SPCR

can i control my fans under windows XP? i used to be able to do this with speedfan, but i haven't been able to make it work with my new motherboard - the GA-P35-DS3R. also i wouldn't mind if i could make em (all three of em that is!) ramp up when the CPU gets hotter. is that possible?

Looks like maybe only the CPU fan would be controllable according to the Speedfan site. Might need to either get a fan controller or undervolt the other fans and have just the CPU fan ramp up under load.

controlling only 1 fan doesn't really do me any good... i need to control all 3. are there any fan controllers that come with software u can use to control the fans? i cant be bothered to turn any knobs.

I have a GA-P35-DS3R 2.0 with the latest BIOS and using the latest version of Speedfan I can control 2 of the fan headers.
I had to disable fan control in the BIOS and set the fan controller to Software Controlled within Speedfan; I’m using 3 pin fans.

It’s fairly rare to find a motherboard that allows control of more than 2 fans unfortunately. It would be good to start a list of boards that do offer this feature.

I find that my fans never ramp up but I like Speedfan because it means the fans start at 12V and then ramp down to a speed that is possibly too low for them to start at if I was using a hardware controller with a fixed voltage. To be able to manually set fan speeds with software is useful when fine tuning for silence and cooling.

I might get a car bumper sticker made-up that says ‘Honk if you love Speedfan, but not too loudly’.
BTW the developer got married earlier this year so he I hope he still has the time to keep up development. Fans at half mast if he calls it a day.

smilingcrow wrote:It’s fairly rare to find a motherboard that allows control of more than 2 fans unfortunately. It would be good to start a list of boards that do offer this feature.

There's the sticky on the mobo board (unintentional linguistic calamity), Recommended Motherboards: From a Silence Perspective 1.1. People just need to contribute to it more.

I personally advocate mCubed's T-Balancer bigNG. All the control and monitoring you'll ever need with what's out there today, probably even tomorrow.

- Software needed for configuration only
- Software-independent, fully automatic hardware control, 0-12V, PWM or analog choosable
- Monitoring includes real-time voltage of all channels and more

It's about 1.5x times the price of your average four-knob panel, but it's infinitely better than anything else for what it does.

urmmm... but does that mCubed's T-Balancer bigNG enable u to control the fans from windows? and how does it monitor voltages..? also... u live in finland, as do i, so where did u get yours?

oh, smilingcrow, do u know where the 2 fans u can control are connected to? or what they are called in speedfan? i'm using the 2.1 version of the same board, but i'd IMAGINE they work the same way when it comes to this stuff?

i can only control 1 fan. did u do anything special to make em both work? i can see 4 fan speeds, and there are those +- control things for 3 speeds, but only 1 of em actually does anything. that's the "speed02". its sensor is "Pwm2"...

Puffi wrote:oh, smilingcrow, do u know where the 2 fans u can control are connected to? or what they are called in speedfan? i'm using the 2.1 version of the same board, but i'd IMAGINE they work the same way when it comes to this stuff?

i can only control 1 fan. did u do anything special to make em both work? i can see 4 fan speeds, and there are those +- control things for 3 speeds, but only 1 of em actually does anything. that's the "speed02". its sensor is "Pwm2"...

Speed 1 controls Fan 1 – CPU_FAN
Speed 2 controls Fan 2 – PWR_FAN (Located at the bottom of the RAM slots)

I set Fan control to off in the BIOS.
In Speedfan do the following:
Click the Configure button.
Click the Advanced Tab.
Click on the drop down list box alongside Chip.
Select IT8718F on ISA or whatever your equivalent is.
Select PWM 1 mode and set it to Software controlled and click the Remember It checkbox. Do the same for PWM 2 & 3.

This works for me but I’m using 3 pin fans. Not sure what is required for 4 pin fans.

hmm. yea i had done all that already, yet it doesn't work. so it seems it's just the PWR fan that works. the CPU fan might need something different. maybe u've ENABLED something in the BIOS for that..?

i dont think anything can control 4-pin fans from windows. all my fans are 3-pin.

Puffi wrote:maybe u've ENABLED something in the BIOS for that..?

No, I just disabled Fan Control.

I'm using the EP35C-DS3R rev 2.1 myself and I too can only control one of my three 3-pin fans from speedfan, much to my frustration.

I remember I hooked up my case fans to the SYS_FAN plugs, though, not the PWR_FAN. Maybe the PWR_FAN would make a second one work correctly, but since I have three fans, not two, that's still not going to be much use (not to me and probably not to the OP either)

Das_Saunamies, you recommended the T-Balancer, but is it really worth double the price of a regular controller? Especially to people who just want to be able to adjust fans to find the balance between noise and heat? (the water pump control on the T-Balancer, for instance, would be useless to me) Why would I go for a T-Balancer over a Zalman MFC1/MFC2 or the Silverstone SST-FP52 (even though the MFC2 is also a bit expensive for my tastes)?

If anyone has any other controller recommendations, shoot. Or if anyone has a way to make the three fans work with Speedfan, even better

My CPU fan and an Arctic 120mm PWM fan (rear) are connected to the CPU_FAN 4-pin connector and controlled by the BIOS.
I use a Zalman fanmate and a Y-splitter to control the front and side fan, and another fanmate to control the fan of my video card.

Works like a charm.

Puffi wrote:urmmm... but does that mCubed's T-Balancer bigNG enable u to control the fans from windows? and how does it monitor voltages..? also... u live in finland, as do i, so where did u get yours?

Yes, the software works with the operating systems listed on mCubed's site, mainly Windows. You open up the control panel, do what you need to do, and close it again. Unit then turns autonomous and you need not interact with it again until you decide to change something.

Verkkokauppa.com was the only retailer at the time. They order straight from the manufacturer - I only bought from a retailer to get cheaper postage.

Coren wrote:Das_Saunamies, you recommended the T-Balancer, but is it really worth double the price of a regular controller? Especially to people who just want to be able to adjust fans to find the balance between noise and heat? (the water pump control on the T-Balancer, for instance, would be useless to me) Why would I go for a T-Balancer over a Zalman MFC1/MFC2 or the Silverstone SST-FP52 (even though the MFC2 is also a bit expensive for my tastes)?

A bigNG is 70 euros in Finland, a Zalman MFC2 is 50 on average and the Silverstone is 45, so it's not double, it's more like +50%, even less when it comes to the MFC2. As PC money goes, that difference is nothing - and I assure you, it is the perfect automatic controller - but if you don't want automation but just to tune your fans to a set RPM level, then obviously you don't need an automatic controller in the first place.

I don't use water cooling either, but I do use the voltage monitoring, software control and automation, all for which I am happy to pay the 20 EUR premium over a fidgety manual controller. It's also much easier to find this balance of stability where you only use as much cooling as you need to; manual control is much less elaborate, and most people I've witnessed turn their fans up to 100% for gaming. With software control you can easily fine-tune the fans (note that you can do this by voltage, not just guessing by the RPM!) and use response curves, whereas manual control is just load/idle.

So, it's not that much more expensive, is quite frankly brilliant at both tuning and precision of control (as it is automatic), comes with a bunch of very useful features (voltage monitoring you won't find anywhere else, not to mention automatic control and software configuration) and is a quality product through and through.

Now it's my turn to ask you: why would you buy anything else!

heyyy, what about this thing?

http://www.sunbeamtech.com/PRODUCTS/The ... _tp101.htm

that's the "Sunbeam Theta USB Fan controller". it controls 8 fans from windows and comes with 8 temperature probes! plus it costs under 20 euros! tho in finland, emuri sells it for 41 euros and coolputer for 50 euros. ouch.