Controlling a chassis fan

[Chase, just chase]

I've a 3 pin sickle flow X fan plugged into my 3 pin socket in my motherboard. It's mostly at around 1890 RPM. But I need to lower it down to something around 1300-1400. I know the fan speed can be controlled because it's a 3 pin header directly onto the motherboard. But in my motherboard BIOS, there's only pwm options. Which I don't exactly understand. If I lower the PWM does it automatically lower the fan speed or is it more complex than that. 

 

Without BIOS, I heard of this SpeedFan utility and decided to use it. but it also has PWM listed in it. Problem is there's 3 PWM sensors in this utility, all at 27%, the other 2 PWM sensors are at 0. in HWM monitor I also have 3 PWM sensors but they are all at 0. I need to know which PWM is for which fan. My fan setup is - 1 CPU fan, 1 Sickle Flow directly to the motherboard, 1 spec 01 fan connected via molex adapter so I guess that doesn't matter anyways. Can anyone help me with turning down the speed of the sickle flow either via BIOS or via SpeedFan?

[That_Dutch_Guy]

Lowering the PWM duty cycle will indeed lower the fan RPM.

Have you tried altering any of the PWM values?

[Chase, just chase]

21 minutes ago, That_Dutch_Guy said:

Lowering the PWM duty cycle will indeed lower the fan RPM.

Have you tried altering any of the PWM values?

I tried setting the slope pwm (the only option in the BIOS) to the lowest which is 0.75 PWM value / degree C. No fruit.

 

I then tried to lower the PWM2 and PWM3 percentages(assuming they are the PWMs for the sickle flow) in the speedfan utility from 27% to 12%, no fruit either. I can't find an option to save the settings in speedfan either though.

[That_Dutch_Guy]

What motherboard do you have?

[Chase, just chase]

2 hours ago, That_Dutch_Guy said:

What motherboard do you have?

Gigabyte h61m-ww

[That_Dutch_Guy]

From what I can tell, SpeedFan doesn't play nice with your motherboard,

perhaps you could try Gigabyte System Information Viewer

[LogicalDrm]

In Speedfan PWM doesn't mean same as PWM in fan headers. I have 3x3pin headers and all work nicely with Speedfan.

 

Speedfan is bit tricky to setup. Here's how I have get it working on Gigabyte board:

On 7/10/2015 at 9:27 PM, LoGiCalDrm said:

 

Documentation explains some. I might do some myself if I have time. First thing is to force all fan controller chips (and headers) to be software controlled. Done from Advanced tab in options. It lists all controller. Select one with PWM controls listed, set them to Software only and mark Remember this. Then in Temps tab select one-by-one all temps you want to use as source and set desired temp to something in which fan will go full power (I set it 60C for CPU). In Speeds tab you can set min and max speeds for fans (don't know how much effect that has if you use custom profiles).

 

On Fan Control click Advanced fan control to enable custom curves. Select fan controller you want to use and add temperature you want it to be based. I used #0/1 for CPU since it will be hottest. After that it allows you to make curve. You can't add or delete points, which is issue for me. If you select multiple cores or sensors, you can select how the temps are seen in software between max and sum. I'd use MAX if you have only CPU temps as sensors. Then just make curve(s). You can do minor adjustments with right click. You can also move low and high temp points by arrow buttons.

 

When ready, go to Options tab and set delta to 3-5. Its how big increments Speedfan adjust fan (in percent). Having it 10% by default can be heard as fans ramping up and down. There's other good boxes to tick like Start minimized and Minimize on Close. Last thing is to press OK and on main screen tick Automatic fan control box. This enables both "normal" automation and if you have ticked Advanced fan control box, your custom curves. If you like to test min and max rpms and how they relate to percentage, leave it unticked and adjust with boxes and arrows on main screen.

 

I hope that helps. I just did that and I still have things to google and figure out. ^ That was combination of several guides, forum threads and official documentation...

[Chase, just chase]

16 hours ago, That_Dutch_Guy said:

From what I can tell, SpeedFan doesn't play nice with your motherboard,

perhaps you could try Gigabyte System Information Viewer

Yeah I tried that yesterday. Only resulted in me locked out of the PC until I finally managed to get rid of that thing. I got a BSOD as soon as I booted up to the desktop after installing their stupid utilities that use gdrv.sys. Turns out it's not a rare problem and gigabyte just doesn't give a crap. Wellp.

[That_Dutch_Guy]

Hmm, well that sucks.

Then the only other solution I have for you is a separate fan controller.

Sorry