fan control & undervolting for socket 939

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dan
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fan control & undervolting for socket 939

Post by dan » Thu Mar 31, 2005 5:29 pm

i retired my soyo TISU which supported both fan control through speedfan AND undervolting.

while soltek DOES support undervolting (many motherboards do not) it does not support fan control through speedfan.

are there any motherboards that support both?
for the silentpc enthusiast, undervolting lowers heat output, and the easiest way to quiet a pc is then to use speedfan to spin down the fan to inaudible levels.

most socket 939 motherboards apparently do not support both.
any exceptions?

yeha
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Post by yeha » Thu Mar 31, 2005 5:48 pm

i'm replying here because i feel this post belongs more in this section than fans & control. you might want to delete your other post about this.

i don't think the problem here is new boards purposely dropping speedfan support, but different (newer, better, etc.) controller chips being used that speedfan doesn't yet support. maybe in a few months every board on the market will work. i just don't know.

speedfan's list of motherboards which support fan speed control includes many recent boards, though a lot of the comments indicate that fan control only works on 1 or 2 out of 3 or 4 fan headers. with future speedfan and board bios updates (you have been emailing the manufacturers about fan control, haven't you??) the range of boards will increase. these things just take time, as manufacturers are usually loathe to release specifications even though it can make them more money in the end.

Tibors
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Post by Tibors » Thu Mar 31, 2005 6:35 pm

The hardware monitoring on motherboards is part of the SuperI/O chip. There isn't really much interesting development in that field as the SuperI/O chip controls all the old technologies on the mobo: keyboard; mouse; parallel & serial ports; floppy controller; hardware monitor; some other things. Even if a new SuperI/O chip comes out it often has the same "interface" as an older model or it is just a new combination of older "building blocks". E.g. the SuperI/O chip on one of my motherboards (system 3 in my sig) isn't recognised correctly by SpeedFan. It still works, because SMSC uses the same hardware monitoring block in most of their SuperI/O chips. SpeedFan can work with the generic interface of it.

Communication between SpeedFan and the SuperI/O chip goes via the ISA bus and/or SMbus. These busses are controlled by the southbridge (or the single chip for nForce). Not knowing the southbridge is why SpeedFan often doesn't work with the newest mobo's. If SpeedFan can report the fan speeds, then you know it has recognised and can communicate with the hardware monitor.

If SpeedFan can report fan speeds but can't change them, then there is a 95% chance the correct wires are not connected by the mobo manufacturer. If you want to gamble on the other 5% then take the time to send in a report. It is very easy to do with the button on the third tab. If SpeedFan doesn't recognise anything it is even more important to send in the report. If everything works perfect, but the mobo isn't listed on the SpeedFan website send in a report too. A mobo won't get listed unless at least two complete reports for that mobo are sent in.

If you don't send reports SpeedFan can't be developed.

dan
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Post by dan » Thu Mar 31, 2005 8:38 pm

but why don't motherboard companies offer their oen program to control fan speed?

soltek's tech support said flat out that they dont support fan monitoring.

m0002a
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Post by m0002a » Thu Mar 31, 2005 9:40 pm

At least some Soltek boards support fan monitoring, but not speed (voltage) control. The SL-K890PRO-939 has 4 fan headers, and monitors 2 of them. Windows software is provided to monitor the speed.

Tibors
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Post by Tibors » Fri Apr 01, 2005 5:05 pm

dan wrote:but why don't motherboard companies offer their oen program to control fan speed?
Because that would cost them money and most buyers don't really care about it or buy fancy lighted fan controllers anyway.

dan
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Post by dan » Sun Apr 03, 2005 10:11 pm

if the silentpc revolution is affecting consumer tastes,

would there be a demand for motherboards to support fan speed voltage control, as my old 2000 TISU had done?

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