Fan hub help

[ReKtified]

So I'm in a tough spot here as i'm running an old Sandy bridge system with a 2600K and an Acer board. This board only has a 4 pin CPU header and 3 pin SYS_FAN header. I tested using Speedfan and it's able to control only the CPU fan so that's where i'm thinking to connect the fan hub to since it couldn't read SYS Fan.


I was thinking to connect the fan hub to the CPU header and control it through Speedfan, since I have an non UEFI bios.




Any recommendations on fan hubs that can do this? I saw that some hubs don't mention the use of CPU headers.


I'm running 2x 3 pin fans (1200RPM) and 3x 4 pin fans (up to 3000RPM.)

 

[Paperdoc]

With only 2 headers in total and six fans, it is likely that you can not do it all with simple Splitters. But that IS possible IF the fans all have low current pulls. So give us a few more details and we can get really specific in the advice.

1. You have both 3-pin and 4-pin fans. How many of each type are being used for what? Among those five, are they all for case ventilation with additional fan(s) for the CPU, or are one or more of those five on the CPU cooler?

2. We need to know the max current pull of each fan. Maybe read it off the fan labels, or tell us the fans' makers and model numbers so we can look that up.
3.Tell us the maker and model number of the mobo so we can check tits exact control capabilities.

 

[ReKtified]

With only 2 headers in total and six fans, it is likely that you can not do it all with simple Splitters. But that IS possible IF the fans all have low current pulls. So give us a few more details and we can get really specific in the advice.

1. You have both 3-pin and 4-pin fans. How many of each type are being used for what? Among those five, are they all for case ventilation with additional fan(s) for the CPU, or are one or more of those five on the CPU cooler?

2. We need to know the max current pull of each fan. Maybe read it off the fan labels, or tell us the fans' makers and model numbers so we can look that up.
3.Tell us the maker and model number of the mobo so we can check tits exact control capabilities.

2 intake fans in front, 1 in back serving as exhaust and 2 top as intake/exhaust.

The board is old, got it on ebay. It's the acer ipisb-vr rev 1.01. It can't control (bios is not UEFI) much, only the 4 pin cpu header to some degree which is why I wanted to offload it to the fan hub.

3 of the fans don't have a model that came with the case, the other 2 are old which I'm going to replace.

 

[Paperdoc]

I cannot find a manual for this old mobo, but my advice below is based on one assumption. I am assuming that, since its CPU_FAN header has 4 pins, it really does use the new PWM Mode to control its fan. As the new 4-pin fans were introduced, mobo makers accommodated them in one of four ways for CPU_FAN headers:
(a) use a true 4-pin fan header and the new PWM Mode of control only;
(b) use a new 4-pin header, but actually operate it only like the older 3-pin fans headers using Voltage Control Mode (aka DC Mode) because that method CAN control both 3- and 4-pin fans;
(c) use a 4-pin header and give the user options to choose either Mode in BIOS Setup; or,
(d) use a 4-pin header and enable the system to test and detect exactly which fan is connected and adjust itself automatically for that, often combined with BIOS Setup options to specify only one Mode.
Note that option (d) can be faked by using Option (b), which looks very much the same. BUT with option (b) there is NO PWM signal available on header Pin #4, so it can NOT be used with a Fan Hub, and that's important for my recommendation.

So, IF you want to check this detail, try examining in BIOS Setup what the options are for the CPU_FAN header.

Now, if we assume that the header really can use proper PWM Mode, then what you need, OP, is a particular Fan Hub, the Phanteks PWM Hub. It is unique because it uses the PWM signal system to produce its own group of six 3-pin fan ports that use the older Voltage Control Mode. That mode CAN control BOTH 3-pin and 4-pin fans, so using it you can control any mix of those fans, exactly as you need to do. To use it you connect the Hub to the CPU_FAN 4-pin header, and connect the Hub's power cable to a SATA power output connector from the PSU - this latter provides all the power for all the fans and thus avoids the power limit of a single mobo fan header. Then you must connect the actual CPU cooling fan to the white Port #1 of the Hub because this in the ONLY port that can feed back to the CPU_FAN header the speed of its fan. It is important that the real CPU cooler be monitored by the CPU_FAN header for possible failure. After that you connect all your other fans to the other ports of the Hub. There is one wrinkle in this and a solution. The Hub ports all are 3-pin, and the spacing of them makes it almost impossible to plug in a 4-pin fan, even though electrically this is quite all right. The solution is that the Hub also comes with two 2-from-1 splitters so you can attach more than one fan to any Hub header. Use one or both of these to connect your 4-pin fans to ports, because the connectors on the ends of the Splitter arms should ft the 4-pin fan connectors easily.

There are three small factors you you to know, but these are not problems. First is that, like all fan Hubs, this only works if the host fan header does provide the PWM signal on its Pin #4 - that is, that it does use true 4-pin fan PWM Mode. Secondly, like all fan Hubs, this unit will send back to the host header the speed of ONLY the fan on its Port #1 because the header can only deal with one signal coming in. Thus you will never "see" the speeds of all the other fans on the Hub, but this has NO impact on the ability to control the fan speeds. And lastly, this makes all control of the case ventilation fan speeds dependent on the temperature inside the CPU chip, and not on temperature on the mobo. While that may not be ideal, there is a very good correlation between heat generation inside the CPU chip and heat generation in mobo components.