Controlling fan speeds

fruity

fruity

fruity

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12 Oct 2011
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Ok, so earlier this week I got the Akasa 5 to 1 fan adapter in order to solve the problem that my mobo can only control 2 fans slots. I've fitted the adapter, but still no joy...
When I connected a sickleflow fan to the 4 pin adapter (in order to report the rpm for all 5 fans), it seems to show the right speed (~1700) but I can't then control this using the bios and setting the min fan speed and target cpu temperature. I changed the fan to the stock hyper 212+ one, which is a 4 pin, and again it seems to report the correct values but won't adjust at all...
I've also tried MSI's control centre but this doesn't change the speeds at all.

So, what am I doing wrong? The pc is buzzing beside me with all fans on max, and the cpu is sitting at 30C! Just want to regulate the rpm down to a sensible level :S
 
The sickleflow are 3 pin fans aren't they? Not all motherboards can control 3 pin fans and even when they can they won't always do it through their own software.

I run a 3 pin Noctua fan on my Gigabyte board and the Easytune software does diddly squit to slow it down. Speedfan however works to a fashion so I can have 60% rpm below a threshold temperature.

The problem with using 3 pin DC controlled fans using that extension you bought is that the 4 pin Molex powers the fans to 12v and not the motherboard, so nothing is going to slow them down, unless you can drop the voltage on the Molex, which you will not be wanting to do.

I can only assume that your Hyper 212+ 4 pin PWM fan doesn't slow down simply because of an incorrect setting somewhere.

You don't really buy a PWM fan splitter and then try and then use non PWM fans with it, it's just not done.

Don't go putting 4-5 non PWM fans onto a motherboard header as you'll fry it and potentially take your motherboard out in the process.
 
k, thanks for the advice. I had asked on the forum previously and was told this would do the job, clearly the wrong advise then. I was thinking that since it is molex powered that would be why it's running at max.
So, do you reckon trying speedfan and plugging all fans back onto seperate mobo fan slots is worth a shot? Like I said I'm just trying to quieten the system down a little while still having the potential in it to keep cool under heavy loads.
 
Well if you've bought the fans already then maybe a cheap fan controller would be in order. You could manually adjust the speed as desired.

For the CPU fan you may be able to connect a couple of fans to the header using a standard fan splitter ( not the pwm one) and control using speedfan or something if motherboard support is there.

Looks like you might have wasted a few quid on the own splitter, at least if you want to use sickleflows throughout.
 
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yeah i think a manual fan adjuster will be the solution, but it kills me to have to pay for something when the mobo should support it - makes no sense why they don't.
As regards a standard fan splitter, would that still allow the motherboard to control their speeds as one (it can control 2 system fans). I could get 2 splitters and control all the fans then.
 
You shouldn't connect more than 2 fans to a single motherboard header or you'll blow the header, they are only good for an ampere at the most.

Motherboards fan headers are pwm these days so just get over it. Sometimes they can do DC as well but it's not dependable. Most people will have a fan controller these days.

My motherboard can only control one fan and it has at least 6 headers, only 4 of which will report speeds. That's on an expensive-ish board too.
 
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