Which is better to control fan speed: Fan controller or motherboard?

Happy Hopping

Happy Hopping

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My new case is a Phantom 820 that c/w fan controller.

The motherboard is a asus Z9PE-D8 that allows 4 x 4 pin PWM control by the motherboard.

http://www.overclockers.ua/news/motherboard/108630-asus-ws-lga2011.jpg

The no. of fan is 8 (4 x 200 mm + 4 x 140 mm). So it seems I might as well let the fan controller controls all 8 fans. Or on the other hand, I can let the motherboard control 4 of 8 key fans, say the front, back, the pivot and 1 of the top fan.

I never own a case that c/w a fan controller, so I need your input on this. What's the normal rules of engagement on this?
 
I am also quite interested in the opinions yet to be shared in this thread. My opinion? Depends on the motherboard!
 
But doesn't it also depends on the micro controller chip of the fan controller? If that ASIC chip is doing its job, that ti has the temperature sensor in all the right spot, then it should direct all those fans to the right speed

But having said that, the motherboard should know the temperature of its own CPU and hopefully the GPU better than the fan controller, so I really don't know. In the past, it's just the CPU controlling the fans, so I never have to find out the answer to the above, but now, this fancy case I own has a fan controller, so I have the options
 
I have too many fans for my motherboard to handle, so it has to be a fan controller for me.
 
If your fan controller has temp sensors and dynamic fan speed adjustment you can use that one. If not, I would control all eight with the motherboard.

Though eight fans of that size seem way overkill to me.
 
i've had several issues over the year of the fan headers on the MB stop working so i try to avoid using them
 
Letting the motherboard control all the available fan will just mean something, first, more energy running throught the motherboard, also more work to the voltage and pulse regulators so increased the work temperature for the motherboard i've tested in several motherboards, letting to control fans translate to 3-5C in the motherboard temp.. also it require to constant opening closing programs to monitor or manage speeds etc.. always its better to use fan controller.. i use NZXT Sentry LX that work flawless..
 
Romale23 said:
i've had several issues over the year of the fan headers on the MB stop working so i try to avoid using them
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but if that's the case, then the same thing can happen to your CPU fan, which is controlled by your motherboard

do you know why the fan stop working on your motherboard? what exactly fails?
 
Araxie said:
Letting the motherboard control all the available fan will just mean something, first, more energy running throught the motherboard, also more work to the voltage and pulse regulators so increased the work temperature for the motherboard i've tested in several motherboards, letting to control fans translate to 3-5C in the motherboard temp.. also it require to constant opening closing programs to monitor or manage speeds etc.. always its better to use fan controller.. i use NZXT Sentry LX that work flawless..
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great point. I'll let the fan controller do the job then. Although I don't know where the temperature sensor are.

The fan controller has to rely on the temperature sensors from ???? to regulate the fan speed. Are they getting the data from the motherboard somehow? Where are these sensors? And where's the actual data link that sends these data to the fan controller. I never use a fan controller before, so I'm new to this.
 
Meeho said:
Though eight fans of that size seem way overkill to me.
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didn't you know that lately, the tools itself that we use to build our toy, becomes toys?

you build a perfect grade gundam robot, your electric flexible shaft itself becomes a toy. Likewise, you want the best component when you custom build your PC, now your cooling fan becomes a toy--you want the best there is.
 
Happy Hopping said:
The fan controller has to rely on the temperature sensors from ???? to regulate the fan speed. Are they getting the data from the motherboard somehow? Where are these sensors? And where's the actual data link that sends these data to the fan controller. I never use a fan controller before, so I'm new to this.
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Automatic fan controllers have a temperature probe separated for each controllable fan... If the fan controller support 5 fans then it will have 5 diferent sensors that you can put where you want to monitoring specific areas of the case, wich its good to know for example the overall temp inside the case and not in the points that allow the mobo then you can completely customize the regulation of the fans according to your needs, that why I love both of my Sentry controllers.. The things with the sensors its you need to be very very carefully at the moment of install it to keep it hide they are a ton of cables more xD i had my good time spent in trying to keep it hide i like to have a visual clean case..
 
Okay, I use the integrated fan controller that c/w the NZXT Phantom 820. Where exactly are these temperature probe / sensor? As I don't see them inside the empty case.

And if I buy a few more extra 3rd party (Noctua) fans, and connect them to the fan controller, where would these new connection from the controller to the Noctua fans know about the temperature in those new area?
 
The Phantom 820 controller is completely manual, there is no automatic option.
 
Happy Hopping said:
Okay, I use the integrated fan controller that c/w the NZXT Phantom 820. Where exactly are these temperature probe / sensor? As I don't see them inside the empty case.

And if I buy a few more extra 3rd party (Noctua) fans, and connect them to the fan controller, where would these new connection from the controller to the Noctua fans know about the temperature in those new area?
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the integrated fan controller does not have automatic RPM regulation.. so no temperature probe, you need a fan controller that support auto regulation, for example Sentry 2. wich have a thermal probe for each fan.. and you can setup how you like to regulate the fan speed according to temps.
 
I went through this recently, I even changed boards after a month on a new build just to get one with proper thermal management built in. The set it and forget it nature of bios level fan management is very valuable to me. Fan controllers are fun, but they are hard to find one that can match a good onboard setup. Note I said good, a lot of them are not. Case in point being the Asrock Extreme9 990FX, it sucked. Bad. Great board other than fan control, or lack of.

Someone could make a fan controller that would take a reference signal from a motherboard PWM header and drive PWM or 3pin fans based on that signal, but not drawing power from the board. It could report RPM back to the other available motherboard headers, or to software via USB, and it could be able to adjust the curve for a given fan based around the duty cycle from the reference board header. I looked into it a length and discussed it with a couple of electrical engineers when I couldnt' find a single fan controller on the market that would do what I wanted. There is more to it than first meets the eye but it's perfectly do-able. Trouble is, nobody does it. There are a few that kinda try but built to a price point unfortunately. Maybe I'll get around to it eventually.

Sticking thermistors on random components is a silly solution for digital components that experience split second temp swings the way stuff does now. Might be OK for a harddrive or such but they have no place on a CPU or GPU imo. And manual control is fun but nothing I want on a daily use box.

Asus did a pretty decent job on this Sabertooth 990FX, there are half a dozen points of temperature measurement on teh board and a goodly number of fan headers, all PWM and configurable in the bios, referenced off the CPU socket temp. My only real wish is that one could tie fan speed of separate headers to a given sensor on teh board, since there are so many. That's really overkill though. I have 9 chassis fans and two on the CPU cooler and they do quite well.
 
Tsumi said:
The Phantom 820 controller is completely manual, there is no automatic option.
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I paid all that $ and it doesn't even have automatic regulation? So what? The old fashion way? Set it to low and check the temperature, if it's still hot, turn it up.

But if it already c/w a fan controller, how would you disable that fan controller and loop the control to Sentry? And how does those thermal sensor work w/ the Sentry? Does any1 has a photo, so it's easier to understand?
 
Ramses said:
Asus did a pretty decent job on this Sabertooth 990FX, there are half a dozen points of temperature measurement on teh board and a goodly number of fan headers, all PWM and configurable in the bios, referenced off the CPU socket temp. My only real wish is that one could tie fan speed of separate headers to a given sensor on teh board, since there are so many. That's really overkill though. I have 9 chassis fans and two on the CPU cooler and they do quite well.
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did you take a photo that you can post on your 9 fan setup?
 
Happy Hopping said:
I paid all that $ and it doesn't even have automatic regulation? So what? The old fashion way? Set it to low and check the temperature, if it's still hot, turn it up.

But if it already c/w a fan controller, how would you disable that fan controller and loop the control to Sentry? And how does those thermal sensor work w/ the Sentry? Does any1 has a photo, so it's easier to understand?
Click to expand...

You should have done your research before buying then. If there's no digital readout panel, there's no way for you to have the controller run automatically.

Have you even looked up what the NZXT Sentry 2 is? I would suggest doing that first before asking more questions. Another good option would be the Lamptron FC Touch.
 
Tsumi said:
You should have done your research before buying then. If there's no digital readout panel, there's no way for you to have the controller run automatically.

Have you even looked up what the NZXT Sentry 2 is? I would suggest doing that first before asking more questions. Another good option would be the Lamptron FC Touch.
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there is no choice. The motherboard + CPU + heatsink combination is very tall. Very few cases fit. Phantom 820 is 1 of them.

I did check out their fan controller prior to buy this case, but there is no sense. Their controller only controls 5 fans. I have 8 fans

Unless I use splitter. But I don't know how does an automatic fan controller recognize 2 fan via a splitter as it's meant to control only 1 fan? Perhaps some1 who have successfully use splitter on fan controller can shed some light
 
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The fan controller, be it external or on-board, does not recognize the RPM of the additional fan. It will control the additional fans speed using either voltage or PWM signal depending on it's design, but will not be aware of the second fans RPM. In the example of my setup, I have two case side fans run via one header, 3 pin in voltage control mode rather than PWM, and the header powers and varies RPM of both fans, but RPM is only reported from one of them. They are identical, as are all my fans, but only one of each pair are actually monitored. It is "good enough" for a consumer box imo.
 
Happy Hopping said:
there is no choice. The motherboard + CPU + heatsink combination is very tall. Very few cases fit. Phantom 820 is 1 of them.

I did check out their fan controller prior to buy this case, but there is no sense. Their controller only controls 5 fans. I have 8 fans

Unless I use splitter. But I don't know how does an automatic fan controller recognize 2 fan via a splitter as it's meant to control only 1 fan? Perhaps some1 who have successfully use splitter on fan controller can shed some light
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when fan are used with splitter only one fan will report RPM but both will work at the same reguled speed also you have to be conscious of 2 fans in only one motherboard fan header will consume twice so you should find out how much W can handle every motherboard fan header... you can use some fans with the motherboard (the only one that you need to be regulated) and the rest with the integrated case fan controller, some fans no need constant regulation, for example my case have 2 fans inside mounted in the HDD cages those fans are a constant 1400 RPM I never touch it.. and the side panel fans are at full speed all the time they are 140mm AF140 so they are silent operation no need to regulate their speed, the only fans I really control are the 2xFront intake fans, rear fan, and bottom fan, i use h100i so the fans are controlled by Corsair Link software..
 
Happy Hopping said:
there is no choice. The motherboard + CPU + heatsink combination is very tall. Very few cases fit. Phantom 820 is 1 of them.

I did check out their fan controller prior to buy this case, but there is no sense. Their controller only controls 5 fans. I have 8 fans

Unless I use splitter. But I don't know how does an automatic fan controller recognize 2 fan via a splitter as it's meant to control only 1 fan? Perhaps some1 who have successfully use splitter on fan controller can shed some light
Click to expand...

I don't think there is any case on the market that offer automatic fan control.

And yes, you will have to use splitters. The fan controller controls fan speed by changing voltage, it doesn't care how many fans or even if a fan is connected (you can connect a pump for example, so long as total wattage is under the wattage rating). You can say that it is blind to what is downstream from the controller.
 
Ramses said:
The fan controller, be it external or on-board, does not recognize the RPM of the additional fan. It will control the additional fans speed using either voltage or PWM signal depending on it's design, but will not be aware of the second fans RPM. In the example of my setup, I have two case side fans run via one header, 3 pin in voltage control mode rather than PWM, and the header powers and varies RPM of both fans, but RPM is only reported from one of them. They are identical, as are all my fans, but only one of each pair are actually monitored. It is "good enough" for a consumer box imo.
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Even so, is the temperature sensor cable be long enough to position right next to the fans? Because the phantom 820 is a very tall case, I just can't see how can an automatic fan controller, either NZXT or AeroCool, say it c/w 5 to 6 sensors, I am not so sure how long those cables are, as when I went to those 2 websites, it doesn't say

and by the way, I have never use temperature sensor before, do you cable tie them next to the corresponding fan area?
 
Araxie said:
for example my case have 2 fans inside mounted in the HDD cages those fans are a constant 1400 RPM I never touch it.. and the side panel fans are at full speed all the time they are 140mm AF140 so they are silent operation no need to regulate their speed, the only fans I really control are the 2xFront intake fans, rear fan, and bottom fan, i use h100i so the fans are controlled by Corsair Link software..
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I agree w/ you on hard drive cage fan. But I'm dealing w/ system case fans. And I have:

2 x 200 mm top fans
1 x 200 mm side fan
1 x 200 mm front fan

2 x 140 mm bottom fans
1 x 140 mm pivot fan at 45 deg. angle just behind the drive cage, facing the video card and CPU
1 x 140 mm rear fan

So how do you decide which fans will be running a constant low speed, and which fans will need to be regulated automatically via temperature sensor?
 
Happy Hopping said:
So how do you decide which fans will be running a constant low speed, and which fans will need to be regulated automatically via temperature sensor?
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By noise level is my preference. A certain level is acceptable, a certain level is not.
You can't be too cool really, so you want them as slow as possible while maintaining an acceptable temp. The acceptable temp varies not only with use, but with ambient temp.
That's the whole reason for automatic control. Further, if you are in a dusty environment, you don't want anymore flow and you need to keep dust buildup down.

Personally over the course of a day, and I use my computer for work from 8a-5p and for pleasure from 5p-1a or so, the fan speeds are all over the place in the course of a day. Thermal control is a beautiful thing when it works right.
 
Happy Hopping said:
Even so, is the temperature sensor cable be long enough to position right next to the fans? Because the phantom 820 is a very tall case, I just can't see how can an automatic fan controller, either NZXT or AeroCool, say it c/w 5 to 6 sensors, I am not so sure how long those cables are, as when I went to those 2 websites, it doesn't say

and by the way, I have never use temperature sensor before, do you cable tie them next to the corresponding fan area?
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I would find a review online, a quality review of a given controller will list the length of the temp sender wire.
 
I am putting the case and the motherboard together right now. And I just have an interesting idea, what if:

the motherboard c/w 4 fan port, each 1 is 4 pin.

The Chassis fans on the case are all 3 pin, whether it's NZXT fans or the Noctua 140 mm fan that I added.

Should I connect say the top 2 x 200 mm fan, 3 pin cables to the motherboard? The motherboard would be 4 pin though as shown on this photo:

http://www.overclockers.ua/news/motherboard/108630-asus-ws-lga2011.jpg

Would that work? As the Noctua or NZXT fan is missing the 4th pin, PWM pin

then for the rest of the fans, I'll leave it at low setting, manual, controlled by the fan controller.

That way, if the motherboard is getting hot, at least 2 x 200 mm top fan is being controlled by the motherboard and suck the hot air out.

If I can do this, what's the long term damage on the motherboard? As 1 of you are saying:

Letting the motherboard control all the available fan will just mean something, first, more energy running throught the motherboard, also more work to the voltage and pulse regulators so increased the work temperature for the motherboard
Click to expand...

will this wear out the motherboard faster? How many months are we writing off on a motherboard if we do have more energy, and more work to the voltage and pulse regulators running thru the motherboard?
 
Nobody knows? I have 14 fans in total. Among them, I can connect 2 x 140 mm fan, (1 rear, 1 ftont) to the motherboard, and leave 5 fans (2 top x 200 mm), 1 front x 200 mm, 1 side x 200 mm, 2 bottom x 140 mm) controls by the fan controller. What do you people think?
 
Happy Hopping said:
How many months are we writing off on a motherboard if we do have more energy, and more work to the voltage and pulse regulators running thru the motherboard?
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The additional power running to the fans from the motherboard is not an issue. You could use every peripheral port the board has available simultaneously and it will not overheat unless there is an engineering or design flaw.

I would use the fan controller for as many of the smaller sized (louder) fans as possible and use the motherboard's headers for the larger fans. In my case I have only 4 fans controlled directly by the motherboard, but I use a PWM fan splitter to keep from using 1 of the headers that is in an inconvenient place.

One thing I would mention is that mixing PWM and non-PWM fans on a splitter sometimes has strange effects on my system. I find it's best to have the 2 fans on a splitter be identical, but it's not always possible. Also the CPU_OPT header is a weird invention on my ASUS M6H. I am glad that it is there, but my PWM 140mm fan doesn't always act normally when paired with the non-PWM water pump attached to the CPU fan header. Currently the mystery I'm working on is why my newly installed Corsair H80i ramps the fans to 100% during the BIOS post until Windows loads. It's like a launching DeLorean time machine sound.

One thing I don't like about using a lot of fans depends on orientation but has to do with dust. My house is dusty for whatever reason, and I find myself having to do a lot of cleaning around the system. Using positive pressure helps a lot along with using only filtered intakes. Now I mostly only have to spend time cleaning the filters instead of the inside of the case and the components, which is a lot less annoying. This South African company will do custom magnetic or magnetic/adhesive filters for your case and ship anywhere pretty cheap. Love those filters, the only downside is they reduce the amount of airflow. At the same time, if you have a noisy intake dropping one of these on it may solve the problem completely.
 
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I use Noctua fans in which they are 3 pin, so I don't think they are PWM fans. I forgot to mention the above. So now that I think about it, I don't know if I can put a 3 pin fan to a 4 pin motherboard

I am using phantom 820, so they already c/w all those filters.
 
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Happy Hopping said:
http://hexus.net/tech/news/cooling/...ed-fan-controller-touch-screen-control-panel/

http://www.gelidsolutions.com/products/index.php?lid=1&cid=13&id=107

there is finally a solution, it's only 1 x 5.25 bay, and it take care of 6 fans. The only problem is, can't find any store that sells it. Even the stores that Gelid said sell their fans, doesn't really sell it
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Found it here at Newegg.
(as to how I found it: searched for the model #, hit "shopping" and there it was, right on top)
 
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