Asrock - Controlling CPU Fan - or - K8NF4G not Cool 'n Quiet

[cmv]

Cliffs: Two Asrock motherboards I brought aren't working with CPU fan speed adjustment. Asrock == the suck if they didn't hookup the PWM connections from the controller chip to the fan headers.

1. I recently brought an Asrock P4Dual-915GL to play with a Celeron D 340 and Mac OS-X. I got tired of that pretty quickly so it became a Gentoo-based MythTV system (personal video recorder that runs on Linux).

Everything worked fine except lm_sensors could not control the CPU fan through either pwm1 or pwm2 that were hanging off of the w83627hf chip. I thought perhaps the driver development was lagging behind so I started researching that...

2. I also brought an Asrock K8NF4G-SATA2 to replace the chronically annoying Asus K8V-SE Deluxe (just waiting for it to boot is a major annoyance as it is s..l..o..w.. to get to the OS loading). While the Asus was slow and annoying it was also *quiet* with Cool 'n Quiet enabled. The Asrock K8NF4G-SATA2 proudly advertised Cool 'n Quiet support so I thought nothing of it. After installing the proper drivers, enabling power control (profile to maximum battery and others), and enabling Cool 'n Quiet in the BIOS I found a CPU fan that stayed at 100% for no good reason. I tried SpeedFan but no luck...

So does *any* Asrock motherboard actually support changing the CPU fan speed via PWM? I am happy with their products besides this issue but for me it is a deal breaker. These boards are out the door and I will never again trust buying an Asrock if they truely don't hook up the PWM inputs (outputs?) to the fans. I hope it is just drivers but I find it hard to believe...

 

[abs0lut3]

I don't know if they or they don't but I would rather spend on 15 dollar fan controller rather than letting the computer messing around with the fan all the time.

I saves you a headache big time.

 

[cmv]

Can you get an active (as in monitors CPU temps and other temps and automatically adjusts fan speed) controller for $15? If so, what's recommended? The Asus K8V SE Deluxe was headache free in that regard except it couldn't control the big case fan in the Antec 2650BQE which is no surprise. Perhaps one of these controllers can do this and the CPU fan properly.

I'm hoping someone will chime in with "CPU fan speeds are working normal (as in they go quiet) for me" on a K8NF4G or a P4Dual-915GL.

 

[o1die]

I've been using the zalman fan mate series rpm adjusters for 2 years. They're pretty reliable. They will cut your rpms by about half of whatever speed the thermostat chooses for an Intel heatsink fan. They're only about $6.

 

[cmv]

Originally posted by: o1die
I've been using the zalman fan mate series rpm adjusters for 2 years. They're pretty reliable. They will cut your rpms by about half of whatever speed the thermostat chooses for an Intel heatsink fan. They're only about $6.

I'm only interested in an active fan controller that can adjust speed based on temperature due to a couple of concerns. Thank you though!

 

[abs0lut3]

The $15 dollar fan controller I was referring to manual control as well. I have tried Thermaltake active fan but I felt it was junk because it didn't work the way it's described. I have not heard nor seen a completely active fan controller in the market and the closest one I know was Text Matrix Orbital Intelligent LCD Display that costs 125 bucks each.

I'm not a big fan of active controller anyway especially when they kicked in when you don't want it to and sat still when you do want to. What gives? I rather control it myself. Manual all the way I say!

 

[cmv]

I'm not always physically at my computers when I'm using them so manual fan control is not ideal. If this were for a gaming machine I'd go manual without worrying about it.

I believe there are three possible reasons why the Asrock boards are not allowing the fans to be adjusted:
1) The Winbond W83627EHF Super-IO chip is new enough that the BIOS support is not complete.
2) The Winbond W83627EHF Super-IO chip is new enough that the driver/application support is not complete.
3) Asrock did not connect the fan controller part (sepearate from the fan monitoring part) to the fans so control of the fans is impossible.

I really hope it's 1 or 2 but given the low cost of Asrock boards I'm worried it is 3.

 

[cmv]

Doh!

 

[cmv]

From Asrock:

I have tested the Cool'n'Quiete on the K8NF4G-SATA2, and it worked fine.
For the Cool'n'Quiete working properly, certain settings need to be
adjusted. Enclosed is an instruction to enable and test the Cool'n'Quiete
function.

Tech

My reply:

Thank you for your instructions. I have preformed these steps and
indeed the CPU does slow down as verified by the AMD utility from
AMD.com but, and this is the problem, the CPU fan does not slow down.
This is the same fan that was installed on my Asus K8V SE Deluxe. On
the Asus board, the fan slowed down and even stopped when CPU usage
was low. On my Asrock motherboard the CPU does slow down but the fan
stays at around 3,200 RPM which is loud. I appreciate your efforts and
I hope that it is possible to control the fan more effectively with
the Asrock motherboard. I will test this more this weekend. Perhaps
there is something I am missing. It may be that the Asus Q-Fan, not
present on the Asrock motherboard, was responsible for the CPU fan
running very slowly.

I am happy with my Asrock motherboard in all regards except for this issue.

Thank you,
...

 

[Zim Hosein]

cmv & or anyone else, my apologies in advance for resurrecting an old thread, but I have the same K8 SE MB that cmv posted about owning and was wondering if you have any suggestions on what might be causing instability/re-boots w/ CNQ & Q-Fan control enabled.