CPU_FAN vs CPU_OPT

[W-L]

5 minutes ago, SnoopyThePilot said:

No, sorry, let me rephrase then:

The AIO fans are plugged into 2 of the 4 connectors that are part of the Kraken itself. The manual specifically states to connect the AIO fans into the first 2 of the series, which is what I currently have setup.

Now I'm not sure this has anything to do with it, but the NZXT logo LEDs never go out, even when the PC is turned off. The moment the PSU power switch is on, the Kraken's lights go on as well.

Ok that all sounds like it connected properly, not too sure about the logo though, do you have the USB connection wired up to the motherboard with the CAM recognizing the unit?

[SnoopyThePilot]

16 hours ago, W-L said:

Ok that all sounds like it connected properly, not too sure about the logo though, do you have the USB connection wired up to the motherboard with the CAM recognizing the unit?

USB is connected to mobo and Kraken shows in CAM; it shows everything about the AIO save for the fan RPM (it even shows fan speed in % ). It even lets me switch between silent and performance mode, and I can definitely hear the difference!

[SnoopyThePilot]

Realized I plugged the USB header into USB_2. Just tried USB_1 in case that would make a difference. Not sure if it's that, but now the pump reading has the same issue: "Malfunction" message, RPM goes on and off.

Is there a BIOS setting I should try mess with perhaps? Like, maybe power related e.g. make sure it's actually getting its 12V? Should I just try switch the CPU_Fan and CPU_Opt, and while losing PWM, might solve the Kraken issue?

[SnoopyThePilot]

And yet another bump.

 

So, I found part of the issue and it's half resolved! The pump starting making strange noises that disappeared under high loads. Also just realized the case fans are always on high RPM (loud), so after more research I decided to switch the CPU headers i.e. Kraken is now connected to CPU_Fan and PWM hub is on CPU_Opt. I get perfectly stable pump and fan RPM readings for the Kraken and no more noise!

 

The case fans however, are still spinning high speed. I've set CPU_Fan setting in BIOS to "Silent", "Normal", and "Manual", but no difference whatsoever. Any clue where I could adjust those now?

[W-L]

1 minute ago, SnoopyThePilot said:

And yet another bump.

So, I found part of the issue and it's half resolved! The pump starting making strange noises that disappeared under high loads. Also just realized the case fans are always on high RPM (loud), so after more research I decided to switch the CPU headers i.e. Kraken is now connected to CPU_Fan and PWM hub is on CPU_Opt. I get perfectly stable pump and fan RPM readings for the Kraken and no more noise!

The case fans however, are still spinning high speed. I've set CPU_Fan setting in BIOS to "Silent", "Normal", and "Manual", but no difference whatsoever. Any clue where I could adjust those now?

For the fans you need to set them up with the CAM software to adjust the speed as the CPU header is just giving the pump full power via PWM I'm assuming. 

[SnoopyThePilot]

2 minutes ago, W-L said:

For the fans you need to set them up with the CAM software to adjust the speed as the CPU header is just giving the pump full power via PWM I'm assuming. 

That would be for the Kraken fans though, correct? I'm trying to adjust the case fans, which are currently connected like this:

 

Case fan #1,2,3 --> PWM hub --> CPU_Opt.

[W-L]

1 minute ago, SnoopyThePilot said:

That would be for the Kraken fans though, correct? I'm trying to adjust the case fans, which are currently connected like this:

Case fan #1,2,3 --> PWM hub --> CPU_Opt.

Ah ok, the COU _opt as said before most are not controllable and just a straight 12V power header in most cases, some mirror the CPU header but I'm pretty sure in this case since they keep running full speed is it only 12V. Your best bet would be to use a chassis header that is capable of PWM based control  to use that for the PWM hub. 

[SnoopyThePilot]

9 minutes ago, W-L said:

Ah ok, the COU _opt as said before most are not controllable and just a straight 12V power header in most cases, some mirror the CPU header but I'm pretty sure in this case since they keep running full speed is it only 12V. Your best bet would be to use a chassis header that is capable of PWM based control  to use that for the PWM hub. 

Hmm...so switch to a SYS_Fan header? Isn't there any way to control fan speed on CPU_Opt? I can manually set PWM power settings for all headers, including Opt, but nothing seems to make a difference.

[W-L]

13 minutes ago, SnoopyThePilot said:

Hmm...so switch to a SYS_Fan header? Isn't there any way to control fan speed on CPU_Opt? I can manually set PWM power settings for all headers, including Opt, but nothing seems to make a difference.

If there an option for controlling the CPU opt then make sure it's setup as 4 pin PWM based control, if it doesn't have that option I would see if the other chassis headers are capable of that. 

[SnoopyThePilot]

Not meaning to spam here, but one more thing I thought worth mentioning is I could try plug the PWM hub header into 1 of the 4 headers of the Kraken hub itself. OK, case fans would be operated based on CPU cooler, but that might still be better than having them blow full speed.

 

The initial issue has been solved, so should I rather make a new thread for this issue?

[SnoopyThePilot]

9 minutes ago, W-L said:

If there an option for controlling the CPU opt then make sure it's setup as 4 pin PWM based control, if it doesn't have that option I would see if the other chassis headers are capable of that. 

Missed this post, will check in BIOS and report back, thanks!

[SnoopyThePilot]

Pic#1:

Strange, according this BIOS screen, all of the headers should have PWM control, unless I'm misreading something here.

 

 

Pic#2

Now I've tried adjusting these PWM settings in Gigabyte app center, EasyTune, but it won't bite, should I adjust this in BIOS instead?

[W-L]

32 minutes ago, SnoopyThePilot said:

-SNIP-

Yeah that looks to be about right, can you change that PWM value I see some read 0.75, or a percentage as it mentions since it's in manual mode.

[SnoopyThePilot]

32 minutes ago, W-L said:

Yeah that looks to be about right, can you change that PWM value I see some read 0.75, or a percentage as it mentions since it's in manual mode.

I changed the PWM value for CPU_Opt from 0.75 to 1.00 as seen in the picture, but the fans spin all the same...come to think of it, I don't even know the case fan RPM, other than that they're loud. Should I try change that PWM Phase Control in Pic#2 to another setting i.e not auto?

[W-L]

3 minutes ago, SnoopyThePilot said:

I changed the PWM value for CPU_Opt from 0.75 to 1.00 as seen in the picture, but the fans spin all the same...come to think of it, I don't even know the case fan RPM, other than that they're loud. Should I try change that PWM Phase Control in Pic#2 to another setting i.e not auto?

You can give that a try, just to make sure the case fans with the hub your using are all 4 pin based fans?

[SnoopyThePilot]

12 minutes ago, W-L said:

You can give that a try, just to make sure the case fans with the hub your using are all 4 pin based fans?

Interesting catch there...the case fans are all 3-pin, but the master connector coming from the hub they plug into is 4-pin! Matter of fact, the hub itself only supports 3-pin fans. 

 

Anyways, getting late here, I'll give the BIOS suggestion a shot tomorrow and report back. Thanks again  

[W-L]

10 minutes ago, SnoopyThePilot said:

Interesting catch there...the case fans are all 3-pin, but the master connector coming from the hub they plug into is 4-pin! Matter of fact, the hub itself only supports 3-pin fans. 

Anyways, getting late here, I'll give the BIOS suggestion a shot tomorrow and report back. Thanks again  

What splitter are you using does it happen to be one of the Phanteks ones, those do take in a PWM control signal and covert over to a 3 pin DC voltage control equivalent.

[derick90]

Honestly if you can find a nice way to route the cables, i would ditch the pwm fan hub completely and use the integrated fan headers on the board, i was having the same issue and the hub just seems to add more stress to the equation

[SnoopyThePilot]

18 hours ago, W-L said:

What splitter are you using does it happen to be one of the Phanteks ones, those do take in a PWM control signal and covert over to a 3 pin DC voltage control equivalent.

Yes, the hub is built into my Phantek Enthoo Evolve, which makes sense, it should act as PWM regardless how many pins the fans have.

I tried changing the PWM phase control to something other than auto, but it won't let me. Explains why the same setting won't bite using EasyTune.

 

 

4 hours ago, derick90 said:

Honestly if you can find a nice way to route the cables, i would ditch the pwm fan hub completely and use the integrated fan headers on the board, i was having the same issue and the hub just seems to add more stress to the equation

Might just be able to do it, but the fans are 3-pin, so afaik not PWM capable on their own? Doesn't matter, the case came with a hub and it should work, Mobo is rather decent too, so I don't see why this shouldn't work  worst case I'll have to do as you said.

[SnoopyThePilot]

Yet another rather interesting discovery.

 

I remembered reading in the case manual that "The 12V SATA power cable can not be used to power the PWM hub if connecting to these types of 4-pin connectors (referring to all headers but CPU_Fan i.e. non-PWM headers), due to the interference with the RPM regulation by voltage resulting in the fans running on full RPM".

This got me thinking because that is exactly my issue -- fans running on full RPM no matter the setting. So I disconnected the SATA cable -- which is the exact opposite of what the manual instructs to do -- and lo and behold, I can control case fan speed via BIOS. Unfortunately, I don't think this is PWM controlled this way

 

This leaves me with two conclusions.

 

1: All mobo headers would support PWM as suggested by BIOS and I just have a wrong setting.

2: PWM hub is somehow broken/not functioning correctly.

 

Thoughts anyone?

[W-L]

8 minutes ago, SnoopyThePilot said:

-SNIP-

My only guess could be that it's defaulting on DC voltage control where you will not want to connect more then 3-4 fans per header to not overload them when disconnecting the splitter hub. I would probbaly just go with some simple fan splitters at this point and setup the headers as 3 pin DC voltage control as it seems to be causing so many issues. 

[SnoopyThePilot]

20 hours ago, W-L said:

My only guess could be that it's defaulting on DC voltage control where you will not want to connect more then 3-4 fans per header to not overload them when disconnecting the splitter hub. I would probbaly just go with some simple fan splitters at this point and setup the headers as 3 pin DC voltage control as it seems to be causing so many issues. 

I have 3 fans going to CPU_Opt via PWM hub right now. I have so many SYS_Fans I could just plug every single into their own header, but technically PWM should work and would really like to get to the bottom of this. Understand if you guys don't really feel like it Only issue is I'm getting close to stuck, as I can't see any other BIOS setting to change and not sure what else it could be...

[xHadrian]

I have a Nepton 140XL and it's currently running off the CPU _OPT header, while the fans are running off the CPU_FAN. Works fine for me.

[SnoopyThePilot]

4 hours ago, xHadrian said:

I have a Nepton 140XL and it's currently running off the CPU _OPT header, while the fans are running off the CPU_FAN. Works fine for me.

Thanks, but that won't really work on my system; got the pump and its fans working properly. I know this is a long thread, maybe I should make a new one  regarding the current issue, but right now we're trying to solve the PWM case fan issue...