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Need help with fan curve

Rakkzo

Hello!

 

I recently installed a couple of new PWM fans in my PC. I have not really messed much with the fan curve but I would like to do some tweaking.

 

Since I first installed the fans I didn't change any settings. So I guess they ran on some kind of default profile. It felt like the fans ran on a higher RPM than what they actually could be running at. Resulting in a louder idle state.

 

ASUS Armoury Crate was installed by default when I recently built the computer. So that software did come with some basic fan control, in the form of pre defined profiles. So I tried them out. Now the idle dB and RPM seems to be fine. But it will at some points during gaming enter a turbo state which makes the PC sound like it is about to take off from my desk.

 

So my question is if there are any other other software with better control of the actual fan curve than Armoury Crate? And if I install a new software, could it somehow interfere with the Armoury Crate settings?

 

Also, is it bad for fans to run in turbo mode? Did not catch the RPM during that state though.

 

Fans and CPU cooler:

 

1 x Noctua NH-U14S(CPU cooler)

 

2 x Noctua NF-A14 140mm PWM(intake front)

 

1 x Noctua NF-F12 120mm PWM(exhaust rear)

 

Thanks in advance! 😃

armoury_crate.png

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I generally prefer to set the fan curve via the BIOS. Just works better, and you don't have to have some piece of software always running. I'm not sure what the various presets in Armoury Crate mean, but it's preferable to manually set the curve. Not every fan needs to run at the same speed under the same conditions. For example, my front intake fans run at a higher RPM than my AIO fans.

 

I prefer a silent profile, even if I have to sacrifice some cooling performance. What I like to do is start by setting the temp target very low, so the fans trigger and then adjust the RPM until it's just on the other side of audible to me. Then, that becomes my base RPM for anything 70C or under. After that I pretty much just ramp up linearly until it's at 100% RPM at 90C. I never get that hot, but if I do, fan noise is no longer my concern. Makes for a pretty easy curve.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X · Cooler: Artic Liquid Freezer II 280 · Motherboard: MSI MEG X570 Unify · RAM: G.skill Ripjaws V 2x16GB 3600MHz CL16 (2Rx8) · Graphics Card: ASUS GeForce RTX 3060 Ti TUF Gaming · Boot Drive: 500GB WD Black SN750 M.2 NVMe SSD · Game Drive: 2TB Crucial MX500 SATA SSD · PSU: Corsair White RM850x 850W 80+ Gold · Case: Corsair 4000D Airflow · Monitor: MSI Optix MAG342CQR 34” UWQHD 3440x1440 144Hz · Keyboard: Corsair K100 RGB Optical-Mechanical Gaming Keyboard (OPX Switch) · Mouse: Corsair Ironclaw RGB Wireless Gaming Mouse

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Does that program not allow you to manually create & save fan profiles? Where does the 'Fan' button on the bottom left area of your screenshot take you to?

 

I have a Gigabyte motherboard & I use SIV (System Information Viewer) to tweak me fan curves in Windows, which I find works really well.

 

I have my fall back fan curves saved in my BIOS though, in case SIV runs into any issues.

 

Here are my fan curves for the two clusters of fans I have in my case...

 

First cluster's made up of 3 fans which are governed by the CPU temp. They're daisy-chained & fed from a single PWM fan header off the motherboard. They're the CPU fan, the top exhaust fan & the rear exhaust fan:

image.thumb.png.f11c1487e8b69565a8850109c9be8948.png

 

Second cluster's made of the 3 fans which are governed by the GPU temp. They're also daisy-chained & fed from a second motherboard PWM fan header. These are the 3 front intake case fans:

image.thumb.png.cf690b47b8dc783f676bbadb14965438.png

 

This is a pretty silent profile (34dB in front of case & 29dB at seating position), & when gaming, it doesn't go crazy, so i'm hearing the game more than the fans.

 

Idle temps are a bit high today as we've had our warmest day in months, approaching Summer. SIV also boosts temps by about 5 degrees. They're normally around the mid-30s at idle. This all depends on your case airflow design & fans.

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On 10/28/2021 at 12:44 AM, Chris Pratt said:

I generally prefer to set the fan curve via the BIOS. Just works better, and you don't have to have some piece of software always running. I'm not sure what the various presets in Armoury Crate mean, but it's preferable to manually set the curve. Not every fan needs to run at the same speed under the same conditions. For example, my front intake fans run at a higher RPM than my AIO fans.

 

I prefer a silent profile, even if I have to sacrifice some cooling performance. What I like to do is start by setting the temp target very low, so the fans trigger and then adjust the RPM until it's just on the other side of audible to me. Then, that becomes my base RPM for anything 70C or under. After that I pretty much just ramp up linearly until it's at 100% RPM at 90C. I never get that hot, but if I do, fan noise is no longer my concern. Makes for a pretty easy curve.

Thanks for the tips and sharing your profile strategy!

 

When I rebooted my PC it seemed like the BIOS fan curve, the default one, was applied once again. So the Armoury fan curve setting was reset I guess. Which makes sense now when you say that the software always need to be running. Will that always be case when rebooting that the BIOS fan curves get applied again?

 

Did check the BIOS fan curve settings, but did not change anything yet. Will try to look in to it more this weekend. Feels like a good approach that you mentioned. Would be nice to have a more silent profile. I guess my current default setting is a bit to aggressive even when idle right now. Haha yes that's true, when reaching those temps there is probably other things to be concerned about. 

On 10/28/2021 at 9:18 AM, Ralfi said:

Does that program not allow you to manually create & save fan profiles? Where does the 'Fan' button on the bottom left area of your screenshot take you to?

 

I have a Gigabyte motherboard & I use SIV (System Information Viewer) to tweak me fan curves in Windows, which I find works really well.

 

I have my fall back fan curves saved in my BIOS though, in case SIV runs into any issues.

 

Here are my fan curves for the two clusters of fans I have in my case...

 

First cluster's made up of 3 fans which are governed by the CPU temp. They're daisy-chained & fed from a single PWM fan header off the motherboard. They're the CPU fan, the top exhaust fan & the rear exhaust fan:

image.thumb.png.f11c1487e8b69565a8850109c9be8948.png

 

Second cluster's made of the 3 fans which are governed by the GPU temp. They're also daisy-chained & fed from a second motherboard PWM fan header. These are the 3 front intake case fans:

image.thumb.png.cf690b47b8dc783f676bbadb14965438.png

 

This is a pretty silent profile (34dB in front of case & 29dB at seating position), & when gaming, it doesn't go crazy, so i'm hearing the game more than the fans.

 

Idle temps are a bit high today as we've had our warmest day in months, approaching Summer. SIV also boosts temps by about 5 degrees. They're normally around the mid-30s at idle. This all depends on your case airflow design & fans.

Thanks for your tips and sharing of profiles!

 

About the Armoury software and manually creating profiles, I do not seem to find where it is done. I only found the pre defined profiles. When I click the "Fan" button I only seem to get information about my fans RPM. Like this.

armoury_crate_2.thumb.png.96de775fbc6a5d48f091402f77aa8a49.png

 

I read about some that manage to access that option. But don't really know how to. Maybe I need some plugin for the Armoury software.

 

What you posted was exactly what I was looking for. To be able to modify the curve like you did. Will look for the option a bit further. Or I just set them in the BIOS directly. Could find the settings there. Do you need to do anything specific to save them as a fallback? Would be nice to have some kind backup when I start modifying the curves.

 

Also, right now all my fans are connected to a fan header each on the mobo. Does that mean I need to manually add the same profile for each fan then?

 

Oh interesting with the seasons! That's something to take in to consideration as well. Right now we are approaching winter here. So my room is quite cold right now. But in the summer it gets really hot. Might have to reconfigure the settings then.

Edited by Rakkzo
Made a question more clear
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4 hours ago, Rakkzo said:

I only seem to get information about my fans RPM. Like this.

Ok, now look at the menu down the left hand side. See the lower most icon - it looks like a fan curve. Let me know if that allows you to tweak them. 
 

Also search for guides on YouTube for your motherboard software. There should be plenty out there. 
 

4 hours ago, Rakkzo said:

Do you need to do anything specific to save them as a fallback?

With mine, the fan software (SIV) overrides the BIOS fan curves, so I think the only way it would fall back onto the BIOS curves would be if I uninstalled SIV. Not sure I have a “disable fan software” option in SIV. 
 

4 hours ago, Rakkzo said:

Also, right now all my fans are connected to a fan header each on the mobo. Does that mean I need to manually add the same profile for each fan then?

You can set each fan header with their own fan curve. They don’t need to match. 
 

The good thing about fan software is you can set each fan differently, & then save that configuration as a profile. So you can test different profiles easily within Windows without booting into the BIOS each time you want to tweak things. 

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On 10/30/2021 at 10:12 PM, Ralfi said:

Ok, now look at the menu down the left hand side. See the lower most icon - it looks like a fan curve. Let me know if that allows you to tweak them. 
 

Also search for guides on YouTube for your motherboard software. There should be plenty out there. 

Thanks! Did go through all the different icons but could not find it unfortunately.

 

Here are the icons expanded.

armoury_crate_3.thumb.png.5ea3a80b789b30c54716022f4a6f9b71.png

 

On 10/30/2021 at 10:12 PM, Ralfi said:

With mine, the fan software (SIV) overrides the BIOS fan curves, so I think the only way it would fall back onto the BIOS curves would be if I uninstalled SIV. Not sure I have a “disable fan software” option in SIV. 

I see! So do you need to keep the software running in the background. Or is it just a one time setup?

 

On 10/30/2021 at 10:12 PM, Ralfi said:

You can set each fan header with their own fan curve. They don’t need to match. 
 

The good thing about fan software is you can set each fan differently, & then save that configuration as a profile. So you can test different profiles easily within Windows without booting into the BIOS each time you want to tweak things. 

Yes that sounds like a good thing!

 

Will keep on looking a bit and try to find some more guides and stuff about the Armoury Crate. Or maybe use another software.

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1 hour ago, Rakkzo said:

Thanks! Did go through all the different icons but could not find it unfortunately.

 

Here are the icons expanded.

Oh. So it looks like there is no ‘manual mode’ for tweaking fan curves in Armory Crate. Might be best to uninstall it & try to get your fans working within your BIOS fan control section.

 

1 hour ago, Rakkzo said:

I see! So do you need to keep the software running in the background. Or is it just a one time setup?

With mine, it’s a one time setup. I close it down after saving my fan profile.

 

1 hour ago, Rakkzo said:

Will keep on looking a bit and try to find some more guides and stuff about the Armoury Crate. Or maybe use another software.

Once you’ve got your fans responding to your BIOS fan curves, & you find you still prefer software-based tweaking, you can try AI Suite, which is apparently another ASUS-based software suite that contains a fan control APP (called ‘Fan Xpert 4’).

 

But focus on getting your BIOS to control your fans first. We need to make sure you don’t have a buggy BIOS.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 11/2/2021 at 3:08 AM, Ralfi said:

Oh. So it looks like there is no ‘manual mode’ for tweaking fan curves in Armory Crate. Might be best to uninstall it & try to get your fans working within your BIOS fan control section.

No exactly. That will probably the best way to go right now.

 

On 11/2/2021 at 3:08 AM, Ralfi said:

With mine, it’s a one time setup. I close it down after saving my fan profile.

That's really smooth.

 

On 11/2/2021 at 3:08 AM, Ralfi said:

Once you’ve got your fans responding to your BIOS fan curves, & you find you still prefer software-based tweaking, you can try AI Suite, which is apparently another ASUS-based software suite that contains a fan control APP (called ‘Fan Xpert 4’).

 

But focus on getting your BIOS to control your fans first. We need to make sure you don’t have a buggy BIOS.

Cool! Will probably install that software. Seems to be what I'm after. Yes making sure the fan profiles work properly in the BIOS first sounds like a good idea.

 

Sorry for a late reply. Have not had the time the latest weeks to look into this. Will probably check it out this weekend.

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@Ralfi Hello! Did check BIOS and the fans seems to be responding to changes to the fan curve. But not sure on how I will configure it yet.

 

While gaming the fans are running on a higher RPM, but that feels ok as long as they keep the components cool.

 

But sometimes when the PC is idle and I start up Chrome or something. There is a bit of a ramp up in the fans RPM. Like a short burst. I guess that is normal as the process started makes the components work.

 

This might be a stupid question, what temperature is triggering the fans to ramp up? Is it a combination or is it specifically the CPU temperature that is the trigger?

 

And is it necessary to have a high fan effect for those bursts of heat generated from starting a process?

 

Thanks in advance!

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1 hour ago, Rakkzo said:

This might be a stupid question, what temperature is triggering the fans to ramp up? Is it a combination or is it specifically the CPU temperature that is the trigger?

If your BIOS is similar to mine, then you should be able to set which temperature probe on your motherboard that a specific fan header is directed by.
 

Here’s my CPU Fan curve…

(Note the “Fan Control Use Temperature Input” setting that’s set to “CPU”). For some fan headers, I can change this to any one of the other 9 or so temp sensors on my motherboard (listed on the bottom right of screen). But the CPU Fan header should only allow you to control it by the CPU temp as that’s the purpose of the CPU FAN header.

 

To allow these tweaks, you may need to switch your fan control from “Auto” to “Manual” as you can see below…

 

image.thumb.jpeg.bf6423ac4c41709cd39dbb016a58f821.jpeg
 

& here’s my 3 front fan cluster curve…

image.thumb.jpeg.bf7355a3730c8faeaed33232b929d0ba.jpeg

 

1 hour ago, Rakkzo said:

And is it necessary to have a high fan effect for those bursts of heat generated from starting a process?

Adjusting your fan curve should address this - by having a less steep curve, you should avoid the sudden surge in noise. & also by stretching out your baseline (minimum) temp to cover up to say 50-60° will prevent it from momentarily ramping up when you open Chrome. When you open certain Apps, your GHz will jump & so will your temp, but as soon as the GHz drops back to normal, so will your temps.

 

You’ve just got to cover that jump in GHz with your baseline fan curve so the fans don’t spin up for those short burst jumps in GHz.

 

Also, my baseline fan curves above are set a very low noise level. Yours may be different to work as efficiently. My fans RPM range from 400-2300, so that’s another reason why I can set a low PWM baseline for my fans.
 

Let me know you fans RPM range & we can work on what baseline to set them at. Or you can tell me what RPM they’re spinning at normally (before spinning up) that you’re happy with noise-wise & we can set them to that as the baseline.

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On 10/27/2021 at 5:44 PM, Chris Pratt said:

I generally prefer to set the fan curve via the BIOS. Just works better, and you don't have to have some piece of software always running. I'm not sure what the various presets in Armoury Crate mean, but it's preferable to manually set the curve. Not every fan needs to run at the same speed under the same conditions. For example, my front intake fans run at a higher RPM than my AIO fans.

 

I prefer a silent profile, even if I have to sacrifice some cooling performance. What I like to do is start by setting the temp target very low, so the fans trigger and then adjust the RPM until it's just on the other side of audible to me. Then, that becomes my base RPM for anything 70C or under. After that I pretty much just ramp up linearly until it's at 100% RPM at 90C. I never get that hot, but if I do, fan noise is no longer my concern. Makes for a pretty easy curve.

What this guy said.  Thats exactly how i set my fans as well.  Works great, stays cool and is silent most of the time.

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On 11/20/2021 at 10:05 PM, Ralfi said:

Here’s my CPU Fan curve…

(Note the “Fan Control Use Temperature Input” setting that’s set to “CPU”). For some fan headers, I can change this to any one of the other 9 or so temp sensors on my motherboard (listed on the bottom right of screen). But the CPU Fan header should only allow you to control it by the CPU temp as that’s the purpose of the CPU FAN header.

Cool! Thanks! Did not know that you actually could set which sensor to use.

On 11/20/2021 at 10:05 PM, Ralfi said:

Let me know you fans RPM range & we can work on what baseline to set them at. Or you can tell me what RPM they’re spinning at normally (before spinning up) that you’re happy with noise-wise & we can set them to that as the baseline.

Sure!

 

I got the average RPM from HWiNFO when the PC is in an idle state.

 

1 x Noctua NH-U14S(CPU cooler)
Max RPM: 1500
Avarage idle RPM: 550

 

2 x Noctua NF-A14 140mm PWM(intake front)
Max RPM: 1500
Average idle RPM: 550

 

1 x Noctua NF-F12 120mm PWM(exhaust rear)
Max RPM: 1500
Average idle RPM: 550

 

I've noticed that when the fans reach around 750 RPM during those short bursts. And that's when the sound gets noticeable as well.

Edited by Rakkzo
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2 hours ago, Rakkzo said:

I've noticed that when the fans reach around 750 RPM during those short bursts. And that's when the sound gets noticeable as well.

Thanks for the info.

 

Ok, so 550rpm is similar to my baseline. What are your CPU temps in this idle state? Your screens show 32-36°?

 

& when they get to 750rpm, what is the CPU temp at that time? This will help us determine how far we set the flat baseline in your fan curve.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 11/27/2021 at 10:04 PM, Ralfi said:

Ok, so 550rpm is similar to my baseline. What are your CPU temps in this idle state? Your screens show 32-36°?

 

& when they get to 750rpm, what is the CPU temp at that time? This will help us determine how far we set the flat baseline in your fan curve.

Once again, sorry for the late reply! Will try to respond quicker next time.

 

When the PC is absolute idle, with no programs running, it will sit within that range. And when they reach the 750 RPM the temp is around 50 and up to 60 sometimes. Depending on what is going on.

 

While gaming it will reach 65 and above. But then the RPM is also higher.

 

What would you recommend setting the baseline at?

 

Thanks in advance!

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1 hour ago, Rakkzo said:

Once again, sorry for the late reply! Will try to respond quicker next time.

 

When the PC is absolute idle, with no programs running, it will sit within that range. And when they reach the 750 RPM the temp is around 50 and up to 60 sometimes. Depending on what is going on.

 

While gaming it will reach 65 and above. But then the RPM is also higher.

 

What would you recommend setting the baseline at?

 

Thanks in advance!

Ok so keep your baseline at the PWM level where you have 550RPM & have that as a flat line until 60°. 
 

Then have a gradual curve from there similar to mine & see how you go with noise during idle/short bursts & performance during gaming. 

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16 hours ago, Ralfi said:

Ok so keep your baseline at the PWM level where you have 550RPM & have that as a flat line until 60°. 
 

Then have a gradual curve from there similar to mine & see how you go with noise during idle/short bursts & performance during gaming. 

Thanks! Will try this as soon as possible!

 

If I understand correctly, the CPU fan should also get the same curve as the front and rear fans right? At least initially I guess.

 

Thanks in advance!

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2 hours ago, Rakkzo said:

If I understand correctly, the CPU fan should also get the same curve as the front and rear fans right? At least initially I guess.

Yeah try that & see how things go. If they’re the exact same fans, even better, as they’ll be ‘tuned’ & potentially sound the same resulting in a more consistent noise coming from your case.

 

Happy to help 😎

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