-Fan, and one of the Fujitsu-Siemens boards as well. Drop me an e-mail if there are any questions I can answer.

--Jeff

jsw · Post by **jsw** » Wed Oct 23, 2002 12:29 pm

I haven't tried the Shuttle myself, but the guy who wrote SpeedFan told me that SpeedFan works well on the motherboard used in the SS51.

--Jeff

Renod · Post by **Renod** » Sat Nov 09, 2002 2:36 pm

I have the ASUS A7V333 running using Q-Fan. Works great. At first boot the fan (YS Tech 80mm) is running full out at 4800 rpm. As the OS comes up the fan starts decreasing and achieves steady-state at 3000 rpm which is a nice quiet speed. Really works great. I am also using WRCREDIT to enable the CPU halt routines, so the combination of the two gives me very low temperatures and allowed me to go to very quiet system and case fans.

If you don't know how these mobo control programs work, read on. The way that the mobo based fan controls work is by pulsing the fan connector off and on. More pulses the faster the fan goes. Gives you a square wave pattern for those of you that are familar with scopes. After some research, I have determined that this is not detrimental to the fan or the mobo.

Speedfan works the same way. That is why it only works with boards that have supported controller chips.

dipa · Post by **dipa** » Sun Nov 10, 2002 4:17 pm

Very nice topic indeed. While I have succesfully constructed my own fan controller for an old 400MHz cpu, I am aware that the best controller should use the embedded thermal diode. So I'm interested in purchasing a m/b with fan control feature these days . Asus A7V333 ("Q-Fan") is one of the candidates. From what I see on http://usa.asus.com/mb/qfan.htm, it has some possible drawbacks (I assume they wanted to make this feature fullproof enough for inexperienced users):
1. Minimum fan speed ratio (lower/upper limit) is fixed at 10:15, that is only a 33 percent speed reduction, if I understand their terms. I do think some systems can safely run with lower min. speeds, so I'm not very happy with this rather high ratio. Perhaps they are afraid of inadequate startup torque, but that could be addressed with special circuitry.
2. Temp threshold (unknown) also cannot be adjusted. Compromising noise reduction for increased cpu service life?

Aopen's "SilentBios/SilentTek" approach promises quieter results (they claim zero fan speed in some cases!), although it doesn't seem very safe. What happens if os hangs? Do they have some hardware-only thermal safety measure, like Asus C.O.P.?. Needed for Athlon XP processors, of course, because P4 has its own embedded thermal safety control, so it doesn't need an external circuit like C.O.P.

Shuttle's "I.C.E." seems to be intended for their own PC enclosures/fan combinations only (XPC series). In their site http://www.spacewalker.com/english/supp ... S40.htm#20, they clearly state (red fonts!):
"We strongly recommend if you wish to use other brands fan cooler please disable "CPU Fan AutoGuardian" feature, allowing the CPU fan to run at its default speed. We only recommend for CPU Fan AutoGuardian feature enabled with enclosed fan cooler from Shuttle."

From an engineer's point of view, I would also like to know the maximum current ratings of these controllers. Some fan manufacturers suggest direct connection to the power supply (for specific models), simply because they don't consider m/b controllers capable of providing large currents (0.5A or higher).

Finally, I apologise for the long text and I 'm anxiously waiting for a real review of these products.

dipa · Post by **dipa** » Sun Nov 10, 2002 4:48 pm

dipa wrote:Aopen's "SilentBios/SilentTek" approach promises quieter results (they claim zero fan speed in some cases!), although it doesn't seem very safe. What happens if os hangs? Do they have some hardware-only thermal safety measure, like Asus C.O.P.?.

According to http://english.aopen.com.tw/tech/techin ... erheat.htm. they do have a hardware-only protection feature. I should have searched better.

Renod · Post by **Renod** » Sun Nov 10, 2002 5:36 pm

dipa wrote: Asus A7V333 ("Q-Fan") is one of the candidates. From what I see on http://usa.asus.com/mb/qfan.htm, it has some possible drawbacks (I assume they wanted to make this feature fullproof enough for inexperienced users):
1. Minimum fan speed ratio (lower/upper limit) is fixed at 10:15, that is only a 33 percent speed reduction, if I understand their terms.

>> That is correct. My fan drops from 4,800 to 3,000 rpm. I am using an variable fan, so I can fake it into a lower rpm.
Perhaps they are afraid of inadequate startup torque, but that could be addressed with special circuitry.

>> Startup is not a concern, as the fan starts at full speed and then adjusts down after the initial boot sequence finishes. My fan drops to it's lowest speed about the time Windows 2K finishes it's startup.

From an engineer's point of view, I would also like to know the maximum current ratings of these controllers.

>> On the ASUS A7V333, the circuit can support fans up to 360mA. On their new KT400 board, it is 750mA.

dipa · Post by **dipa** » Mon Nov 11, 2002 12:43 am

Renod, thanks. How did you fake the Q-Fan? Doesn't it control fan speed in a closed loop? If yes, after you further reduce fan speed by external means, controller should try to increase the pwm duty cycle (hence equivalent fan voltage), in order to keep speed constant thus cancelling your intervention. Hence, it would be possible to fake it only by altering the fan's tachometer output. Did you do that?

As for Intel, they call it "Precision Cooling Technology". Has 2 outputs, each one is capable of providing up to 1A to the fan. From what I see from the brochure and some mb datasheets, it's bios based (os/app independent). Quoting from their site:
http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/pr ... ooling.htm:

"Intel® Precision Cooling Technology is available on selected Intel® desktop boards and is OS-independent; it works on Windows* or Linux based systems. Here are just a few of the advantages of Intel® Precision Cooling technology:

* Fan speeds adjust real time according to system temperatures
* Reduces unnecessary noise & energy consumption
* OS-independent – not affected by a software failure or virus
* Separate thermal zones for CPU & system temperature
* Default setting programmed into BIOS
* Controlled by an advanced management ASIC

Available on the following Intel desktop boards: D845PEBT2, D845PESV, D845GEBV2, D845GERG2, D845PECE, and D850EMVR SKUs."

ez2remember · Post by **ez2remember** » Sun Dec 15, 2002 3:43 pm

The Asus A7V8X with KT400 chipset also has "Q-Fan". To be honest it's absolute rubbish. It's only good for those who have high rpm fans which make heck of a noise anyway and reduces at most to about 33%.

Yes it will reduce the noise, but it is for those delta type people who thinks a small reduction of noise is classed as quiet. It is useless for the "quiet" community, as we already undervolt our fans, the Q-fan will never kick into place. Even if it did I would not trust it, as bringing a already 5v fan to anything lower may stop the fan altogether.

The A-Open version "SilentTek + SilentBios" is much better, I checked it out at A-Open website there are so many manual adjustments to tell it when to kick itself to speed up and slow down.

Steerpike · Post by **Steerpike** » Mon Feb 24, 2003 8:28 am

Did you guys pursue this? Dipa asked a good question

How did you fake the Q-Fan? Doesn't it control fan speed in a closed loop? If yes, after you further reduce fan speed by external means, controller should try to increase the pwm duty cycle (hence equivalent fan voltage), in order to keep speed constant thus cancelling your intervention. Hence, it would be possible to fake it only by altering the fan's tachometer output. Did you do that?

I'm thinking of using q-fan, but as you guys point out, the ratio is too conservative and the voltage setpoint is not controllable. But if one were to put a resistor in series with the fan, this may help ... but only if it's NOT closed loop in the manner theorized by Dipa. I'm guessing / hoping it's closed loop with the temperature, not fan speed. That is, it's not monitoring the rotation directly for control purposes, just the target temp. So as long as the target temp changes, there is a closed loop, but not based on speed and therefore not affected by messing with the fan!

fancontrol · Post by **fancontrol** » Mon Feb 24, 2003 10:55 am

I'm working on something loosely related. I got started on all this because of similar configuration/OS dependence/safety concerns. Hit my www link below.

//edit - sorry I was pulled away by an urgent need to eat pizza

The point of that is there should be motherboards out there using the same family of parts I'm using to control fans. There's a link to an Intel paper that describes them, and how they should be used on a motherboard, somewhere in my discussion of looking for parts.

I'd find the link, but now I have an urgent need to drink coffee.

egghat · Post by **egghat** » Mon Mar 10, 2003 7:31 am

I have an Asus A7V8X. Quiet fan with a maximum reduction to 2/3 is not enough for me. I don't care, if my fan runs at 4000 rpms while playing doom, but when I'm reading stuff on the web or write an e-mail, 1000 rpm is enough to cool my CPU. I stuck my CPU fan on my case fan connector and slow it down by software with SpeedFan. Btw, the Asus board is one of the few boards which reads the internal diode of the CPU.

But the first board to read the internal diode of the CPU were the ones from FujitsuSiemens. And FujitsuSiemens fan control is much better: When you start your PC, the fan runs at full speed for some seconds to test if thr fan is still OK and to clean the fan. Then it slows the fan down as much as it can when you select the silent setting in the bios while the CPU will get rather hot. With the normal setting the fan begins to spin faster with lower temperatures.

I haven't seen the AOpen stuff.But from all I have read, AOpen is better than Asus, but I think that FujitsuSiemens is still somewhat better ... At least it's more proven, cause they sell this for ~ 2 years now.

Bye egghat

Steerpike · Post by **Steerpike** » Mon Mar 10, 2003 7:52 am

How are the Fujistsu-Siemens boards in general? Sounds like a heavyweight company that would likely produce good documentation, so that's a plus. Web site? Bios upgrades? decent community of users? Thanks!

Post by **MikeC** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 11:39 am

A link to the AOpen SilenTek motherboard-embedded thermal fan controller reviewis long overdue here...

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 5:09 am

My new box is built around an Intel 875PBZ MoBo which claims (in the owners manual and the BIOS) to control the fan speed (voltage) of the 3-pin headers on the MoBo depending on the system temps. I have my CPU fan (a "BX" L1A) plugged into the MoBo fan header and it's rpm has never varied more than 40-50 RPM no matter how hot the case has got. Maybe I'm still below whatever threshold Intel has set for this to kick in, I don't know. My case has never got over 39-40° no matter how hot it is in here.

Tacitus · Post by **Tacitus** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 12:31 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:My new box is built around an Intel 875PBZ MoBo which claims (in the owners manual and the BIOS) to control the fan speed (voltage) of the 3-pin headers on the MoBo depending on the system temps. I have my CPU fan (a "BX" L1A) plugged into the MoBo fan header and it's rpm has never varied more than 40-50 RPM no matter how hot the case has got. Maybe I'm still below whatever threshold Intel has set for this to kick in, I don't know. My case has never got over 39-40° no matter how hot it is in here.

I have the 875PBZ, and the same experience (RPM seems constant). And I am also wondering, is it spinning at full speed already, and if not, how far below? You don't refer to CPU temps, which are probably what it uses, but it does seem plausible that in both our cases they are not high enough to trigger it. But not having much experience, I don't know what the 12v RPMs for the fan are supposed to be.

FYI, I get 1860RPM with my 92mm L1BX through a fanmate turned all the way up. CPU temps are around 36C idle / 48C loaded (3D gaming, to exercise the video card too), at 80F ambient. Without the fanmate I was seeing 2100RPM, and temps were lower. All measured with the Intel monitor app.

Tacitus · Post by **Tacitus** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 1:15 am

Tacitus wrote:But not having much experience, I don't know what the 12v RPMs for the fan are supposed to be.

Ok, I looked it up, and the 92mm L is supposed to spin at 2100RPM at 12v. So it looks like the fan is already spinning at full speed. Not sure what conditions need to be to get it to change speed. Maybe there's a BIOS setting....

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 5:25 am

Tacitus wrote:
Ralf Hutter wrote:My new box is built around an Intel 875PBZ MoBo which claims (in the owners manual and the BIOS) to control the fan speed (voltage) of the 3-pin headers on the MoBo depending on the system temps. I have my CPU fan (a "BX" L1A) plugged into the MoBo fan header and it's rpm has never varied more than 40-50 RPM no matter how hot the case has got. Maybe I'm still below whatever threshold Intel has set for this to kick in, I don't know. My case has never got over 39-40° no matter how hot it is in here.
I have the 875PBZ, and the same experience (RPM seems constant). And I am also wondering, is it spinning at full speed already, and if not, how far below? You don't refer to CPU temps, which are probably what it uses, but it does seem plausible that in both our cases they are not high enough to trigger it. But not having much experience, I don't know what the 12v RPMs for the fan are supposed to be.

FYI, I get 1860RPM with my 92mm L1BX through a fanmate turned all the way up. CPU temps are around 36C idle / 48C loaded (3D gaming, to exercise the video card too), at 80F ambient. Without the fanmate I was seeing 2100RPM, and temps were lower. All measured with the Intel monitor app.

I'm running my fan at 1500rpm so I'm getting higher CPU load temps then you are (53°C at 2xPrime95 load, plus my ambient temps are at 95°F every day inside Hutter Labs) and my fan speed still never goes up. I was even playing with a 3.0C CPU on this board last week and my Prime95 load temps were running 57°C and the CPU fan still didn't speed up so I really don't think it ever will.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 5:31 am

Tacitus wrote:
Tacitus wrote:But not having much experience, I don't know what the 12v RPMs for the fan are supposed to be.
Ok, I looked it up, and the 92mm L is supposed to spin at 2100RPM at 12v. So it looks like the fan is already spinning at full speed. Not sure what conditions need to be to get it to change speed. Maybe there's a BIOS setting....

The only configuration for this setting is in the BIOS and it consists of 2 parameters: 1) "Fan Control" either "Disabled" or "Enabled" (default), and 2) "Lowest Fan Speed", either "SLOW" (default) or "OFF". That's it. No temp parameters or anything else for that matter. Hey, it is Intel afterall!

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 9:11 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:
Tacitus wrote:
Tacitus wrote:But not having much experience, I don't know what the 12v RPMs for the fan are supposed to be.
Ok, I looked it up, and the 92mm L is supposed to spin at 2100RPM at 12v. So it looks like the fan is already spinning at full speed. Not sure what conditions need to be to get it to change speed. Maybe there's a BIOS setting....
The only configuration for this setting is in the BIOS and it consists of 2 parameters: 1) "Fan Control" either "Disabled" or "Enabled" (default), and 2) "Lowest Fan Speed", either "SLOW" (default) or "OFF". That's it. No temp parameters or anything else for that matter. Hey, it is Intel afterall!

Maybe they work only for the other fan headers... Intel retail HSF already has temperature-controlled fan (AFAIK), so it would have no reason to have this feature with the retail HSF.

But I think that Intel Desktop Control Center will mix things up...

Cheers,

Jan

Tacitus · Post by **Tacitus** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 9:48 pm

Ralf Hutter wrote: I'm running my fan at 1500rpm so I'm getting higher CPU load temps then you are (53°C at 2xPrime95 load, plus my ambient temps are at 95°F every day inside Hutter Labs) and my fan speed still never goes up. I was even playing with a 3.0C CPU on this board last week and my Prime95 load temps were running 57°C and the CPU fan still didn't speed up so I really don't think it ever will.

Wow, that is a high ambient. I just put this machine together recently, and 80F is about as high as I've had in this room so far.

Regarding the fan speed, from the numbers it looks to be at top speed by default, so it can't get any faster. Instead there ought to be some conditions under which it might slow down from 2100RPM, though that seems equally unlikely.

Tacitus · Post by **Tacitus** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 9:54 pm

Jan Kivar wrote: But I think that Intel Desktop Control Center will mix things up...

Very interesting! I didn't know about this.

libraryquiet · Post by **libraryquiet** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 5:06 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:My new box is built around an Intel 875PBZ MoBo which claims (in the owners manual and the BIOS) to control the fan speed (voltage) of the 3-pin headers on the MoBo depending on the system temps. I have my CPU fan (a "BX" L1A) plugged into the MoBo fan header and it's rpm has never varied more than 40-50 RPM no matter how hot the case has got.

So does Intel's "precision cooling" fan control stuff require tach fans, or is the speed control based completely on temperature feedback? I was attracted to this feature of the D875PBZ, but it sounds like it's not so effective.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 5:21 am

libraryquiet wrote:
Ralf Hutter wrote:My new box is built around an Intel 875PBZ MoBo which claims (in the owners manual and the BIOS) to control the fan speed (voltage) of the 3-pin headers on the MoBo depending on the system temps. I have my CPU fan (a "BX" L1A) plugged into the MoBo fan header and it's rpm has never varied more than 40-50 RPM no matter how hot the case has got.
So does Intel's "precision cooling" fan control stuff require tach fans, or is the speed control based completely on temperature feedback? I was attracted to this feature of the D875PBZ, but it sounds like it's not so effective.

Beats the heck out of me. My CPU fan (BX L1A) is a tach fan and the mobo speed control doesn't work on it.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 5:30 am

Jan Kivar wrote:
Ralf Hutter wrote:
Tacitus wrote: Ok, I looked it up, and the 92mm L is supposed to spin at 2100RPM at 12v. So it looks like the fan is already spinning at full speed. Not sure what conditions need to be to get it to change speed. Maybe there's a BIOS setting....
The only configuration for this setting is in the BIOS and it consists of 2 parameters: 1) "Fan Control" either "Disabled" or "Enabled" (default), and 2) "Lowest Fan Speed", either "SLOW" (default) or "OFF". That's it. No temp parameters or anything else for that matter. Hey, it is Intel afterall!
Maybe they work only for the other fan headers... Intel retail HSF already has temperature-controlled fan (AFAIK), so it would have no reason to have this feature with the retail HSF.

According to Intel's official manual all four fan headers on this board are speed controlled. Here's an excerpt from the pdf:

Intel Manual wrote:Thermally monitored closed-loop fan control, all four fans, that can adjust the fan speed or turn the fans on and off as needed.

quietOne · Post by **quietOne** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 6:01 am

Carefully reading the manual for the Intel 865PERLK it states that it can control the speed of the case fans. It is not perfectlly clear but it seems like the "CPU" fan is not a "case" fan. I can hear hit slowing down the case fans but I see no effect on the CPU fan.

JC · Post by JC » Fri Oct 24, 2003 5:42 am

I just built a system for my mother-in-law with a D865PERL motherboard. The case was an Evercase 4252 (with the duct). I wanted to hook up two 80mm case fans (front bottom and rear).

********
Question:

How do you get an 80mm Panaflo L1A to operate noisily?

Answer:

Intel Precision Cooling Technology
********

As the other posts on this thread note, Intel is not really clear anywhere on their site (even in the Technical Specification of the board) exactly which fan headers are controlled or exactly what that control consists of.

These are my observations:

The CPU fan header doesn't change the speed of the CPU fan regardless of the temperature.

Front and rear chassis fan headers DO change the speed of the fans and will even shut them off completely if you have the fan control setting for "OFF" enabled in the BIOS.

There's another fan header in the voltage regulation area - I haven't messed with this yet, but I know that the BIOS Setup program doesn't even have it listed in the hardware monitoring section like the other fan headers.

Fan Results:

Panaflo L1A with fan control enabled. Simply put this doesn't work. With fan control off, the board shows 0 rpm for the Panaflos (which it should since they don't have tachs). With the fan control on, the board shows these widely varying erroneous rpm values (I don't know where it's getting them from). And it makes the Panaflo really noisy - the fan is actually quieter if you turn fan control off and let it run at full speed.

NMB: I wasn't happy with this either. The board showed a rpm value when the fan control was off, but no rpm value when fan control was on. They weren't noisy like the Panaflo's with the fan control, but I didn't think they were moving enough air when the fan control was on. With fan control off they were clicking too much.

Vantec Stealth: These fans actually work with the D865PERLK motherboard's fan control. But I found them a bit too noisy for my taste.

Solution: I used the 2 Panaflos with Fan mates and turned fan control off. My idea was to take the "edge" off of the L1A's. Just hooking a Panaflo up to a Fan Mate accomplishes this (even turned all the way up there is a slight undervolting). Ultimately, I turned the rear Fan Mate all the way up and the front Fan Mate all the way down. This was good balance of cooling vs quiet (I couldn't rely on my non-tech mother-in-law to ever adjust the fan mates so I had to set them to encompass summer temperatures). I considered just going with the rear fan but I wanted to force some air over the Seagate ST3120023AS hard drive I installed - these drives run kind of hot. Anyway, the Panaflo with the Fan Mate cranked down was inaudible in the system - it was below the noise level of the rest of my noise creating components - Seasonic Super Silencer 400 and Zalman CNPS7000 (turned all the way down).

BTW, I know this is off topic since I'm talking about fans, but THANK YOU silentPCreview for posting the link to the Hitachi Feature tool. Putting the Barracuda V in quiet mode made a HUGE difference.

Tom Brown · Post by **Tom Brown** » Fri Oct 24, 2003 7:00 pm

Abit has FanEQ on some of their newest motherboards.

Mobos with built-in thermal fan control??

Mobos with built-in thermal fan control??

Motherboards with fan control

Re: Mobos with built-in thermal fan control??

Re: Mobos with built-in thermal fan control??

Re: Mobos with built-in thermal fan control??

Faking the Q-Fan. Fan control on current Intel mobos