Hey Chaintech VNF4 Ultra VE owners!

[rivethead]

This review from xbitlabs says:

"The last thing we feel like mentioning is that Chaintech VNF4 Ultra VE supports Cool?n?Quiet technology, but has no means to control the CPU cooler depending on the temperature of the CPU."

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/chaintech-nforce4_7.html

but the Chaintech website says:

"Embedded system monitoring - Temperature sensing for CPU and system
- Fan speed monitoring and control for CPU and system"

http://www.chaintechusa.com/tw/eng/product_spec.asp?MPSNo=13&PISNo=318

So which is it? Somebody is lying to me. :| Can one of the many Chaintech VNF4 Ultra owners out there tell me what the truth is?

Thanks!

 

[AnnoyedGrunt]

I use a Zalman and have the fanmate set on low. I have not tried to change the speed, but I was told in another VNF4 thread that the program "Speedfan" could adjust the CPU fan speed. I tried to get the program setup, but couldn't get the software and hardware to communicate.

There may be bios settings, but I haven't really looked since the Zalman is plenty quiet @ it's lowest setting.

Nvidia Ntune gives me some overclocking stuff, but the Monitor portion says that my mobo doesn't have a compatible BIOS and won't run. I dont even know what's included in the NV Monitor package, so I don't know if it would have fan control settings or not.

I find that my Zalman 7700 AlCu is very quiet, and large enough to help cool the chipset cooler as well. All the silence was pretty much gone as soon as I installed an X800XL, so now I need to figure out what to do with the video card.

Anyway, sorry I wasn't much help. My guess is that the hardware is able to control the CPU fan speed, but you need to find a good way to access that capability. I'm not sure what the solution to that is.

You might search for some other posts and see if you can figure out the Speedfan thing.

-D'oh!

 

[rivethead]

Thanks for your input. I appreciate it.

The second post on this thread seems to indicate that the monitor problem you discussed has been corrected with a bios upgrade.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=29&threadid=1541619&enterthread=y

I'm still shopping for a mobo, so I can't verify this, but maybe there is hope!

I will do more research on speedfan. But I still find it interesting that there is conflicting information between the xbitlab review and the chaintech website. Someone is wrong.

Thanks!

 

[Silversierra]

I installed c&q on my vnf4 ultra. It didn't slow the fan down. It slowed my cpu to about 900mhz, but fan speed stayed at 3000rpm. I was hoping to make it quieter, but it didn't slow the fan.

 

[rivethead]

Thanks for the reply. So you're saying that when you installed the c&q from AMD it SLOWED your CPU.

That can't be a desirable result.

So it sounds like maybe Chaintech is lying on their website?

Anyone else care to comment?

 

[AnnoyedGrunt]

Well, the whole point of C&Q is to slow the CPU when you are not using it, and then quickly speed it back up when you are. The goal is to reduce power and noise.

Whether or not it makes a significant difference in power consumption or noise may be open for debate, but it definitely will slow your CPU @ times (and hopefully you wouldn't notice).

-D'oh!

 

[rivethead]

Bump

Anyone care to comment on how the Chaintech controls CPU fan (or any system fan for that matter)?

 

[Ackbar]

As far as I can tell... the CnQ doesn't do anything on my VNF4. Maybe you can get it to work though!

 

[rivethead]

Does your Chaintech control any system fans based upon the temperature?

I just find it really odd that Chaintech would make the claim their making when in practice it's not true.

Perhaps I'm naive in believing everything a mobo maker tells me.

 

[Ackbar]

Originally posted by: rivethead
Does your Chaintech control any system fans based upon the temperature?

I just find it really odd that Chaintech would make the claim their making when in practice it's not true.

Perhaps I'm naive in believing everything a mobo maker tells me.

As far as I can tell, I've never had any of the fans decrease in speed ever.

 

[Silversierra]

Originally posted by: Ackbar

Originally posted by: rivethead
Does your Chaintech control any system fans based upon the temperature?

I just find it really odd that Chaintech would make the claim their making when in practice it's not true.

Perhaps I'm naive in believing everything a mobo maker tells me.

As far as I can tell, I've never had any of the fans decrease in speed ever.

Same here. To get cool and quiet to slow down the cpu(not the fan) I had to select minimal power management in the win xp power options.

 

[MajorPayne]

Cool ande Quiet does not seem (from the 2 AMD mobos I have had) to actually control fan SPEED per se. It DOES throttle down CPU speed if you are not using the CPU much, and increase CPU speed when needed. To my understanding, Cool and Quiet is meant to be used with temp sensing systems and another system (either the motherboard itself or software such as speedfan) to control fan speed accordingly. Cool and Quiet will not (as far as I know) actually adjust the speed if the fans itself.

I know of several people on the pcper.com forums who have Speedfan working successfully with this board, and using it to control the speed of SOME of thier fans, but not all fan headers on this motherboard can be directly controlled. To my knowledge, only 2 of them can (the CPU fan header, and the chipset fan header can be directly controlled. These are also the only 2 which have temp sensors that can be read as well.

I myself have not set up speedfan or Cool and Quiet with my board, since I have it overclocked pretty far, and also do not have much Idle time (I run Seti@home when I am not using it), so I never really needed either of these (plus I am deaf enough that the noise from all 9 fans in my case never bothers me)!

As far as Chaintech's claim that the motherboard has fan speed monitoring and control, this IS true, in that the motherboard has 2 temp monitors, and 2 fan control areas where you can (using a software program) control the speed of the fans. It does NOT appear to directly let you set fan speed, etc, but they can claim this because it IS possible through software (although this claim is a little dubious). As far as Xbit labs claiming Cool and Quiet does not work on this board -- this is not correct -- it DOES work on the board. Remember, Xbit also managed to Blow up the chipset on thier board too!

 

[rivethead]

Thanks for clearing that up for me MajorPayne!

It's much appreciated.

 

[GadgetBuilder]

The Xbit review is a bit suspect: this is the reviewer who noticed the board was running hot when he overclocked so rather than improving the cooling he raised the overclock and fried the NF4 He also jumped to the conclusion that the VNF4 can't control the fans because the capability isn't included in BIOS.

The VNF4 has the ability to control 2 fans and may be able to monitor a third (opinions vary and Chaintech's documentation is poor). At present you need SpeedFan to control the VNF4's fans but Chaintech says they will add fan control in the next BIOS release. SpeedFan works fine on my VNF4, reducing the noise to nil while raising the CPU temp 1C -- if the CPU goes above 30C I have SpeedFan turn the fans on full. Thus, CnQ allows SpeedFan to reduce the fan speed as I have it set up.

CnQ drops the CPU temp about 7C with no load to 26C; it does this by reducing the clock and the core voltage when the processor is idling. When the processor load increases CnQ turns the CPU back to full tilt -- there doesn't seem to be a middle ground. I like CnQ because I don't notice any effect with the kind of things I do, your situation may be different so try it and see what you think. CnQ only works if the core voltage is set to Auto in BIOS so if you will be overclocking CnQ probably won't be helpful.


Edit: added based on other questions posed in this thread.

All VNF4's, as far as I know, can control the fan speed via SpeedFan. Speedfan is a bit tricky to configure -- you must go to Configure/Advanced use the pull down menu and choose the IT8712F, scroll down to PWM 1 mode and change it to "Software Controlled". There is more to the configuration, as described in the program directions but the above is the unexpected part.

A simpler alternative is to go to the SpeedFan site and in the upper right corner select "Beta Programs" and pretend you're going to upload a configuration for the vnf4. Follow the prompts and eventually you'll see a button which will allow you to download the vnf4 configuration file. Move this file to the SpeedFan folder in C:/ Program Files and it should configure SpeedFan automatically. It is labeled Beta so use at your own risk, of course. The procedure for downloading could change if the owner decides it is ready for prime time so poke around on the site to see what is the latest as far as downloading SpeedFan configurations for specific boards.

 

[rivethead]

GadgetBuilder:

Thank your for the detailed response. It is much appreciated. I am happy to here that SpeedFan works on the VNF4.

I just ordered the VNF4 20 minutes ago at ChiefValue....$99 shipped. The research portion of my new build (first time builder) is coming to a close....now it's time to put it together, install software, and then maybe treat myself to a new game!