Need help controlling fan speeds through hub

[Morthian]

So I’ve been building this pc from old hardware and after I assembled everything, I see that the computer is extremely loud. The case fans seem to be at maximum speed and I’ve been trying to lower that speed but without success. 

 

Usually I do this through the BIOS because I plug the fans directly to the board. But in this system all the fans have 6 pins and are connected to a hub that came with the case. Now this hub has a cable with a split, one I think is an argb 5v cable to plug in to the motherboard and the other ending a 4 pin which in fact only has 2 pins, one on each side. 

 

I connected that 4 (2) pin cable to the motherboard but I cannot control anything in the BIOS. 

How can I control the speed of these fans? Do I need to buy some sort of adapter?

 

The strange thing is that I used to have this case with these fans on my main system and I could control the speed of the fans through the BIOS. Could it be a problem with this old motherboard? Maybe I’m missing something?…

 

I’m so confused… any help is welcome.

[WoodenMarker]

What case and hub?

[Biohazard777]

1 hour ago, Morthian said:

I connected that 4 (2) pin cable to the motherboard but I cannot control anything in the BIOS. 

Fans are either controlled
1) Via voltage (old school, cheap), where the mobo changes the VCC. Say you want 50% fan speed, then the voltage will be dropped to something like 9V.
These kinds of fans usually use 3 pin connectors, 1 for VCC 1 for GND and 1 for sense (tells the mobo the RPM of the fan), but you can find 4 pin connector with 3 wires (1 wire missing).
2) Via PWM (Pulse Width Modulation), fancy term for sending on/off/on/off signal really fast. Here the VCC is constant 12V and you need the 4th wire (PWM) which instructs the fan when it should turn on or off.

 

1 hour ago, Morthian said:

4 pin which in fact only has 2 pins, one on each side. 

Standard 4 pin fan pinoput (image from Aorus Pro B550 manual):

So if you only have pin 1 (GND) and pin 4 (PWM) going to your hub. Pin 2 is unused, that one would deliver VCC (+12V) if it was connected, but since your fans are spinning at max speed that means you are powering it via molex or sata power. That isn't the problem, the problem is that you don't have the sense wire going into the mobo, so the mobo doesn't know how fast the fan(s) is spinning, hence why you don't have any control over the fans.

(Tach = tachometer = sense)

TL;DR You've got yourself a really crappy fan hub, one that doesn't conform to standards and your mobo is refusing to play ball with it.
Now to get control over you fans without replacing the fan hub (and possibly the fans with proprietary connectors that only fit that fan hub) you can do the following:
- Get yourself one new, standard 4 pin PWM fan (with all 4 wires)
- Get a Y splitter for the PWM and connect everything like so:

What this will do is simple, the new fan will provide the sense (tach) to the mobo since the fan hub doesn't send that. 
So essentially the mobo will only know at which speed the new fan is spinning at, which is enough to get everything working.

 

 

[Morthian]

10 hours ago, WoodenMarker said:

What case and hub?

The case is a Nox Hummer TGM and the hub came with it. I think it’s a relatively small Spanish manufacturer, so it’s probably not very well known outside of EU. 
 

Thank you so much for your detailed answer Biohazard777!

It was a great idea but it doesn’t seem to be working or I’m doing something wrong. 
 

I couldn’t find any 4 pin fan in my basement so I remember I could use a default AMD cooler from a Ryzen CPU because it has 4 pins. So I did that, plugged the 4 pins fan to the Y splitter, and the 3 pins ending to the cable from the hub. Checked the BIOS and I got some info on the speed of the fan! Great! But when I try to control the speed it is only affecting the 4 pins one and not the rest of the fans in the case. 
 

Is upgrading the bios something I should think about? This is a pretty old motherboard from Asus. Like gen 3 i5 old. I don’t remember the name of it but I can check it if it helps. And again, I could control these fans on a gigabyte aorus elite x570, I don’t quite remember how I connected it back then but I don’t think it was any different from what I’m doing now…
 

I took a couple of pics, maybe it will help you guys understand what this crappy hub looks like. 
 

Thank you again!

[NorKris]

have u done this?

[Morthian]

Yes, that is how the cable is connected. 

[NorKris]

9 minutes ago, Morthian said:

Yes, that is how the cable is connected. 

hub on a slitter pwm cable? hmmmmmm no  just no

[Morthian]

My bad, I got it wrong. That cable is apparently the power cable and is connected like it’s shown in the pic. The cable that is connected to the splitter > mobo is the highlighted one. 

[NorKris]

4 minutes ago, Morthian said:

My bad, I got it wrong. That cable is apparently the power cable and is connected like it’s shown in the pic. The cable that is connected to the splitter > mobo is the highlighted one. 

The cable that goes to the MB.. where on the MB is it connected?

[Morthian]

Cha_FAN2. I’ve tried the other ones as well. 

[NorKris]

Just now, Morthian said:

Cha_FAN2. I’ve tried the other ones as well. 

and cha fan2 is the one that has a y split?

[Morthian]

Correct. 

[NorKris]

2 minutes ago, Morthian said:

Correct. 

Step 0: tell the forum what MB you have

Step 1: plug the hub into a Fan header with no splitter
Step 2: check the software for what mode ur using 
Step 3: share the pic from software with u 

[thrasher_565]

1 hour ago, NorKris said:

Step 0: tell the forum what MB you have

Step 1: plug the hub into a Fan header with no splitter
Step 2: check the software for what mode ur using 
Step 3: share the pic from software with u 

fans are probably not pwm... they have rgb and fan power in one cable...

[Morthian]

1 hour ago, NorKris said:

Step 0: tell the forum what MB you have

Step 1: plug the hub into a Fan header with no splitter
Step 2: check the software for what mode ur using 
Step 3: share the pic from software with u 

Motherboard is an Asus P8Z77-VLK, just updated the bios to the latest version, problem persists. 
 

Did that from the very beginning. There’s no info of the speed in the bios and can’t control either. 
 

Not sure what you mean by the second step. The bios is rather basic, there aren’t that many options to choose from. 
 

Pics attached. 
Btw, this is the case, fans are included: https://www.nox-xtreme.com/en/chassis/hummer-tgm

 

I also have 2 extra ones from the same brand: https://www.nox-xtreme.com/en/cooling/d-fan

All of them are connected to the hub and not 1 can be controlled. 

 

Thanks for the help!

  

 

[NorKris]

9 minutes ago, Morthian said:

Motherboard is an Asus P8Z77-VLK, just updated the bios to the latest version, problem persists. 
 

Did that from the very beginning. There’s no info of the speed in the bios and can’t control either. 
 

Not sure what you mean by the second step. The bios is rather basic, there aren’t that many options to choose from. 
 

Pics attached. 
Btw, this is the case, fans are included: https://www.nox-xtreme.com/en/chassis/hummer-tgm

 

I also have 2 extra ones from the same brand: https://www.nox-xtreme.com/en/cooling/d-fan

All of them are connected to the hub and not 1 can be controlled. 

 

Thanks for the help!

  

 

Ok, here is my take. 
The Hub needs a PWM signal -> tells the fans what speed to run either via pwn or converts the PWN signal to a lvl of DC (volt) after that. 
ur (around 2012) MB used DC control. i might be wrong but... 

options are:
new MB
new fans
*The free option* try to pin out the wires from the fans and skip the strange hub completely 

[NorKris]

28 minutes ago, thrasher_565 said:

fans are probably not pwm... they have rgb and fan power in one cable...

True but the hub might give the fans a % volt based on the PWM signal it gets in