Motherboard fan controller only controlling one fan

cupofjava · 8 Jul 2012 at 11:57

Heyo,

I have a Gigabyte Z77-D3H motherboard with 3 fans hooked up from the case (One 120mm intake, one 120mm out-take and another 80mm out-take), but when using the fan controller on the motherboard, all three fans are viewable (and their RPMs), but when i adjust the fan speed for all of them - there isnt the option to do it for each one separately - only the 80mm out take changes, and i have no idea why!

im sure they're all hooked up correctly, but if i set them to silent for example, then only the 80mm fan drops down its RPM from about 1000 to 500, the others just stay at around the 1000rpm mark. Does anybody have any ideas on how to fix this?

thanks !

moogle · 8 Jul 2012 at 12:16

cupofjava said:
Does anybody have any ideas on how to fix this?

thanks !

Check your motherboard manual if it says it allows those fans to have their speed changed.

Not all are adjustable on some motherboards.

cupofjava · 8 Jul 2012 at 12:44

in the manual, it just says:

1st/2nd/3rd System Fan Speed Control
Allows you to determine whether to enable the system fan speed control function and adjust the fan
speed.
Normal Allows the systemfans to run at different speeds according to the systemtemperature. You
can adjust the fan speed with EasyTune based on your system requirements. (Default)
Silent Allows the system fans to run at slow speeds.
Manual Allows you to control the system fans speed under the Slope PWM item.
Disabled Allows the system fans to run at full speeds

moogle · 8 Jul 2012 at 13:01

Are the fan headers 4 pin or 3 pin, and are the fans that go into them 3 pin or 4 pin?

cupofjava · 8 Jul 2012 at 17:09

i believe the headers are 4 pin and the fans 3!

moogle · 8 Jul 2012 at 17:11

That's what I thought, and 3 pins can only be controlled by voltage which is why they do not slow down.

I wish motherboards would have this option of voltage control or pwm control but sadly they don't

The last board to have these sorts of features was the Abit ip35 boards.

You could have the fans speed up with voltage control according to CPU temperature, or by PWM.

cupofjava · 8 Jul 2012 at 17:24

if i set the fan control to manual in the bios, a setting for 'Slope PWM' then becomes active... is this the same kind of thing? i have no idea how to use that though.... its just funny that one fan does respond to changes in the bios, but the other two dont - even though they are all stock fans on my Coolermaster CM690 II Advanced! I also have two more that are connected via the PSU, since the Mobo only has three slots. Is it possible to alter their speed with voltage also?

dazzerd · 8 Jul 2012 at 17:26

moogle said:
That's what I thought, and 3 pins can only be controlled by voltage which is why they do not slow down.

I wish motherboards would have this option of voltage control or pwm control but sadly they don't

The last board to have these sorts of features was the Abit ip35 boards.

You could have the fans speed up with voltage control according to CPU temperature, or by PWM.

All of the asus sabertooth has this option. One of many of its better features from all of the 7 or so fan headers.

moogle · 8 Jul 2012 at 17:26

The fan that changes in response to the bios, is it a 4 pin fan? if it's not but still responds then it could be only that fan header is voltage controlled.

Regarding the ones directly connected to the PSU, you can only alter their speeds with a dedicated fan controller or a fan resistor cable. But then it's only slowed to one set speed, whereas the motherboard one can vary the fan speed depending on the CPU temp.

cupofjava · 8 Jul 2012 at 17:29

no, its the same as the others and just a three pin! seems really odd that only one would be controllable! so is there no other way of controlling the ones connected to the mobo?

moogle · 8 Jul 2012 at 17:32

I don't think so, I think there was a thread on the forums here about fan adapters (phanteks thread) where the adaptors would convert the PWM cable so that the 3 pin fans can use them and be controlled.

I'll have a read of your motherboard manual later and try and understand what it says about the fan headers.

cupofjava · 8 Jul 2012 at 17:33

cheers dude!

moogle · 8 Jul 2012 at 18:20

cupofjava said:
cheers dude!

No probs, took ages to download the manual off Gigabytes slow servers

Your CPU fan is probably 4 pin (are you using the stock intel heatsink?), if not and your CPU fan is 3 pin then have CPU Fan Speed Control on anything other than disabled.

Then set CPU Fan Control Mode to Auto if you don't know how many pins it is, or Voltage if it's 3-pin and PWM if it's 4-pin.

For 1st/2nd/3rd System Fan Speed Control I'd say have it on Silent because the fans aren't PWM. It doesn't look like you can configure each fan (on the ASUS Z77 boards you can fyi with their software, and it's saved to the bios).

I can't see from what I read in the bios if Gigabyte's software can adjust the fans individually so I would say you can only change the control of all the system fans at once.

Hope this helps

cupofjava · 8 Jul 2012 at 22:33

thanks mate, the CPU fan speed has always been changeable from the motherboard and i can set it to silent, normal, etc. (Its not a stock cooler, however) which alters its RPM. Its the same for SYSFAN1 which i've figured out is connected to the exhaust 80mm Fan, even though my other two fans are connected the same it just doesn't alter those ones (they are all stock fans)... its not that i want to do them individually, its just when i change the settings it only ever alters one and not the other two, which i really cant understand since they're all the same! ... two seconds and i'll post a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/PurQL.jpg

moogle · 8 Jul 2012 at 22:49

What is the other option for control of the 1st/2nd/3rd SYS Fan, turn it onto silent or normal as PWM Slope will only work on PWM fans on them.

The last reason I can think of why the other fans dont slow down is that they don't adjust well to the voltage control.

Or it could be that those fan headers don't have voltage control. If you can try and swap the one that does slow down to a fan header where it doesn't slow down and see if it does change speed on that one.

If it does then it could just be the fans that are problematic.

Didn't you say those fans are connected directly to the PSU?

cupofjava · 8 Jul 2012 at 23:47

the options are Manual, Silent or Normal (manual is PWM)... theres three connected to the mobo, and two that aren't... but im trying to control those that are connected. I guess they just cant be controlled for whatever reason! thanks for your help though!

moogle · 9 Jul 2012 at 07:19

No problem, features like this aren't really described very well even in the manual so it's hard to know whether somethings supposed to work that way or not.

Maybe if you really want help on it you could try contacting Gigabyte or posting the same question on their forums so that those more knowledgeable can help

baletka · 12 Jul 2012 at 19:25

http://download.gigabyte.eu/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-z77(h77)-d3h(-mvp)_e.pdf

only sysfan1 can be voltage controlled, while 2 and 3 are PWM controlled. As your fans can only be voltage controlled, only fan plugged as sysfan1 can be controlled.