fan controller recommendation

ceomoney · Post by **ceomoney** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 9:58 am

Hello all,
I am building a system that consists of the following:
ASUS P5W DH mobo
Intel e6700 cpu
Thermalright Ultra-120
Antec P180b

I am planning to buy a few nexus fans to replace the stock antec case fans. I want to know if i need a fan controller to undervolt the fans to cut the noise. If so, can someone recommend a decent controller. Thanks.

Mari0-Br0s · Post by **Mari0-Br0s** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 10:16 am

you could use the ASUS Q-Fan control to adjust automatically your fans speed. I think this would be the best idea.

ceomoney · Post by **ceomoney** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 10:30 am

Is the asus q-fan something that is built into the motherboard and controlled by bios or some software? What are the capabilities of control?

orihara · Post by **orihara** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 11:36 am

It's a part of the MB and BIOS. The hardware portion of it can also be controlled from windows using a program called Speedfan.

The BIOS just has 3 options, IIRC: one where it remains quiet pretty much all the time, one where the fans spin near full speed, and one where the fans vary based on temp.

Speedfan allows a bit more control. You can set the fans to a certain percentage of max, and you can set minimum and maximum temps, such that fan speed will vary automatically within that range.

ceomoney · Post by **ceomoney** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 12:14 pm

how many fans can it control?

jcjuul · Post by **jcjuul** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 1:00 pm

I have the Asus P5B and use the Q-Fan.

Mine can control the number of fans (except one) you can connect to the MB. But not individually. The CPU fan has one control, the chassis fans have another control. And then there is the power fan.

You cannot adjust the fans as in SpeedFan or with Zalman FanMate. You have the choice of three settings: Performance, Silent or Optimal (a balance of the former two).

Q-Fan is ok, but I'm thinking of switching altogether to SpeedFan instead.

Bories36 · Post by **Bories36** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 1:20 pm

do other motherboards come equipped with that option also

and are the nexus fans 3 pin, so u can hook them to ur mobo?

Mari0-Br0s · Post by **Mari0-Br0s** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 5:50 am

yeah the nexus fan has 3 pins.

About the Q-Fan control, that su*k finally, when I had an ASUS board (A7N8X Deluxe), the Q-Fan control was much better. The way we could set it into the bios was not wih "silent, optimal or performance", we had some ratio to select.

We had an option to control how often to you which to adjust the fans speed, 11/16, 12/16, 13/16, 14/16, 15/16 or 16/16. This was helpful cuz most of the time the speed if set to 16/16 (100%) will adjust every second, and that is giving some people headeck.

The other option was to select the speed of the the fan, in a ratio also.

The fan speed were controlled with the thermal sensor, depending on temperature it would run faster or cooler, but the ratio option was letting us slowing the fan.

eg. temperature rise to 40 C, usually the fan will go at 1200rpm, but, if you set the ratio to 11/15, it will run slower at 880rpm.

That ASUS Q-Fan control was very good. I'm not using any ASUS board now, I've been with DFI for quite a while, since I'm on socket 939 and like to overclock.

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 9:38 am

The P5W DH has five fan headers in three groups (CPU, PWR1/2, CHA1/2). All five can be used with Nexus fans directly, and controlled from software.

I strongly recommend SpeedFan for this setup. There is no need for an external controller. Your wiring will be tidy, and you'll have very fine-grained control over fan speeds.

The last page of my C2D DIY article covers fan speeds and settings for a P5W DH & E6600 combination.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article672-page1.html

Eddie Spaghetti · Post by **Eddie Spaghetti** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 4:19 am

@cmthomson:

Where are the temp sensors of the PWR and CHA fan headers?

How is the GPU temp measured in your setup?

BTW excellent DIY article! It's helping me a lot in setting up my new rig. Thx!

orihara · Post by **orihara** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 9:16 am

Since we're on the subject, is it possible to control a non PWM fan using the CPU header on a P5B with speedfan?

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 6:54 pm

Eddie Spaghetti wrote:@cmthomson:

Where are the temp sensors of the PWR and CHA fan headers?

How is the GPU temp measured in your setup?

BTW excellent DIY article! It's helping me a lot in setting up my new rig. Thx!

I have no idea what sensors the BIOS uses for CHA and PWR. With SpeedFan, you can tie any fan controller to any sensor. Or just run with a constant percentage.

I get the GPU temperature from Everest Ultimate. It can also be read using NVTempLogger.

Thanks.