Fan controller vs MB fan control

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

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
Michael Sandstrom
Posts: 606
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 4:03 pm
Location: Albany, GA USA

Fan controller vs MB fan control

Post by Michael Sandstrom » Tue Dec 31, 2013 7:23 pm

Please help me make a fan control decision with the NZXT Phantom 820. I'm running only four fans, the included front, top, rear and side. The MB is an Asus P9X79 WS which seems to have very good fan control. Would it be best to let the MB control fans or should I use the Phantom's digital fan controller? What are the pluses and minuses?

CA_Steve
Moderator
Posts: 7650
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 4:36 am
Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: Fan controller vs MB fan control

Post by CA_Steve » Tue Dec 31, 2013 7:59 pm

You are the best person to answer the question as you have the gear in front of you :)

Try em both. See what gives you the best noise/thermal result.

Some caveats: Asus mobos have PWM for the CPU fan. The rest look like PWM, but are really voltage controlled. Are the included fans PWM (4 pin) or voltage controlled (2 or 3 pin)?

Michael Sandstrom
Posts: 606
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 4:03 pm
Location: Albany, GA USA

Re: Fan controller vs MB fan control

Post by Michael Sandstrom » Tue Dec 31, 2013 8:26 pm

The case fans are all three pin which I think doesn't provide optimal control with fan Asus xpert+.

I think Ill just experiment with both. I'm building the computer for a friend who is a gamer and he'll accept a bit of noise. I prefer inexpensive and silent builds.

Abula
Posts: 3662
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:22 pm
Location: Guatemala

Re: Fan controller vs MB fan control

Post by Abula » Tue Dec 31, 2013 8:27 pm

If you don't mind running Asus AI Suite, then try the motherboard FanXpert first see how it works out, should be pretty simple, plug each fan to CHA_FAN headers, and the leave the CPU_FAN header for the cpu cooler fan.

If yo do mind running AI Suite, then go with the built fan controller.

Michael Sandstrom
Posts: 606
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 4:03 pm
Location: Albany, GA USA

Re: Fan controller vs MB fan control

Post by Michael Sandstrom » Tue Dec 31, 2013 9:45 pm

The guy I'm building for likes to install every MB application but I just finished the HW build with case fans connected to the case fan controller so we'll try that first. After I do the software build we can switch to MB control.

Post Reply