I have the Asus P8Z68-V motherboard. I also have a 3-pin CPU fan for it. Or two, really. Is there any way to control these without separate fan controller hardware?

The BIOS is useless. I added all these fancy points where it's supposed to ramp up and down the fans but they do nothing. The whole BIOS seems like it has no options to do much of anything in general.

The software provided with the motherboard doesn't do anything either. So I'm guessing this sort of control is only for PWM fans? I thought this motherboard would support voltage control? Does it? Do I need to buy new fans, or what can I do? Now both fans (connected to CPU1 and CPU2) just blow full force all the time, and it's pissing me off.

I'd appreciate any insight before I lose my mind...

As CPU1 and CPU2 are both PWM headers then you will need PWM fans to control them through the BIOS and/or the Asus Fan Xpert software. Incidentally, having two CPU PWM headers is something of an advance, you can run a typical PWM fan combo like CPU + Exhaust without the need for splitter cables. As to your existing 3 pin fans, at least one of the chassis fan headers is 3 pin and controllable, the manual should say which.

Try to download the latest Asus AI Suite that should include Fan Xpert, if the mobo can control 3pin fan it should be able with the fan xpert, check the setting on the bios as if its not correctly setup it wont work, so try different settings. On my Gene Z i cant control 3pin fans on bios 0403, but some with bios 0903 have reported they can, so also update your mobo to the latest bios.

I got this solved.

Thanks lodestar for pointing me to the right direction. I checked the manual, it was of no use as usual... But I tried out the chassis fan slots. And they both are voltage controlled, so it all works fine now. Of course it was the last slots I tried. I had tried the CPU and POWER slots before... the chassis slots kind of seemed the least likely to work. I mean, they're chassis fans!?

I had Fan Xpert the whole time. I'm still not sure if it's the temperature/fan power curve in the Fan Xpert that's controlling how the fans operate or if it's the settings in BIOS (they're not the same settings, Fan Xpert forces a minimum of 40% for chassis fans). I just uninstalled Fan Xpert and it still works fine, so I'm guessing it's BIOS. Or Fan Xpert left the settings working somehow. Either way, don't really care because it works!