Alternatives to Corsair Commander?

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samuelmorris

Supreme [H]ardness
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Dec 20, 2010
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After a recent upgrade I added a Corsair Commander unit for the purpose of having temperature-controlled fan speeds in various parts of my machine.
Unfortunately, it's an absolutely terrible product. After connecting two fans to it and checking that combined they did not exceed the current rating per channel I blew out one of the fan control channels within seconds, and although the other channels still work, if they draw any more than 100mA or so, the device reboots itself and reappears a few seconds later, in an infinite loop. It also periodically thinks fans are temperature sensors, is unable to accurately read the rpm of any of the fans, and keeps telling me I have a pump connected to the temperature sensor port. I would write this off as a one-off faulty unit but quick googling suggests some of these issues are widespread with this device and seemingly it's just a pretty poor excuse for a fan controller, perhaps the RGB features etc. are better, but irrelevant for my purposes.

I used an NZXT Grid a few years back and found the software pretty woeful, so I'm not all that keen on using that either. The motherboard in this machine has a pretty good fan controller but it only supports 5 fans and also can't read, for example, the GPU as a temperature sensor.

Are there any other products on the market like these that do a slightly less terrible job?
 
Thanks - I was looking at Aquaeros a while back but wasn't sure what the software support was like - I don't suppose you happen to know if the current generation of units can have the display dimmed/off when not active? I'm replacing old Scythe Kaze Master units so a display is not an issue but a bright full colour LCD might be a bit much. There seems such a bewildering array of different models, I don't want to assume based on some feedback of older units.
 
samuelmorris said:
Thanks - I was looking at Aquaeros a while back but wasn't sure what the software support was like - I don't suppose you happen to know if the current generation of units can have the display dimmed/off when not active? I'm replacing old Scythe Kaze Master units so a display is not an issue but a bright full colour LCD might be a bit much. There seems such a bewildering array of different models, I don't want to assume based on some feedback of older units.
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I can't say if you can dim the display, because mine doesn't have one. There's only four models - the 5 and the 5LT are the old generation. The 6 and the 6LT are current. LT in the model number means no display.

The software is phenomenal. Just to give you an idea of what you can do with it, here's my setup: My fans are controlled by the ambient/coolant temperature difference. The Aquaero averages the inputs of two temp sensors in my loop and two in my case to find ambient temps and coolant temps. (This is not necessary, you can use individual sensors if you like.) Additionally, if the ambient/coolant delta is below 2°c, my fans do not run. If the flow in my machine ever drops below .1gpm, it shuts down. And the best part is: since I've configured all of that, it lives on the Aquaero now, so I can unplug the USB interface and uninstall the software if I so wish. The unit is standalone.
 
I use Argus Monitor and my motherboard headers, but I have enough motherboard headers. From the way you said you only have 5 it sounds like that might not be enough. I use it to control by GPU and CPU temp instead of just CPU temps.
 
Yeah it's non-essential but there are technically 9 fans in this case. Overkill for the components inside, but after the issues with the Corsair I'm a bit wary about connecting more than one fan to a motherboard header either, though I'll take a look at Argus, thanks for the recommendation. I suspect I probably will ultimately go with an Aquaero of some kind - the PCB only ones look like they might be a bit awkward to mount though - 11 year old cases with tool-less drive bays tend not to be very forgiving with non-standard devices like fan controllers...
 
samuelmorris said:
Yeah it's non-essential but there are technically 9 fans in this case. Overkill for the components inside, but after the issues with the Corsair I'm a bit wary about connecting more than one fan to a motherboard header either, though I'll take a look at Argus, thanks for the recommendation. I suspect I probably will ultimately go with an Aquaero of some kind - the PCB only ones look like they might be a bit awkward to mount though - 11 year old cases with tool-less drive bays tend not to be very forgiving with non-standard devices like fan controllers...
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It's a simple 4-hole pattern and the board includes standoffs and mounting screws. Find a location you like and drill some holes! =)
 
VanGoghComplex said:
It's a simple 4-hole pattern and the board includes standoffs and mounting screws. Find a location you like and drill some holes! =)
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Yeah drilling holes is no adhesive pad though is it ;)

I'm intrigued by the concept of the Octo...
 
samuelmorris said:
Yeah drilling holes is no adhesive pad though is it ;)

I'm intrigued by the concept of the Octo...
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I don't have experience with the Octo, though I trust it. Looks like it would be easier to mount for sure. The Aquaero can't be sticky-taped, as both sides are exposed PCB.
 
samuelmorris said:
Yeah it's non-essential but there are technically 9 fans in this case. Overkill for the components inside, but after the issues with the Corsair I'm a bit wary about connecting more than one fan to a motherboard header either, though I'll take a look at Argus, thanks for the recommendation. I suspect I probably will ultimately go with an Aquaero of some kind - the PCB only ones look like they might be a bit awkward to mount though - 11 year old cases with tool-less drive bays tend not to be very forgiving with non-standard devices like fan controllers...
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If they are PWM fans you could just use the header for control and power direct from the PSU. You could group more of them together that way.
 
Sadly not, only the CPU fans are PWM controlled. The front and rear are the stock 230/140 fans respectively that come with the HAF932 case, the side and top are 120mm Scythe SlipStreams.
 
Yeah looks the same as the Octo but a 4-port version - I might try and find somewhere else that stocks it rather than ordering it directly from Germany, but if needs must, that's what I'll do.
 
Considered the Octo and ideally would have gone with it but I don't like the idea of paying 30 EUR for shipping a tiny little fan controller from Germany, so went with what was available on Amazon UK and ordered a Quadro and two Splitty9 units. That way I can group the block of 4 side fans into one output and the 3 top fans into another.
 
Was just looking on OcUK and see they have QUADRO for £35.99 but only one in stock, so if you want it get it quick.

Edit:
14 minutes to late. :(
 
No worries, I don't have free shipping with OcUK so I haven't really paid much more with Amazon, and given my experience with the Corsair (and another unrelated DOA component in the same order), Amazon's simple return experience is worth having!
 
A bit of a thread necro, I finally got the Quadro & splitter units installed. Alas, they do not work :(

Two of the four fans I connected as a test were detected, but the speed is not adjustable and the rpm values are wrong. If I wanted every fan running 100% all the time, I could have just used some molex adapters. The Aquasuite software looks the part but is pretty terrible to use. The unit I received may well be DOA but that doesn't really make the situation any better. I really expected better from a device with such a good reputation.
 
samuelmorris said:
A bit of a thread necro, I finally got the Quadro & splitter units installed. Alas, they do not work :(

Two of the four fans I connected as a test were detected, but the speed is not adjustable and the rpm values are wrong. If I wanted every fan running 100% all the time, I could have just used some molex adapters. The Aquasuite software looks the part but is pretty terrible to use. The unit I received may well be DOA but that doesn't really make the situation any better. I really expected better from a device with such a good reputation.
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Sounds like there may be some issues here. I wouldn't give up on the unit so quickly. Reach out.

Are your splitters wired right? As in, only one fan on each splitter has the tach wire connected?

The Quadro defaults to full speed on all headers when no configuration is loaded. It may just be needing you to set up some controls, which I'll admit is not exactly intuitive for the first-time user.
 
OK my previous post was a bit reactionary, but I am beyond frustrated with trying to get a separate fan controller to do what motherboards now do flawlessly. After querying this with Aquacomputer, seemingly the Quadro units (and all the associated products) are PWM-only, and have no voltage regulation.
Perhaps I'm expecting a bit much for the product to be labelled 'for PWM fans only' instead of just 'PWM fan controller' - to me, having worked with countless old hardware fan controllers over the years, I'm used to seeing PWM control as the luxury, and voltage control always available, so when I see PWM fan controller I read 'oh, it supports PWM fans too', not that it's exclusively for PWM fans. Evidently, if non-PWM fans are used with Aquasuite, apparently the rpm values can't be read correctly? I'm not really sure I understand the science behind that one, but the outcome is that I need the £100 Aquaero model (double that if I wanted the front bay display, which fortunately I don't) just for four fan channels. I'm not comfortable spending £100 on a fan controller that still means I have to use my motherboard's fan controller for half the fans in my system, I don't think that's justified.
 
Thinking a fan controller advertised as "QUADRO fan controller for PWM fans" will control variable voltage fans not paying attention to what it clearly says, and you are first person I've heard say Aquasuite isn't a good program. That said, I can understand your frustration.

Tell us what your motherboard is and maybe we can be more helpful. But you do need to pay attention to what we and suggested products are and what can do. ;)
 
What can I say, I've had countless fan controllers over the years (because most of them weren't very good!) and every one has supported voltage-based control until now, I'd never seen a fan controller that only worked off PWM before.
This is on the system with the B550 Aorus Elite. Once upon a time I ran a pair of HD4870X2s in this case, so the side panel of the HAF932 has had the 230mm fan swapped for four 120mm Scythe Slipstreams (and likewise the top fan for another two).
Since running more modest hardware in the case, the side fans haven't been necessary but, assuming I will ever be able to get hold of one, looking at the heat output into the case of the current gen of top-end GPUs, if I upgrade to using one I'd like to reinstate the side fans.

The system is currently set up as follows:
NH-D15 cooler fans - connected to motherboard cpu_fan and sys_fan1 both using a profile based off CPU temp
230mm front fan - connected to motherboard sys_fan3, using a different profile based off CPU temp
140mm rear fan - connected to motherboard sys_fan2, using a different profile based off CPU temp

120mm side & top fans - disconnected

What I originally wanted was to run the front fan from a sensor derived from the hard drive temperatures, whether that be through software or through a thermal probe affixed to one of the disks. Since all but one of the disks has been replaced with SSDs though, that's now less important. I've simply set a different profile for the front fan so it does not stop at low CPU temperatures, unlike the CPU cooler which I've set to shut the fans off below 35C. Running it off the CPU temp via the motherboard is fine, just not quite what I wanted.

For the side fans though I really wanted to base it off GPU temperature as if I used CPU, they'd be running flat out when I ran video encodes on the CPU which would be entirely unnecessary. The board does offer the temperature of the PCIe slot as a guide but I'm not really sure how effective that'd be, I'd much rather use the GPU temperature which is why I was attracted to the idea of using Aquacomputer products through the 'playground' feature.

Due to the fact the side/top fans are fairly power heavy, I'd only be comfortable running two of them per output from a fan controller, so if I'm limited to four outputs from an Aquaero, I'm essentially using a £100 device just to power up fans for my GPU, since there wouldn't be room to move the other fans across to it. That's quite a hard sell, really.

As for Aquasuite, I didn't find it a particularly nice experience. Installing the latest version of the application from the website told me I was on v27, yet on running it, it tells me 'v29 is available!' - I held off to begin with but the Quadro unit wasn't even detected. It offered, in tiny text, 'firmware update available for this device' - only when you accept this does it tell you that Aquasuite does not support the Quadro with the firmware version it ships with. Seems odd, but OK, the device was ordered back in August, fair enough, I'll update the firmware. When looking for the voltage control I updated the application to v29 to see if that would help, before realising the Quadro doesn't support voltage control of course. After I'd updated the application, once again it stopped detecting the Quadro altogether and the same firmware update message appeared. If they're really going to be as draconian as restricting firmware versions to only work with one specific version of the software client and you have to flash the device firmware every time the application updates, why can't that be part of the software update process? Likewise the UI had a lot of uninteractable elements, even disregarding the functionality I was unaware the unit didn't have. There are far worse fan controller apps out there (NZXT CAM for example) but Aquasuite I still felt was rather poorly designed. Given that the same app is presumably used by the outrageously expensive front-bay based Aquaero units, I'd be pretty dissatisfied if a device that costs 4 times what all the competing products do had such mediocre software, considering the software is integral to being able to use the device.
 
Yes, that's what I'm using in lieu of a separate fan controller, see above. I'm returning the Quadro because it's of no benefit to me without voltage support. I could replace all my fans with PWM versions (except the front one as I'm not sure such a thing exists in PWM form) but that seems just as much of a waste, especially given not all fans have the same acoustic profile and I'm happy with the fans I'm currently using. The difficulty is, that's good enough for now but I'm not running six fans rated for half an amp each off one or two motherboard headers and further, the motherboard (or more specifically, BIOS) software is not going to support external temperature probes such as thermal probes or GPU temperatures.
 
samuelmorris said:
Yes, that's what I'm using in lieu of a separate fan controller, see above. I'm returning the Quadro because it's of no benefit to me without voltage support. I could replace all my fans with PWM versions (except the front one as I'm not sure such a thing exists in PWM form) but that seems just as much of a waste, especially given not all fans have the same acoustic profile and I'm happy with the fans I'm currently using. The difficulty is, that's good enough for now but I'm not running six fans rated for half an amp each off one or two motherboard headers and further, the motherboard (or more specifically, BIOS) software is not going to support external temperature probes such as thermal probes or GPU temperatures.
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As I said above, your motherboard had 5 fan headers, so why are you still talking about running 6 fans on one fan header?
 
There are 10 fans in total - 2 on the CPU cooler, 1 at the front, 1 at the rear, 2 at the top and 4 at the side. The front, rear and 2 CPU fans are currently connected to the board's fan headers already, which would leave the remaining connector to deal with all the other (currently disconnected) fans. Alright, I may be able to gain an extra header from running both the CPU fans off one header, but even two 1600rpm 140mm fans makes me a little uncomfortable to be honest.
 
I assume there are GPU fans as well as 10 fans you listed. Honestly it sounds like you are usign way more fans than system reasonably needs. I build a lot of systems, some very hot running gaming systems, and never use as many fans as you are. 1x 14mm intake to supply airflwo to CPU cooler fans, and 2x 120mm or maybe 1-2x 140mm intakes for GPU in cases with no exhaust fans id normal case fan setup. Almost never use exhaust fans because just intakes cool as well at same noise level as using both intake and exhaust do. Only time intake and exhaust give a few degrees cooler temps is at full speed, which if you are like most of us our fans don't run full speed anyway.
 
For now, that's absolutely the case, hence why the side fans have been left disconnected since I dropped down to a single GPU a few years back. Even an RTX3090 isn't going to be putting out the sort of heat that the old 4-GPU setup I used to run would have done, but since it'll be blowing far more of its hot air into the case than the old blower-style GPU coolers, I definitely want the side fans working again to some degree, and since they're there, I may as well use them. I suppose I could get away with perhaps just running two and leaving the others disconnected, but that's a bit of a hackjob, I was rather hoping to be able to do it properly :)

The reason for using exhaust fans too (other than again, that they're there) is predominantly because other than the front 230mm, the options for intake fans are mostly on the side panel. If I reversed the rear fan I feel that would probably conflict with the CPU cooler. The side panel on the HAF932 is not great for vibrations and can make otherwise quiet fans seem pretty loud (if you remember what Xbox 360 fans sounded like, it's that sort of effect), so I preferred to run those at a lower speed and have top exhaust fans doing the rest.
 
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