P8P67 LE, no Q-fan control?

[blacktankofhopelessness]

Hi, I'm using a Noctua NH-U9B SE2 (92 mm fan) to cool my i5-2500k on a P8P67 LE board. My problem is the Q-fan feature on this board does not seem to work, at least not with this particular CPU fan.

Regardless of whether I set Q-fan control to "enabled" in the BIOS (yes, it detects the fan and its speed) and set fan control to "silent" or manual at 50% the fan keeps spinning at full speed at low and high temps.

The Noctua NH-U9B uses a 3-pin header as do most fans, but the mobo should still be able to control the fan through voltage regulation, no?

According to Noctua...
http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=faqs&step=2&products_id=32&lng=en#13

You can simply connect our fan's 3-pin connector to the 4-pin PWM sockets of today's mainboards so that the fourth pin that transmits the PWM signal is left blank (due to the shape of the connector, there's no danger of reversing polarity). Some mainboards (e.g. current Gigabyte models) are capable of controlling fans not only via PWM, but also by adjusting the supplied voltage.

But no, that doesn't work.

I'm at a loss here. Should I try flashing the BIOS on my mobo? There is no setting for choosing between PWM or voltage regulation in the BIOS either.

For now I'm using the Ultra-Low-Noise adapter that came with the fan/cooler and which limits fan speed to 1,000 rpm, but I'm still not happy about that high a setting all the time.

 

[Zap]

The Noctua NH-U9B uses a 3-pin header as do most fans, but the mobo should still be able to control the fan through voltage regulation, no?

No. Most motherboards these days only seem to be able to control 4-pin PWM fans.

 

[blacktankofhopelessness]

No. Most motherboards these days only seem to be able to control 4-pin PWM fans.

Really? I know from experience that both the standard P8P67 and the pro version can use voltage regulation to control 3-pin fans. Seems odd that the LE board wouldn't be able to do that. But then again, it is the lowest of the low in the product line so maybe you're right.