Fan curve/settings questions

[scholtz]

Hi all, got a few questions about setting fan curves etc. This is for the system I built this year, following this community's excellent advice. See viewtopic.php?f=23&t=69951

This thing is pretty dang quiet at idle, but I'm trying to make it a little more so. There's still a little more fan/air noise than I'd like, and a faint high-pitched whine in there somewhere.

Here's how it's running right now at close to idle: https://imgur.com/a/Ruibowl

Current fan config:
* still using the stock VC Fractals that came w/ the case, 1 fore and 1 aft (aux fans 0 and 2 in the screenshot)
* Also have a Noctua NF-A14 PWM as 2nd front case fan (aux fan 3)
* The CPU fan is a Noctua NF-A9x14 92mm (stock fan that came w/ the NH-L9x65 SE-AM4 I ended up installing)
* Silent Wings fan on the bottom on Straight Power 10 power supply

It's hard to tell which fans are making noise. The Silent Wings is silent. The Fractals aren't silent but are pretty quiet. The big Noctua only makes a little click that I don't think I can hear without my ear in the case. The small Noctua makes some noise.

I'm going to try adjusting fan curves to see how good I can get it. Then I may look at replacing the Fractals and/or the small Noctua. I'm doing the curves in MSI BIOS (have B350 PC MATE board).

Here's my questions:
1. How low RPM should I be shooting for w/ the CPU fan at idle? It's not really going below 550-600 now.
2. At what temps should I be increasing fan speeds? As you can see my idle temps are very low. Should I keep speed flat until 50 C? 60 C?
3. For the case fans, should I tie the curves to the CPU temp or the system temp? (I assume the latter is a sensor on the mobo?) I have a passive video card (Pallit Kalm-x) and would ideally like at least one of the fans to throttle on GPU temp, but that's not an option in the BIOS.
4. Will HWMonitor tell me if one of the Fractals stalls? I'm running them very close to their lower limits.

Any other advice greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much!

[Abula]

It's hard to tell which fans are making noise. The Silent Wings is silent. The Fractals aren't silent but are pretty quiet. The big Noctua only makes a little click that I don't think I can hear without my ear in the case. The small Noctua makes some noise.

Disconect one at the time, and close it up and run it for some time, watch your temps and hear if there was a difference toward the noise you are trying to pin point, not that hard, just takes time.

I'm going to try adjusting fan curves to see how good I can get it. Then I may look at replacing the Fractals and/or the small Noctua. I'm doing the curves in MSI BIOS (have B350 PC MATE board).

MSI has pretty solid bios fan control, for both PWM and DC, it can be set on the bios under hardware monitor.

1. How low RPM should I be shooting for w/ the CPU fan at idle? It's not really going below 550-600 now.

Depends on the fans and the cooling your setup needs, some here stop totally fans and have them start at certain temps, others like me like to have the fans as high as i can without being audible with my ambient to avoid the temp spikes that usual light load gives so they dont ramp up and down (breathing effect) but this can be tweak down also with very subtle ramp ups and delays, i just dont bother.

2. At what temps should I be increasing fan speeds? As you can see my idle temps are very low. Should I keep speed flat until 50 C? 60 C?

AMD is a little peculiar with the temps, some even have offsets up to 27C, be sure to crosscheck if HWmonitor is giving you the correct readings with AMD Ryzen Master. One TR and R7 you have TJMax but you also have a soft cap where boost is lowered, so try to aim that as you max temp if performance is what you are after, on my TR1950 is 68C (not sure on yours), but if its the same you still have 10C more to relax your fan curves so have a quieter sistem at the expense of heat (or you will need a bigger cooler). Now most of the time i enter my usual daily light load to see my temps into what ranges i reach, after that i set that temp as my highest without the first breakpoint climbing, now how high depends on the cooler and fan and the noise you are willing to take, in my case usually is between 30-40% PWM (again depends on the fans).

3. For the case fans, should I tie the curves to the CPU temp or the system temp? (I assume the latter is a sensor on the mobo?) I have a passive video card (Pallit Kalm-x) and would ideally like at least one of the fans to throttle on GPU temp, but that's not an option in the BIOS.

I only tie it down to CPU temps, i wish i could with GPU but i never seen this option without using software.

4. Will HWMonitor tell me if one of the Fractals stalls? I'm running them very close to their lower limits.

Fractals drop around 450rpms (40% DC), Noctua NF-A14 PWM around 200rpms (15% PWM), NF-A9x14 should drop around 300rpms (15% PWM). Now HWmonitor will record if a monitor is not reporting rpms but it will not warn your like an alarm, now weather you use or not the % PWM/DC its up to you, for me its too low i would spike on light load to high, its more a balance of things for me, not how low i can get.

Try to play with the graphs of the fans see if you can reach what you want in terms of noise, if not try to stop each fan individually and see if you can find the fan that its causing the noise you dislike, then finally if are still not satisfy get better fans and CPU cooler.

[scholtz]

Thanks, @Abula. Few follow ups:

some here stop totally fans and have them start at certain temps, others like me like to have the fans as high as i can without being audible with my ambient to avoid the temp spikes that usual light load gives so they dont ramp up and down (breathing effect) but this can be tweak down also with very subtle ramp ups and delays, i just dont bother.

Is there anywhere I could find more info about these approaches? Or anyone want to weigh in in favor of the latter? FWIW, the MSI Bios only allows me to set 4 breakpoints per fan curve, so not sure how subtle I can get. And how do you do delays?

AMD is a little peculiar with the temps, some even have offsets up to 27C, be sure to crosscheck if HWmonitor is giving you the correct readings with AMD Ryzen Master.

OK, downloaded Ryzen Master, and the CPU temp is different. It's definitely not off by 27C, more like 3C - 10C. The main difference is that the temp in RM is fluctuating all over the place, while the temp in HWMonitor is mostly steady at one reading, with occasional movement. The HWM temp is generally lower, but the range of fluctuation in RM does dip down as low as that temp. So I'm wondering if it's not so much an offset as a different sampling rate??

One TR and R7 you have TJMax but you also have a soft cap where boost is lowered, so try to aim that as you max temp if performance is what you are after, on my TR1950 is 68C (not sure on yours)

I have no idea what you just said.. Could you repeat that in English, please?

Thanks!

[Olle P]

Could you repeat that in English, please?

When CPU temp reaches 68C the CPU's (maximum) speed is automatically lowered to prevent overheating.

Personally I prefer to have fan curves (for the CPU and GPU coolers) that ramp up early on to reach "tolerable" (from a noise perspective) levels. That will to some extent prevent the processors from getting so warm that the fans will need to go faster.
I actually try to determine three speed/noise levels for each fan, at its point of use:
1. Barely audible. This is used as the lowest speed setting.
2. Tolerable background noise while I'm "passive". This is the target speed at fairly low temps (~40C).
3. Tolerable noise while working hard or gaming. This can be with the fans at 100% if you're using a proper cooler and good fans. Then I'd use that level from about 60C to prevent throttling.