Motherboard PWM fans problem

[nolensis]

Hello, I've recently bought some PWM fans and a PWM controller, but it appears that my motherboard (MSI H110M PRO-VD) has a llimit of 5 PWM fans. If I plug 6th one, it just simply runs at full speed. Is there any way to bypass that?
I am also planning to buy a new motherboard, GIGABYTE Z690 AORUS MASTER to be specific. Does this MOBO have the same issue as MSI H110M PRO-VD? If so, is there any possible way to bypass this limit as well?

[aDoomGuy]

Hard to say without knowing what fan controller you got? Either way why not just use a PWM splitter?

[nolensis]

14 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

Hard to say without knowing what fan controller you got? Either way why not just use a PWM splitter?

I use ARCTIC ACFAN00175A controller. When I plugged it directly into SYSFAN1 on the motherboard, all fans were spinning at full speed (I didn't forget to plug a fan to port 1 on the controller). When I saw it happening, I plugged case PWM ports into SYSFAN1, and then I plugged the ARCTIC controller to the case PWM port and it worked, except only 5 fans were controlled, any additional fans were spinning at full speed. 
Why not just use PWM splitter? I don't know, my case (Fractal Define 7) has 4 PWM ports, but I needed 8, so I bought this ARCTIC controller which have 10 ports.

[aDoomGuy]

Hm that is strange. Does not compute, unless I'm missing something or if there is something wrong with the hub.

 

You have 8 chassis fans yes? and 2 fan controllers both PWM (in other words 4-pin) and mobo can do 5 (I'm guessing 3 plus CPU and CPU optional)?

Also both hubs have SATA power?

 

1. If you only use CPU and and a SYSFAN header on the mobo for CPU and disconnect the Fractal one, some fans are controlled correctly while some go full speed?

2. If you populate all SYSFAN headers with fans and Arctic controller the same happens?

3. If you use the Fractal hub and disconnect the Arctic one what happens then?

4. If you don't use any of the fan hubs and only put fans on your mobo headers will they work as expected?

5. Does your BIOS or other fan control software let you choose between PWM and DC modes? If so try PWM.

 

[nolensis]

58 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

Hm that is strange. Does not compute, unless I'm missing something or if there is something wrong with the hub.

 

You have 8 chassis fans yes? and 2 fan controllers both PWM (in other words 4-pin) and mobo can do 5 (I'm guessing 3 plus CPU and CPU optional)?

Also both hubs have SATA power?

 

1. If you only use CPU and and a SYSFAN header on the mobo for CPU and disconnect the Fractal one, some fans are controlled correctly while some go full speed?

2. If you populate all SYSFAN headers with fans and Arctic controller the same happens?

3. If you use the Fractal hub and disconnect the Arctic one what happens then?

4. If you don't use any of the fan hubs and only put fans on your mobo headers will they work as expected?

5. Does your BIOS or other fan control software let you choose between PWM and DC modes? If so try PWM.

 

Yes, I have 8 fans and 2 PWM controllers. One of them is built in the case, there are four 4-pin ports on the back and it's powered by SATA and second cable goes to SYSFAN1 and it always worked as it should.

1. I didn't try replugging it from SYSFAN to CPU yet.
2. I'm not sure if that's what you meant, but I only got 1 SYSFAN port on the motherboard.
3. It works as it should. But when I disconnect the Fractal hub and plug in only the Arctic one, then it doesn't work despite the fact everything in BIOS is the same. So to make it work I need to plug Arctic hub to Fractal one.
4. That way I can only plug in one fan, but I didn't try it yet.
5. Yes, It was already set up in the BIOS, it worked fine before on the Fractal hub.

By the way, is such thing normal? Do motherboards have such limitations to the number of PWM fans? Because I don't know how things will be with the new mobo.

One more thing, I don't know if it matters. The cable that goes from Fractal hub to motherboard consists of 4 smaller ones, but the cable from Arctic hub has only 2 smaller ones, I hope you know what I mean.

[aDoomGuy]

Right. I assumed you had more fan headers on the mobo. I checked another version or revision of your mobo earlier which have 3+1 headers.

 

Well now we know for sure that the issue is not due to the motherboard header at least since the fractal works. As for the cable to the Arctic hub it draws its power from the SATA connector because it would fry the PWM header if it tried to draw all the current from that, which is probably why it only has two cables.

 

I would consider just returning the Arctic hub and get fan splitters to use on the Fractal hub. It has 4 headers and you got 8 fans. I don't think you've done anything wrong and the fact that it doesn't work as intended when you connect it directly to the motherboard implies there may be an underlying issue with the hub. Fan splitters seems to me to be the easy way to get up and running but maybe a RMA replacement Arctic fan hub will work as desired.

[nolensis]

40 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

Right. I assumed you had more fan headers on the mobo. I checked another version or revision of your mobo earlier which have 3+1 headers.

 

Well now we know for sure that the issue is not due to the motherboard header at least since the fractal works. As for the cable to the Arctic hub it draws its power from the SATA connector because it would fry the PWM header if it tried to draw all the current from that, which is probably why it only has two cables.

 

I would consider just returning the Arctic hub and get fan splitters to use on the Fractal hub. It has 4 headers and you got 8 fans. I don't think you've done anything wrong and the fact that it doesn't work as intended when you connect it directly to the motherboard implies there may be an underlying issue with the hub. Fan splitters seems to me to be the easy way to get up and running but maybe a RMA replacement Arctic fan hub will work as desired.

Alright, thank you very much for your help, I think I'll just buy fan splitters since it's the safest way.

[nolensis]

@aDoomGuyHello, I don't know if you're still there, but I got one last question. Do even motherboards have any limit of how many PWM fans can be plugged in no matter in which way? Because I've heard that it's possible to overload fan header when you don't have a hub that is powered via SATA or something else.

Edit: after some googling I found this:
 

How many fans can be connected to a PWM?

 

 

Example: If a fan has a current strength of 0.2 Ampere and the motherboard fan connector has 1 Ampere, up to 5 fans can be operated in series via PWM Sharing Technology.

So I guess there's no way to plug more than 5 PWM fans?

[aDoomGuy]

17 minutes ago, nolensis said:

@aDoomGuyHello, I don't know if you're still there, but I got one last question. Do even motherboards have any limit of how many PWM fans can be plugged in no matter in which way? Because I've heard that it's possible to overload fan header when you don't have a hub that is powered via SATA or something else.

Edit: after some googling I found this:
 

How many fans can be connected to a PWM?

Yeah sure, I'm here.

 

Yes fan headers do have a limit on how many fans that can be connected. As a general rule I never connect more than two fans to each. How many fans that are safe though depends on the fans and the fan header, not all are created equally. If you only connect 2 fans you should be safe as long it's not special high powered fans.

 

Quote

Example: If a fan has a current strength of 0.2 Ampere and the motherboard fan connector has 1 Ampere, up to 5 fans can be operated in series via PWM Sharing Technology.

So I guess there's no way to plug more than 5 PWM fans?

5 fans is pushing it, if they are max 0,2 I would connect no more than 4 to a single header. However the fractal design fan hub has a SATA connection right? So you shouldn't need to worry if it has 4 fan headers. You can connect 8 fans without any worry at all since the hub wont draw power from the header, only electrical current. You also have a CPU fan header that can be shared with another fan so with only 2 fans connected  to each header you can connect 10 fans. If you want another fan hub there are better ones that connect with internal USB on your mobo.

 

[nolensis]

4 hours ago, aDoomGuy said:

Yeah sure, I'm here.

 

Yes fan headers do have a limit on how many fans that can be connected. As a general rule I never connect more than two fans to each. How many fans that are safe though depends on the fans and the fan header, not all are created equally. If you only connect 2 fans you should be safe as long it's not special high powered fans.

 

5 fans is pushing it, if they are max 0,2 I would connect no more than 4 to a single header. However the fractal design fan hub has a SATA connection right? So you shouldn't need to worry if it has 4 fan headers. You can connect 8 fans without any worry at all since the hub wont draw power from the header, only electrical current. You also have a CPU fan header that can be shared with another fan so with only 2 fans connected  to each header you can connect 10 fans. If you want another fan hub there are better ones that connect with internal USB on your mobo.

 

So I guess the best thing to do if I want to connect 8 fans is to buy splitters and plug them into Fractal hub, right?

[aDoomGuy]

1 minute ago, nolensis said:

So I guess the best thing to do if I want to connect 8 fans is to buy splitters and plug them into Fractal hub, right?

Yeah, well that should work without any trouble at least. Your fan hub should work though but I can't figure out why. So yeah splitters seem to be the easy way. Maybe someone else can offer help with it but.. sorry bro, I've used fan hubs before and never seen issues like that.

[nolensis]

11 hours ago, aDoomGuy said:

Yeah, well that should work without any trouble at least. Your fan hub should work though but I can't figure out why. So yeah splitters seem to be the easy way. Maybe someone else can offer help with it but.. sorry bro, I've used fan hubs before and never seen issues like that.

Thank you very much for your help.