Controlling fan speed

Hi,

I recently build my first ever PC, specs in sig

Everything is nice and quite apart from the Blue LED fan that came with the Elite 430.

As this is a 3 pin fan, what is my best (and preferably cheapest) option to control the speed of this fan.

Should I buy a fan controller? Is that worth it, since my other two fans (Gelid Tranquillo fan and Akasa Apache) are 4 pin and can be controlled from Asus AI suite?

or

Should I change the fan for a four pin? If I do that I think my only option would be a Thermaltake ThunderBlade, as I want a blue LED one again if I replace this CM one

What do you think? Are the thermaltake thunberblades reasonably quiet?


Also, I installed Asus AI Suite, and while my PC is booting the fans are nice and quiet, but once it is finished booting the fans (Akasa Apache and Gelid Tranquillo fan) run at full speed. If I then open AI Suite and go to the Fan Xpert section, the speed is set to 'Disabled', so I set them both to 'Standard' then they run nice and quiet again. But the issue I am having is that if I reboot my PC these settings do not get saved, and once the PC has finished booting, they run at full speed again, and the settings have changed to 'Disabled'.

Any ideas why that is happening?


Thanks in advance,

EDIT: The current blue LED fan is connected using the 3-pin to molex converter that came with it, so it is connected directly to the PSU. Don't know if that would make any difference.

Also am I right in saying that other than a fan controller, there is no way to control the speed of a 3-pin?

Plug the fan into one of the chassis mobo headers, you should then be able to control if from in the BIOS, try this for the other fans as well, as BIOS tends to be more robust than software apps. Failing that you could either get a new fan to replace that one, or go for the fan controller and hook them all up through it to avoid the AI suite issues

Stop AI suite from running as it sounds like once it's up and running it disables any BIOS fan settings. Worth a try.

For a single fan I'd be looking to my motherboard for control rather than thinking about purchasing a fan controller. You could also look at resistor/Zener cables (I think OcUK do a 10v one), thr 7v/5v Molex mod trick where you swap cables to feed different voltage to the fan, or perhaps a Zalman fanmate.

Thanks for both your replies

At the moment it is set up like this:
The CPU fan (4 pin) is plugged into the CPU 4 pin header
The Akasa Apache (4 pin) is plugged into one of the 4 pin Chassis fan headers
The front blue LED intake fan is plugged into 3 pin/molex converter direct to PSU

So later on, I will remove AI Suite, and see if I can control the 4 pin fans from the BIOS.

95thrifles are you saying I can control the speed of the 3 pin fan too?

According to the Asus site, my motherboard has:
1 x CPU Fan connector(s) (4 -pin) Being used by my CPU fan
2 x Chassis Fan connector(s) (4 -pin) One of these is being used by my Apache
1 x Power Fan connector(s) (3 -pin) This is not being used

So where should I connect this 3 pin fan so that I will be able to control it's speed, to the power fan connector or the chassis fan one I have spare.

Have I misinterpreted your post, because I thought you couldn't control the speed of a 3 pin fan.

If I have to connect it to the Chassis fan connector, as the connector is 4 pin, and the fan is 3, how will this work? Which 3 pins of the header do I use?

Sorry for all the questions, I just don't want to connect it incorrectly and do any damage, not sure if it would damage it or not, but best to be safe

If I have misinterpreted the post, and I cannot actually control the speed of a 3 pin fan using the motherboard, Tealc can you please post a link to this resistor cable / zener cable on OcUK, because I cannot seem to find any on google/OcUK. Also is it a variable resistor so that I can change the speed up and down, or are they just fixed?

If they do not do those anymore, has anyone used the Zalman Fanmate and are they good?


Thanks

3 pin fan can be controlled by the voltage given to it with the red and black wires. More juice more speed, less juice less speed. If it also has a yellow wire that is what tells the motherboard, what speed the fan is going.

When pluged into the PSU it is given full juice.

When plugged into the mother board it may or my not be controlled by the bios, when inside your operating system it can be controlled by software, I use 'speedfan' to control the fans on my motherboard that are not controlled by the BIOS but are plugged into the mother board. Google how to use it

One fan (my quietest, lowest rpm fan out of 1 out of 4, not including the CPU fan) I have have connected to the PSU as an intake in front of my hard drives.

When I get 2 more case fans, 6 in total, then I'll be getting a fan controller. I don't think you need one right now. Just figure out how to use a software fan controller that may or may not also be in conjuction with your BIOS settings.

Hope that helps.

It's been a while since I checked out the fan cables on ocuk and being on my iPod it's a bit of a chore to do so.

One other option, if you do get a 4 pin led fan would be to use an Akasa PWM splitter cable (there are two varieties of these) to control more than one fan with the CPU PWM signal.

Using a voltage reduction cable is non variable control method. You'd need to basically compromise your top end airflow for reduced noise. The Zalman fanmate is adjustable however as it's basically a variable resistor.

shadesofgrey said:

3 pin fan can be controlled by the voltage given to it with the red and black wires. More juice more speed, less juice less speed. If it also has a yellow wire that is what tells the motherboard, what speed the fan is going.

When pluged into the PSU it is given full juice.

When plugged into the mother board it may or my not be controlled by the bios, when inside your operating system it can be controlled by software, I use 'speedfan' to control the fans on my motherboard that are not controlled by the BIOS but are plugged into the mother board. Google how to use it

One fan (my quietest, lowest rpm fan out of 1 out of 4, not including the CPU fan) I have have connected to the PSU as an intake in front of my hard drives.

When I get 2 more case fans, 6 in total, then I'll be getting a fan controller. I don't think you need one right now. Just figure out how to use a software fan controller that may or may not also be in conjuction with your BIOS settings.

Hope that helps.

Click to expand...

Tealc said:

It's been a while since I checked out the fan cables on ocuk and being on my iPod it's a bit of a chore to do so.

One other option, if you do get a 4 pin led fan would be to use an Akasa PWM splitter cable (there are two varieties of these) to control more than one fan with the CPU PWM signal.

Using a voltage reduction cable is non variable control method. You'd need to basically compromise your top end airflow for reduced noise. The Zalman fanmate is adjustable however as it's basically a variable resistor.

Click to expand...

Thanks for both the replies,

I will have a look at it when I get a chance, and get back to you with any questions

Please see here for an update