Fan mate not working?

ichabod · Post by **ichabod** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 11:22 am

I have just put together my new system and plugged the Yate Loon CPU fan through my old Fanmate then into the motherboard. However, I dont seem to be able to alter the fan RPM - it seems to be fixed at max. Very strange - the only thing I could think of was that the motherboard was also adjusting the voltage to try and keep a fixed RPM? Could this happen?

Agent_N · Post by **Agent_N** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 2:16 pm

I doubt that the motherboard is adjusting fan voltage unless it has a temperature sensor somewhere on the motherboard and it thinks your case is too hot. However, even if you motherboard was adjusting fan voltage, it can only lower the voltage from 12 volts. The Fan Mate also lowers the voltage from 12 volts. It is impossible for the motherboard to raise the voltage above 12 volts to offset the lower voltage of the Fan Mate. If you got a low speed Yate Loon then you might not notice the fan RPM's changing since the low speed models don't produce very much noise.

Das_Saunamies · Post by **Das_Saunamies** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 12:01 am

What is the RPM and how have you observed it?

ichabod · Post by **ichabod** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 12:20 am

Hi, the asus p5k motherboard comes with monitoring software which shows the RPM of up to 3 fans plugged into the motherbaord. Also the BIOS setup shows RPM. I have another identical Yate Loon rigged through a front panel fan controller which varies down to 6V and I can defiantely tell hear difference between 6V and 12V with that one. However, I cant use this fan controller on the CPU fan as it does not allow me to feed RPM back to the motherboard. The Fan Mate is supposed to go down to 5V so I should be hearing the difference.

I have a slight dilema here. I was interested in the Asus motherboard fanspeed control feature which dynamically changes all of your fan speeds acording to temperatures. However, using this means that I cant use my front panel fan speed controler. What I really need is a mixture of manual and automatic control. One answer should be to use fanmates inline between the fans and motherboard (however, this does not seem to work for me!) Are there any other solutions? Perhaps I just need a different fan speed control unit - I could build my own front panel unit which fits inline like a fanmate- or is there anything already available?

On this subject, does anyone know what voltage the Yate Loons will go down to before starting to play up?

Cheers
Dan

Das_Saunamies · Post by **Das_Saunamies** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 6:00 am

What. Is. The. R. P. M. ?

I'm asking because the Fan Mates surely do work regardless of source and target, and I'm thinking the fan is being fed minimum voltage along the path and can't thus be accelerated or decelerated.

Asus QFAN is poop in my opinion. No user-interactive control, too limited adjustment. Abit has the best BIOS fan control at the moment.

I'd check out the Zalman MFC2 if you're looking for a panel solution.

-- Small words version --

WHAT RPM IS THE FAN RUNNING AT?
WHAT IS THE PRECISE FAN MODEL?

ichabod · Post by **ichabod** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 6:42 am

Hi, the fan is a Yate Loon 120 running at 1350RPM. Cheers, dan

Das_Saunamies · Post by **Das_Saunamies** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 9:05 am

1350 RPM should be the maximum, so it's certainly not running at minimum voltage. If the Fan Mate is connected right, working and turned fully down it should drop from that.

First faulty Fan Mate I've ever heard of, if that is the case. There's no dwelling about it, it's such a simple thing to get right.

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 9:28 am

I've had FanMate's fail on me before, though I was never able to track it down as to what the problem was.

First the FanMate refused to change RPM from 12v regardless of position of the knob. Then it worked, then it died altogether.

ichabod · Post by **ichabod** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 9:41 am

right... time to get the multimeter and screwdriver out...

ichabod · Post by **ichabod** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 3:07 pm

oops - i have been an idiot! I had connected the fanmate into both the CPU fan header AND the 12V plug as it has both inputs. Disconnecting the 12V line allows me to control the RPM down to about 700.

edit: sorry, I mean that I connected both fan input connectors - one to 12V and one through fanmate to the CPU fan header.

Das_Saunamies · Post by **Das_Saunamies** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 12:42 am

ichabod wrote:oops - i have been an idiot! I had connected the fanmate into both the CPU fan header AND the 12V plug as it has both inputs. Disconnecting the 12V line allows me to control the RPM down to about 700.

edit: sorry, I mean that I connected both fan input connectors - one to 12V and one through fanmate to the CPU fan header.

I kind of saw a little slip-up like this coming up, but didn't want to be more rude than I already had been. I just won't believe someone would have managed to make a hash of connecting a Fan Mate. Good news is, yours works! Nice troubleshooting.

ichabod · Post by **ichabod** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 8:58 am

heheh - in the frenzied excitement of putting together my new system I obviously wasnt paying enough attention - must have just seen the loose 12V fan plug hanging in the tangle of wires and for some reason decided to connect it.

)