Fan connection help

[oooonion]

Hi!
Yesterday I updated my fan hub from a cheap one to a slightly nicer looking one, but I've run into a problem. Before, I had a very bare-bones 4-pin fan hub for my 3-pin Corsair fans. Everything worked fine, the fans were quiet, didn't spin too much on idle, etc. Now, with the new hub, my fans seem to be stuck on boot mode/full speed at all times, and it actually sounds like a plane is taking off next to me, it's extremely loud and quite unbearable. I'm confused as to why my old fan hub worked perfectly fine but I've run into this problem with the new hub. The reason I changed hubs in the first place was that sometimes while using the old one, my fans would periodically start flickering and turning off for about 2 seconds at a time.

I should mention that the difference between the hubs is that my new one has a SATA connection, while the other doesn't. Should also mention that besides the noise, everything seems to be fine, PC temperatures are nice and cool.

Is there any way I can get my fans to behave the way they did before? I've already tried going into the BIOS and changing the fan configuration to DC and I have also tried manually setting the fan speeds myself, but nothing has helped. Please help!

[FI Fheonix]

56 minutes ago, oooonion said:

Hi!
Yesterday I updated my fan hub from a cheap one to a slightly nicer looking one, but I've run into a problem. Before, I had a very bare-bones 4-pin fan hub for my 3-pin Corsair fans. Everything worked fine, the fans were quiet, didn't spin too much on idle, etc. Now, with the new hub, my fans seem to be stuck on boot mode/full speed at all times, and it actually sounds like a plane is taking off next to me, it's extremely loud and quite unbearable. I'm confused as to why my old fan hub worked perfectly fine but I've run into this problem with the new hub. The reason I changed hubs in the first place was that sometimes while using the old one, my fans would periodically start flickering and turning off for about 2 seconds at a time.

I should mention that the difference between the hubs is that my new one has a SATA connection, while the other doesn't. Should also mention that besides the noise, everything seems to be fine, PC temperatures are nice and cool.

Is there any way I can get my fans to behave the way they did before? I've already tried going into the BIOS and changing the fan configuration to DC and I have also tried manually setting the fan speeds myself, but nothing has helped. Please help!

Check the manual of the fan hub that you got. There might be some useful information there. 

[TPCEA]

15 hours ago, oooonion said:

Hi!
Yesterday I updated my fan hub from a cheap one to a slightly nicer looking one, but I've run into a problem. Before, I had a very bare-bones 4-pin fan hub for my 3-pin Corsair fans. Everything worked fine, the fans were quiet, didn't spin too much on idle, etc. Now, with the new hub, my fans seem to be stuck on boot mode/full speed at all times, and it actually sounds like a plane is taking off next to me, it's extremely loud and quite unbearable. I'm confused as to why my old fan hub worked perfectly fine but I've run into this problem with the new hub. The reason I changed hubs in the first place was that sometimes while using the old one, my fans would periodically start flickering and turning off for about 2 seconds at a time.

I should mention that the difference between the hubs is that my new one has a SATA connection, while the other doesn't. Should also mention that besides the noise, everything seems to be fine, PC temperatures are nice and cool.

Is there any way I can get my fans to behave the way they did before? I've already tried going into the BIOS and changing the fan configuration to DC and I have also tried manually setting the fan speeds myself, but nothing has helped. Please help!

Looking at the link you provided, the images matched what I expected, but the text gives another story.

 

Please advise if the cable from the hub to your mobo is 2-pin/ wire like in the photo. 

[AI_Must_Di3]

@oooonion Ok, this is pretty easy to figure out and answer and after i tell you it will become glaringly obvious to you too. First Hub you had was just a extension, splitting 1 into 5 BUT it wasnt built and traced to power those split off fans at all, they just ran whatever power that poor motherboard fan connection could muster. Usually it 1 amp or 10 watts, some better boards will even do 2 or 3 amps but its getting rarer and rarer. That 1 amp can run 3 fans max usually,BUT that makes you push it to its limits every time you use it, which is never good for electronics. Thats why your fans ran slow or intermittently cause of the power issue and luckily you didnt ruin your mobo or the fan connector at least.

The second Hub you have listed is a proper Hub built to power and run multiple fans and was def what you needed. one step better than that even would have been something like a Lamptron FC2 with high power individual fan lines and speed knobs so you can adjust your fans how you see fit depending on what you are doing. Anyway, with your new hub you will see how your fans are supposed to run and most likely youll have to control them from your bios or from a app for that hub in windows or even a remote control instead of the app software, some have that instead like my Gelid Amber 5.

I just saw @RevGAM 's post about the 2 pin wire and pretty interesting catch. I saw that sata powers the hub so i would assume something like that 2 pin hes pointing out may just be the mobo connection so the bios can control the fans on the temp curves you create, i hope.

[TPCEA]

1 hour ago, AI_Must_Di3 said:

@oooonion Ok, this is pretty easy to figure out and answer and after i tell you it will become glaringly obvious to you too. First Hub you had was just a extension, splitting 1 into 5 BUT it wasnt built and traced to power those split off fans at all, they just ran whatever power that poor motherboard fan connection could muster. Usually it 1 amp or 10 watts, some better boards will even do 2 or 3 amps but its getting rarer and rarer. That 1 amp can run 3 fans max usually,BUT that makes you push it to its limits every time you use it, which is never good for electronics. Thats why your fans ran slow or intermittently cause of the power issue and luckily you didnt ruin your mobo or the fan connector at least.

The second Hub you have listed is a proper Hub built to power and run multiple fans and was def what you needed. one step better than that even would have been something like a Lamptron FC2 with high power individual fan lines and speed knobs so you can adjust your fans how you see fit depending on what you are doing. Anyway, with your new hub you will see how your fans are supposed to run and most likely youll have to control them from your bios or from a app for that hub in windows or even a remote control instead of the app software, some have that instead like my Gelid Amber 5.

I just saw @RevGAM 's post about the 2 pin wire and pretty interesting catch. I saw that sata powers the hub so i would assume something like that 2 pin hes pointing out may just be the mobo connection so the bios can control the fans on the temp curves you create, i hope.

The old fan hub was real PWM, but powered by the mobo so, as you correctly stated, it was limited to 1A. The Corsair fans draw .3A, which means the old hub can only handle 3 of them; more and you risk burning out the mobo header. If there's an unused pump header that offers more current, you could use more fans until the hub ports are full. 

 

If, as the picture of the Arctic hub shows, the cable to the mobo is 2-wire, then the majoring statement about it being PWM is a lie, and the fans will only run at max speed... unless they've done some wizardry that I don't know about, which is possible. I looked on the Arctic website and found the same 2-wire port and cable, but on the mobo end, I found one that shows this oddity. Notice that the plug is not only 4-pin but it has 7 wires, which I don't understand. 

 

Since the fans are running at max, I believe the first picture I showed is correct, but it is possible that the 2 wires carry the tach and PWM signals instead of power, meaning that BIOS SHOULD be able to control the fans, because the power is from the SATA cable.

 

However, the OP stated that the fans are 3-pin, so the PWM function is useless. That means it should fall back to the tach signal to determine fan speeds but, since the fans aren't sharing a PWM signal, I'm not quite sure what's going on there.