Fan control software?

[tvanreeven]

So yesterday I build a TR 1920x system on a Gigabyte X399 Designare EX mobo and all is good with the world. However, I do like the option to control my fan speeds manually.

I connected the case fans from the Fractal design Define R6 to the fan hub and connected that to sys fan 1 connector and AIO fans are connected to cpu fan connector.

 

I have used Speedfan in the past and this worked like a charm, but somehow, Speedfan only sees HD temps???.(screenshot included)

I then tried Gigabyte's App center and other utilities from their website, but all of these actually made windows crash every time about 10 seconds after booting and I actually had to do a system restore(?!).

 

Does anyone know a good piece of software to control fan speeds? It must be possible right?

 

 

 

 

[Biggerboot]

Following because I'm curious about any alternatives as well.  Speedfan is the only software that seems to exist for this sort of thing though, and I found with newer systems it tends not to want to co-operate.  You may be best off setting a fan profile in your bios.

[tvanreeven]

I thinks it's strange that there is so little support for this. A fan profile suffices most of the time, but when I am setting up my render scene I like to keep fan speeds at 70% or so(for my own comfort) and let the cpu run a little hot for a short time frame, and when I leave to let the scene render, just crank it up to the full 100%...

 

Hoping for anyone to shine some light on this

 

[Biggerboot]

15 minutes ago, tvanreeven said:

I thinks it's strange that there is so little support for this. A fan profile suffices most of the time, but when I am setting up my render scene I like to keep fan speeds at 70% or so(for my own comfort) and let the cpu run a little hot for a short time frame, and when I leave to let the scene render, just crank it up to the full 100%...

 

Hoping for anyone to shine some light on this

 

If you really need that kind of control, I would opt for a hardware fan controller.  But if you want to find a happy medium between noise and performance I'd just keep the CPU fan aggressive and the case fans more passive.  If it's an AIO then same applies to that.

Only saying this because I've searched far and wide for good n' easy software fan control.  Only seems to be a thing on GPUs.  Couldn't tell you the exact reason but I think it has to do with the motherboard and how much control over PWM it gives (maybe an intentional design thing).

[tvanreeven]

28 minutes ago, Biggerboot said:

If you really need that kind of control, I would opt for a hardware fan controller.  But if you want to find a happy medium between noise and performance I'd just keep the CPU fan aggressive and the case fans more passive.  If it's an AIO then same applies to that.

Only saying this because I've searched far and wide for good n' easy software fan control.  Only seems to be a thing on GPUs.  Couldn't tell you the exact reason but I think it has to do with the motherboard and how much control over PWM it gives.

I know, but hardware controllers are mostly bulky and ugly and I just don't want to do it that way. I want to control it from my screen and this must be possible.

[Biggerboot]

39 minutes ago, tvanreeven said:

I know, but hardware controllers are mostly bulky and ugly and I just don't want to do it that way. I want to control it from my screen and this must be possible.

Maybe, but I find when the information is that hard to come by it's for a reason and probably not something to bother with.

I would try seeing if there's a Windows app version of your motherboard bios or a fan control app from Gigabyte you could use.

There may be something here:
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/X399-DESIGNARE-EX-rev-10#support-dl-utility
https://www.gigabyte.com/microsite/369/images/system-tweaking.html

I'm not sure how on-the-fly it is (if changes would require a restart), but it's worth a shot.

[tvanreeven]

7 minutes ago, Biggerboot said:

Maybe, but I find when the information is that hard to come by it's for a reason and probably not something to bother with.

I would try seeing if there's a Windows app version of your motherboard bios or a fan control app from Gigabyte you could use.

There may be something here:
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/X399-DESIGNARE-EX-rev-10#support-dl-utility
https://www.gigabyte.com/microsite/369/images/system-tweaking.html

I'm not sure how on-the-fly it is (if changes would require a restart), but it's worth a shot.

You may be right, but then I have to know the reason at least...

 

I have tried these utilities and they are incredibly unstable and make windows go bananas... I could possibly contact Gigabyte on this matter and try my luck there.

[tvanreeven]

I have contacted Gigabyte and the creator of Speedfan. Will return with updates....

[LogicalDrm]

2 hours ago, tvanreeven said:

I have contacted Gigabyte and the creator of Speedfan. Will return with updates....

Speedfan might be dead end. Dev has already stated that he can't provide support for new boards (or rather fan controllers) unless he can get schematics for them. So most current gen boards aren't supported. There are some, like Taichi boards from AsRock and some MSI boards are supported.

 

Gigabyte, on the other hand, has had very bad fan control support for years now. I've known that from this Haswell gen board I have, and its continued since. I suppose they are getting better, maybe in next 10 years. One thing you can try is to update BIOS. If you haven't already.

 

Other than that, I don't know any out-of-the-box softwares which would work. Or would provide curves and that scale of control. There are software that can do very crude controlling if mobo supports it (they might be no-go for same reasons as with Speedfan). So on Gigabyte boards your only real option is to get hardware controler. Either one with knobs (like the one your case has), or NZXT Grid+/Corsair Commander.

[tvanreeven]

 

On 26-5-2018 at 12:33 PM, LoGiCalDrm said:

Speedfan might be dead end. Dev has already stated that he can't provide support for new boards (or rather fan controllers) unless he can get schematics for them. So most current gen boards aren't supported. There are some, like Taichi boards from AsRock and some MSI boards are supported.

 

Gigabyte, on the other hand, has had very bad fan control support for years now. I've known that from this Haswell gen board I have, and its continued since. I suppose they are getting better, maybe in next 10 years. One thing you can try is to update BIOS. If you haven't already.

 

Other than that, I don't know any out-of-the-box softwares which would work. Or would provide curves and that scale of control. There are software that can do very crude controlling if mobo supports it (they might be no-go for same reasons as with Speedfan). So on Gigabyte boards your only real option is to get hardware controler. Either one with knobs (like the one your case has), or NZXT Grid+/Corsair Commander.

Just following up on this. Speedfan did indeed not react. I will look into hardware controllers...

 

Gigabyte did react though, and after a few messages they came with the following:

 

Update:

 

If you use Win10 1803, please try  first to disable secure boot as a workaround since it would cause our utilities like app center, SIV… not to work normally.

We will release new version to patch this issue after next MCU update from Intel.

 

We forwarded to the responsible team.
Will come back to you once they reply. 

 

So I'm gonna try this now..

[tvanreeven]

So I set the boot support to legacy and everything works like a charm. All of Gigabytes utilties work, and work pretty well I might add.

 

For now this solves my problems.

[EsaT]

On 5/26/2018 at 12:08 AM, tvanreeven said:

I know, but hardware controllers are mostly bulky and ugly and I just don't want to do it that way. I want to control it from my screen and this must be possible.

Aquaero LT doesn't even have any screen/buttons, but relies completely on being configured and controlled through AquaSuite.

 

Aquaero also it supports multiple profiles, if you want to have different fan profiles for gaming and rendering.

Though you could just set up case fans to be controlled by air temperature inside case, which wouldn't rise as much in rendering than in games with both CPU and GPU pushing out heat.

Especially with CPU's heat apparently exhausted directly from case by AIO that should keep case fans at low speed in rendering.

You can even make virtual sensors using physical sensor and software readings as input, taking average/difference/which one is higher...

(+software sensor readings can be set to have default/"fail safe" value in case of connection to software lost)

[LogicalDrm]

12 hours ago, EsaT said:

Aquaero LT doesn't even have any screen/buttons, but relies completely on being configured and controlled through AquaSuite.

 

Thats new one to me. Looks like Singularity Computers uses that. Corsair Commander Mini and Grid+ are tad cheaper, while Commander Pro is about same price (here). So this is indeed one to add to list of hardware based controllers.

[EsaT]

1 hour ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

 

Thats new one to me. Looks like Singularity Computers uses that. Corsair Commander Mini and Grid+ are tad cheaper, while Commander Pro is about same price (here). So this is indeed one to add to list of hardware based controllers.

Corsairs are more limited in configurability and apparently those are limited to PWM control without voltage based control.

It certainly doesn't have any single notable power capable linear regulator component or nothing which could be "digital" step down regulator:

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/corsair-commander-pro-review,4.html

 

NZXT Grids seem to use step down regulators, but still have quite low output per channel.

So safe max numbers of fans per channel is pretty much 2, unless ve're talking about low speed fans.

 

While Aquaero 6 would easily handle push-pull fans of triple rad in single channel unless high speed fans.

Configuring is just closer to programmable logics because of lots of various control/settings.

[LogicalDrm]

1 hour ago, EsaT said:

Corsairs are more limited in configurability and apparently those are limited to PWM control without voltage based control.

It certainly doesn't have any single notable power capable linear regulator component or nothing which could be "digital" step down regulator:

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/corsair-commander-pro-review,4.html

 

NZXT Grids seem to use step down regulators, but still have quite low output per channel.

So safe max numbers of fans per channel is pretty much 2, unless ve're talking about low speed fans.

Commander Mini and Pro both can do DC control. And this is less about can you stuff your case full of fans and control them and more about is there even other option in software controls than using mobo's own stuff. Grid+ and Commander Mini are pure fan control options, with both latest editions having both DC and PWM support. They are bit cheaper than Commander Pro which would have LED control added. Personally I dislike both, for different reasons.

 

Aquaero is pricy in comparison. Which brings the main point. How much and what kind of fan control one needs. I'm not going to drop NZXT and Corsair options from my recommendations.

[tvanreeven]

On 31-5-2018 at 8:34 PM, EsaT said:

Aquaero LT doesn't even have any screen/buttons, but relies completely on being configured and controlled through AquaSuite.

 

Aquaero also it supports multiple profiles, if you want to have different fan profiles for gaming and rendering.

Though you could just set up case fans to be controlled by air temperature inside case, which wouldn't rise as much in rendering than in games with both CPU and GPU pushing out heat.

Especially with CPU's heat apparently exhausted directly from case by AIO that should keep case fans at low speed in rendering.

You can even make virtual sensors using physical sensor and software readings as input, taking average/difference/which one is higher...

(+software sensor readings can be set to have default/"fail safe" value in case of connection to software lost)

Definitely gonna try this one too, Thanks.

 

[EsaT]

12 minutes ago, tvanreeven said:

Definitely gonna try this one too, Thanks.

Old Aquaero 5 has PWM control support in only one channel if that's important.

Newer Aquaero 6 has all channels supporting also PWM control.

 

Here's user manual

https://aquacomputer.de/tl_files/aquacomputer/downloads/manuals/aquaero_5_6_en_2016_10_14.pdf

Timer section seems little short, but those could be used to switch for example to different profile for night.