Exaust fan: low RPM or speed controller, recs?

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

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comfortablynumb
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Joined: Fri Jul 13, 2007 3:01 pm
Location: US

Exaust fan: low RPM or speed controller, recs?

Post by comfortablynumb » Mon Feb 11, 2013 8:27 pm

Ok so I rebuilt my system reusing old case, and fans till I have money for a better case. My new mobo (see sig) doesn't have much in the way of fan control in the bios like I'm used to so right now my exhaust is running full tilt and drive me insane with the noise. The case is an old X-Blade case that has room for 1 120mm exhaust fan

I been look at the 120mm Nexus online, I really don't want to mess with rubber mounts and hope I could just screw it in..Also looking at the XIGMATEK FCB XLF XLF-F1255 fan with 4pin PWM. If I don't get a one of those I'm looking for suggestions on fan speed controllers or a fan with a built in controller.

I believe right now this 120mm metal fan I have blows about 80CFM at close to 40db, if not louder. It might of been cool years ago when I bought it but I really need a better solution!

lodestar
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Re: Exaust fan: low RPM or speed controller, recs?

Post by lodestar » Tue Feb 12, 2013 12:08 am

With a PWM exhaust fan the best solution is normally to run it off the CPU PWM motherboard fan header using a splitter cable. If only the CPU and exhaust fans are PWM the cheapest solution is to use a Y cable such as this one from Gelid. This will give a quieter idle fan speed, probably around 600 rpm with your choice of exhaust fan, and more airflow for the system when it is under stress. This will be automatic and without the need for any additional hardware or software. If you want to supplement the BIOS controls with software then try MSI's Control Center first. It might also be worth installing the MSI Click Bios II software. Both utilities are free downloads from the MSI web site.

MSI target most of their motherboards at the overclocker hence military quality components etc which may explain the sparsity of fan controls. It might be worth upgrading the BIOS to make sure you have the latest version of what fan controls there are. But apart from the CPU PWM header I am not sure if MSI give much if any BIOS control over fan speeds for any fan plugged into the chassis/system fan headers. This is why using PWM splitter cables to synchronise additional fans with the CPU temperature is normally a more practical option.

Spoon Boy
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Re: Exaust fan: low RPM or speed controller, recs?

Post by Spoon Boy » Tue Feb 12, 2013 3:17 am

AFAIK MSI use "Control Center" as a way to control the fan speeds of the PWM headers from within windows.
And i maybe wrong as ive only had a quick look but doesn't you MoBo come with 1x CPU fan PWM, 2x Case fan PWM, 2x Case fan Normal (3pin) ?

Edit: Im guessing you have the exhaust fan attached to one of the non PWM headers (3 pin) that don't allow any control over the fan speeds AFAIK with your mobo, If you wanted to control there speed one of the cheapest ways i know of is with something like the Fan Mate

lodestar
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Location: UK

Re: Exaust fan: low RPM or speed controller, recs?

Post by lodestar » Tue Feb 12, 2013 6:46 am

I've had a look at the BIOS fan controls on one of the MSI Z77 GD65 models. What I saw was a duty cycle setting which did not go below 50% and a target CPU temperature. The 50% duty cycle would typically give around an 800 rpm idle on an 1500 rpm max speed PWM fan like the Xigmatek. The target CPU temperature controlled both the temp at which the fan would go to 100% speed and the rate at which the fan rpm would rise with increasing load, a PWM slope adjustment of sorts. I assume that Control Center might well allow more control than this but would not get the fan under 50% duty cycle. However around 800 rpm at idle would still be a big improvement on running the exhaust fan flat out.

comfortablynumb
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Location: US

Re: Exaust fan: low RPM or speed controller, recs?

Post by comfortablynumb » Mon Feb 18, 2013 7:10 pm

Spoon Boy wrote:AFAIK MSI use "Control Center" as a way to control the fan speeds of the PWM headers from within windows.
And i maybe wrong as ive only had a quick look but doesn't you MoBo come with 1x CPU fan PWM, 2x Case fan PWM, 2x Case fan Normal (3pin) ?

Edit: Im guessing you have the exhaust fan attached to one of the non PWM headers (3 pin) that don't allow any control over the fan speeds AFAIK with your mobo, If you wanted to control there speed one of the cheapest ways i know of is with something like the Fan Mate
Sorry for the delay in response...Yes this mobo has 2 PWM (4 pin headers) and 2 3 pin headers...I unplugged the exhaust fan from the 3 pin and plugged it into the 4 pin header. From what I can tell there backwards compatible, just won't the actual benefits of PWM supposedly. Ever since plugging it into the PWM header it's much quieter, I have it set to Auto.

I also got the Xigmatek XLF-F1255 PWM fan delivered Friday but haven't installed it yet, also downloaded and installed MSI Control Center.

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