Fan control and monitoring

hockayak · June 17, 2020

Okay, so i have a new system with an H100i RGB Pro in it. That is set to exhaust. Keeps CPU cool, fans show up in BIOS and the iCue software. They go up and down with CPU temps etc. I have two Corsair AF140 (older style fans - 3 pin) as intake on the front. I have no idea of their rpm at all, i cant find their speed monitored anywhere, maybe in the BIOS i'll have to check. They're plugged in to two separate headers on my Mortar Max motherboard. They don't show up in the MSI Dragon Centre software at all, and regardless of usage they just chug around, medium speed i guess.

My question is, do i need a Corsair Hub or Commander Pro or something else to detect, monitor and control them?

Ideally, when idle, i'd like the front intakes to run slower and when the GPU ramps up, i'd like them to do that too. It so MUST be possible, but i cant find any way with SpeedFan or the MSI software to control this, let alone automate it? Seems like it'd be what people want right? GPU working hard, give it more airflow etc, when not so much - go slower. I'm really struggling to even find resources to explain WTF a commander and node and hub or whatever else, even do and how they are different. Could i use a different hub - non corsair? - would they then be controllable or would that just be power? Do i need 4 pin fans to make them controllable? - If so, what does the 3rd pin even do if it just has constant volts anyway, isn't that the RPM tach?

I assumed that 4 pin were better, but that 3 pin were still controllable in some manner. MSI dragon centre shows the Sys fan at 0rpm, but it must be doing something as the fan connected to it is an intake at some medium speed. The CPU fan monitor on there shows 4400RPM idle, when the corsair iCue software shows H100i -fan 1 at 500RPM, fan 2 at 500RPM and pump at 2388RPM. I don't get where the different CPU RPMs are coming from. Anyone have an idea?

There's load here, but basically, i'm lost with the fan setup in a brand new machine. Any genuine help would be really appreciated.

Regards, Hock

(Edit: Since found out that the 2 intakes on the front are at 700RPM, the MSI hardware monitor shows them on SYS fan 2 and SYS fan 3 in the Hardware monitor. My bad, weird that it shows SYS fan 1 on the main dashboard (at 0RPM) - even though it knows two other fans are actually running, with relevant values)

LogicalDrm · June 17, 2020

AIO pump is connected to CPU_Fan, correct? Then mobo would show pump rpm, or something along those lines. Could be bug.

You should check from BIOS what mode those case fans are using. If they are 3pin, they should be using DC mode. But looks like they are LEDs, so they should be PWM and therefore be in PWM mode.

hockayak · June 18, 2020

Yeah the AIO is on the CPU header, i think its just a single pin utilized though, just the tach? I too wondered if it might be pump speed but its weird that they are at different speeds in different monitoring apps. Yeh the intake are just plain white LED, not RGB, so prob controllable lighting wise that i'm aware of. They are only 3 pins, i thought all PWM were 4 pins?

LogicalDrm · June 18, 2020

17 hours ago, hockayak said:

Yeh the intake are just plain white LED, not RGB, so prob controllable lighting wise that i'm aware of. They are only 3 pins, i thought all PWM were 4 pins?

On fan side all 4 wires are PWM. And at the end of single-color LED era all those should have been PWM too. DC fans have dimming issue if you control their speeds, and if LEDs use same connector for power.

On mobo side, there was time where not all 4pin connectors were PWM.