Adding More Controlable Fan Headers

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

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nintendoeats
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Joined: Sun Feb 22, 2015 11:57 am

Adding More Controlable Fan Headers

Post by nintendoeats » Thu Aug 02, 2018 6:21 am

I feel like this should be a basic question, but after several years messing with PC silencing I still don't know the answer and my google-fu is weak on it. I recently had to replace my X99-A motherboard with a Crosshair Hero VI (don't buy X99, 5930k CPU for sale!). This has reduced me from four fan headers to three. I have also had to go from Speedfan to Argus Monitor.

I normally have two CPU fans and five case fans. Formerly I had one case fan wired up to the PSU and everything else controlled through software. Asus used to sell cards that provided extra fan control, but the Crosshair doesn't list support for them. Is there a standard way to add extra addressable fan headers?

Oh, and I have tried running multiple fans from a single header and it has always led to weird noises (possibly because I run at such low speeds).

Thanks!

Abula
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Re: Adding More Controlable Fan Headers

Post by Abula » Thu Aug 02, 2018 9:11 am

More headers is something that we have battle over time, now a days motherboards come with 3 headers as standard and going into 7 or more for high end setups. But even today, i wished there were more, to individually tweak each fan to the best cooling and lowest noise, but i have accepted this is not possible on the vast mayority of my builds with so many fans, my best solution has been to sectorise fans, like intake and outake, cpu, gpu, etc. and run a PWM fan splitter and controlling groups with the same fan.
nintendoeats wrote:I recently had to replace my X99-A motherboard with a Crosshair Hero VI (don't buy X99, 5930k CPU for sale!). This has reduced me from four fan headers to three.
Crosscheck your motherboard, from what i can tell, you have 4 that i would assume are controllable. From the below picture i count 7 fan headers on the Crosshair Hero VI,

1) CPU_FAN: Should be controllable
2) CPU_OPT: usually this is not controllable but a mirror of the CPU_FAN.
3) AIO_PUMP: Not sure if its controllable
4) W_PUMP: Not sure if its controllable
5) CHA_FAN1: Should be controllable
6) CHA_FAN2: Should be controllable
7) CHA_FAN3: Should be controllable

nintendoeats wrote:Oh, and I have tried running multiple fans from a single header and it has always led to weird noises (possibly because I run at such low speeds).
If you are left with less headers than you actually need, my suggestion is use one for the CPU, probably CPU_FAN, use the CPU_OPT to connect the your second cpu fan and avoid using a splitter here. For intake use a second header, for its position probably CHA_FAN2 seems more accessible, and CHA_FAN1 for outake. As long as your fans are the same and PWM you can use a PWM fan splitter, the two that i recommend are Swiftech 8W-PWM-SPL-ST 8 Way PWM Splitter-Sata and/or Gelid CA-PWM-03 1-to-4 4pin PWM Fan Power Splitter, these are safe as you only use the PWM signal form the motherboard and the power comes from sata/molex, so you can place a ton of fans on those splitter without any issues. You still have CHA_FAN3 in case you want to do the PSU control (not recommended but if you like it go for it), or for any other fan you have on the system like bottom or side, etc.
nintendoeats wrote:I have also had to go from Speedfan to Argus Monitor.
Check Asus bios fan control, it should allow you to make your own graphs with 3 breakpoints for the fan behavior, for monitoring use HWmonitor or HWinfo. If you are not into bios fan control, and you are under windows, try out AiSuite FanXpert, its a really good fan control software.
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nintendoeats
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Re: Adding More Controlable Fan Headers

Post by nintendoeats » Thu Aug 02, 2018 12:32 pm

I appreciate the response. When I say three fan headers I am not including the two CPU headers which are consumed by two CPU fans. There are only three controllable case fan headers on this motherboard. People who want more are expect to pay an extra 100-150 dollars for the Extreme edition which has virtually no other added features.

Those fan splitter boards look great. Unfortunately my fans are all DC Silent Wings 2 and 3.

This is my third ASUS motherboard and I have never like Fan Xpert on any of them, or frankly any of their bundled software. Honestly Argus is fine, it's just different. The problem with OEM fan control is that they always seem to err on the side of not letting you run fans slowly enough.

I will look to see if there are any controllable DC splitter boards, since I can live with controlling multiple fans from one header.

Thanks for the advice

Abula
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Re: Adding More Controlable Fan Headers

Post by Abula » Thu Aug 02, 2018 4:39 pm

nintendoeats wrote:This is my third ASUS motherboard and I have never like Fan Xpert on any of them, or frankly any of their bundled software. Honestly Argus is fine, it's just different. The problem with OEM fan control is that they always seem to err on the side of not letting you run fans slowly enough.
Personally i also dont like AI Suite, but i no longer buy Asus, i usually dont use 3pin either, for me PWM and Bios fan control is where its at. As a recommendation, on your next build, consider MSI, all their mobos allow to control DC 3pin or 4pin PWM (switchable on the bios), that said i doubt you will find a low-mid en board with 8 headers, this is probably Rampage/Godlike territory.
nintendoeats wrote:Unfortunately my fans are all DC Silent Wings 2 and 3.
Consider in the future going PWM, to me its safer as the pwm splitters allow to control vast amounts and since they always run at 12V you dont have issues like starting voltages.
nintendoeats wrote:I will look to see if there are any controllable DC splitter boards, since I can live with controlling multiple fans from one header.
Phantek used to have one very interesting, that used to come on their top end case that allowed to use a PWM signal and converted it to DC voltage, personally never tried it. I believe the retail version of that splitter was a little different on the plugs but was similar, if im not mistaken is the Phanteks PWM Fan Hub Controller (PH-PWHUB_01), remember to use it you need to input a PWM signal, so change in the bios the header to PWM, then it should do the conversion of the PWM signal to DC voltage. I never really tried, as when i wanted never was sold, only available on the phantek enthoo top of the line, then PWM fans became more popular.

But 3 headers for 5 fans dont seem that bad though, i would simply use 3pin extension and Y splitters to run 2xfans per header.

nintendoeats
Posts: 59
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Re: Adding More Controlable Fan Headers

Post by nintendoeats » Fri Aug 03, 2018 5:37 am

That Phanteks part looks perfect! I might see if I can build one myself from an Arduino as a project, but the splitter you posted is a good option.

nagi
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Re: Adding More Controlable Fan Headers

Post by nagi » Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:18 pm

I have the phantek PWM -> DC converter... it's good, IF you have about ~4-7 fans on it. The problem is that the range of the controlled fans depends on the load on the hub. Someone tested it, and basically you'll need 4-6 fans to have roughly 5-12V range. More and you won't have 12V top (12 fans: 3V-10V), less and you will have significantly higher low-end (like 9-12V with only 1 fan).


While I can't find the original forum post (it was on another site), I saved the test results:
Image

edit: found it! Here is the original, archived forum post:
http://phanteks.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-557.html

nintendoeats
Posts: 59
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Re: Adding More Controlable Fan Headers

Post by nintendoeats » Thu Aug 09, 2018 4:20 pm

Hey, nagi, I'm sorry I didn't see your post earlier. That is very interesting information and pretty disappointing. According to BQ my fans will stall around 5 volts, so if I don't have at least three on the phanteks then it would be pretty bloody useless (and even then they may run too fast). I guess those performance numbers make a degree of sense on a cheap device, but that doesn't resolve the problem for somebody who only needs one or two more headers. Thanks for the tip.

Abula
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Re: Adding More Controlable Fan Headers

Post by Abula » Mon Aug 20, 2018 9:53 am

Another thing you could do is add in something like an Aquero 6, meant more for watercooling as it has a lot of options for that, but inherently it can control a lot of fans DC/PWM/RPM, even has its own software to run the curves with different sensors, and fan can be stopped or start (depending on the fans), it has lot of things that i personally will never use, but if motherboard didn't have the minimum on bios for fan control or for some reason i needed more headers than the motherboard supplies or if i ever need to go into water, i would probably be using the aquero6.

I leave you a couple of videos in case you are interested,
AQUACOMPUTER AQUAERO 6 | BRILLIANT FAN CONTROLLER
Ultimate Aquaero Config! | RPM Curves

EsaT
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Re: Adding More Controlable Fan Headers

Post by EsaT » Sat Sep 08, 2018 3:13 am

nintendoeats wrote:When I say three fan headers I am not including the two CPU headers which are consumed by two CPU fans.
There's no reason to run CPU heatsink's fans at different speeds, so they can be as well connected to one header using splitter.
Even if header has weaker than usual 1A max output two fans would be safe.
(or those fans don't deserve place in this forum's talk)

And similar grouping is usually sense making for case fans.
I mean if there's two intake fans it makes sense to run those at same speed.

Though for exhausts it would be good to keep rear exhaust as main exhaust.
And certainly any top fan not in rearmost position should be run slower:
Airflow helps only if it actually cools something.
And top fans farther from rear end risk creating airflow "short circuit" drawing out air which hasn't yet cooled anything.

EsaT
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Re: Adding More Controlable Fan Headers

Post by EsaT » Sat Sep 08, 2018 5:30 am

Abula wrote:Another thing you could do is add in something like an Aquero 6, meant more for watercooling as it has a lot of options for that, but inherently it can control a lot of fans DC/PWM/RPM, even has its own software to run the curves with different sensors, and fan can be stopped or start (depending on the fans), it has lot of things that i personally will never use, but if motherboard didn't have the minimum on bios for fan control or for some reason i needed more headers than the motherboard supplies or if i ever need to go into water, i would probably be using the aquero6.
Aquaero beats the crap out of every other control method in configurability and reliability.

BIOS/motherboard based controls are at mercy of motherboard makers product differentiation and software designed to look flashy/for marketing lines.
Also Windows can apparently mess things:
Not long ago read about user having problem of fan controls working only until Windows loads and then fans going to 100% on higher end Asus motherbaord.

Third party softwares are equally dependant on BIOS/drivers/software/Windows.

Running on its own hardware Aquaero is completely independent of any BIOS/software/Windows bugs, problems and crashes.
And besides lot better configurability/controls, it can combine software temperature readings to data from physical sensors.
For example attaching physical sensor to base of CPU heatsink gives full fan control:
1. Before Windows is loaded
2. Backup in case drivers/software/Windows or even CPU/mobo crashes.

Sure four output channels isn't that high, but they've got power to handle many fans.
And grouping intake fans to one channel, exhausts to other etc. gives more logical control than having every fan individually.

Also Aquaero actually keeps its value, unlike nowadays ridiculously priced high end graphics cards.
Even motherboards can have crazy luxury prices despite of being "use once" things not surviving over bigger PC upgrades.

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