PWM fan controller?

Control: management of fans, temp/rpm monitoring via soft/hardware

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
JJ
Posts: 233
Joined: Sat Jul 10, 2004 12:24 pm
Location: US

PWM fan controller?

Post by JJ » Tue Oct 16, 2012 10:34 am

Does anyone make a PWM fan controller? Preferably one that controls 3-4 fans.

MikeC
Site Admin
Posts: 12285
Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2002 3:26 pm
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Contact:

Re: PWM fan controller?

Post by MikeC » Tue Oct 16, 2012 1:02 pm

Most hardware shops offer at least a couple. Cheapest multi-ch unit I've seen is a 6-ch one by Logisys.

Irrelevant
Posts: 95
Joined: Mon Oct 01, 2012 9:44 am

Re: PWM fan controller?

Post by Irrelevant » Tue Oct 16, 2012 1:16 pm

JJ wrote:Does anyone make a PWM fan controller? Preferably one the controls 3-4 fans.
Why would you want one? PWM fans are fully compatible with normal 3-pin fan controllers, in case you didn't know, and will probably be comparably power/heat efficient if they don't use rheostats.

And if you're just out of places to plug in your fans, an aux-powered splitter cable will let you power and software-control an effectively unlimited number of fans from a single PWM header.

JJ
Posts: 233
Joined: Sat Jul 10, 2004 12:24 pm
Location: US

Re: PWM fan controller?

Post by JJ » Thu Oct 18, 2012 12:21 pm

Why would you NOT want to control PWM fans via PWM?

Olaf van der Spek
Posts: 434
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 6:10 am

Re: PWM fan controller?

Post by Olaf van der Spek » Sun Oct 21, 2012 7:08 am

Because you don't have enough PWM headers.

lodestar
Posts: 1683
Joined: Fri Aug 05, 2005 3:29 am
Location: UK

Re: PWM fan controller?

Post by lodestar » Sun Oct 21, 2012 12:21 pm

A PWM fan splitter like the Rosewill Model RCW-FPS-401 from Newegg is one solution to limited headers. Only the control signal is taken from the CPU header; all the fans on the chain are powered direct from the PSU. Is also inexpensive at around $4.

JJ
Posts: 233
Joined: Sat Jul 10, 2004 12:24 pm
Location: US

Re: PWM fan controller?

Post by JJ » Sun Oct 21, 2012 5:40 pm

I'm surprised that there aren't more card-type controllers so that you have intelligent software control instead of manually diddling knobs to set fan speeds.

Olaf van der Spek
Posts: 434
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 6:10 am

Re: PWM fan controller?

Post by Olaf van der Spek » Mon Oct 22, 2012 8:48 am

lodestar wrote:A PWM fan splitter
Then there's no rpm monitoring is there?

JJ
Posts: 233
Joined: Sat Jul 10, 2004 12:24 pm
Location: US

Re: PWM fan controller?

Post by JJ » Mon Oct 22, 2012 8:59 am

Olaf van der Spek wrote:
lodestar wrote:A PWM fan splitter
Then there's no rpm monitoring is there?
The way I've seen most of them work is that one fan on the splitter would still be connected to the PWM monitoring pin of the fan header, so there is monitoring of that fan. To some extent it assumes that all the fans you're using are the same (although they don't have to be) and would therefore all be running at the same speed.

Post Reply