Soltek SL-75KAV is now fine when it comes to fans

[Jeff7]

My secondary computer uses the Soltek SL-75KAV for its motherboard. I just put in an AX-7 heatsink with an 80mm fan connected. Problem is, since the RPM rating of the 80mm is so much lower than that of a 60mm, the motherboard can't even recognize it, and shuts down right away. I managed to boot by hooking a 60mm fan to the CPU1 fan connector, and hooking the 80mm to a different connector. Both are registering their speeds now; the 60mm is at 4700rpm, and the 80mm is at 2800.
Is there any way around this without making the system unsafe in the event of a REAL thermal problem? Or is this something to send to Soltek's tech support and hope they respond?

 

[Buz2b]

Sounds like the board has a 3000 rpm threshold for the fan. Not really anything you can do about it unless you have a way to change the settings in the BIOS (not likely). If you use MBM5 you can set up an alarm and shutdown threshold for that fan that would work better than just the alarm from the MB. You can also set up thermal shutdown temps with it.

 

[Jeff7]

Hm, peachy. Thing is though, I have no use for a 60mm fan in the system anymore. The board however only recognizes the RPMs of a fan that small, and I'm not about to get one of those 7000RPM Delta things. Guess I'll e-mail Soltek and see if I ever get a response.

 

[Buz2b]

You missed the point. If you use MBM5 (motherboard monitor Five) program, it doesn't care which size fans you have. You can manually set any speed you want as the minimum or maximum. Yes, you will need to have a fan with something faster than 3000 rpm connected to that header, but you don't have to have a "screamer" attached to it. Hell, attach any fan you have that has rpm's higher than that. Then use the MBM5 as your "protection".
On second thought, how in the heck does the board know if your fan doesn't have an rpm sensing wire on it? Many fans do not. I think something is wrong here. You will either have the ability to set something in the BIOS to overcome this rpm "problem" or there is something else going on with the board. Many boards have the "safety factor" of sensing if a fan is connected to that particular header, but I don't know of ANY that require a certain rpm fan. Maybe it is done by amps drawn or something. Maybe AT user "Peter" could help out here.
Either way, there are many 60mm fans that you can get that have low rpms and very low noise, if that is a concern. Also, there are many 80mm fans that have rpm's just over what you seem to need that will not create large noise levels. If all else fails I think you will end up doing it that way. Unless there is a setting in the BIOS that you can change, Soltek will not be able to change this on the board.

 

[Buz2b]

UPDATE! I downloaded your manual and found the following:
Look in your manual on about page 90, where it talks about the "Smart Doc Anti-Burn shield". You at least can disable this function and may be able to adjust it. Sounds like this is where you need to go to solve things. See, simple isn't it?

 

[Jeff7]

You missed the point. If you use MBM5 (motherboard monitor Five) program, it doesn't care which size fans you have.

No, no, I do see your point; I even considered that myself. Problem is, I don't have any fans with higher RPMs that would be useful. I only use 80mm fans in this system now, and all my 80mm ones run at around 2500rpms. I could attach the 60mm fan to fool the motherboard, but it would just sort of have to dangle there useless.

On second thought, how in the heck does the board know if your fan doesn't have an rpm sensing wire on it? Many fans do not. I think something is wrong here

Many new motherboards have a feature now that if they sense that there's no fan connected to the CPUFAN header, they won't boot. I've seen several socket A boards like that. I don't know why anyone wouldn't want RPM sensing on their processor anyway.

I'll see what else I can do in the BIOS though to disable the Burn-Shield; thanks for your help Buz2b. I just would prefer if the BIOS could take care of any failures - that'd probably be much quicker than waiting for MBM to see it and take some kind of action. The BIOS just goes "flip" to the power; MBM would first have to sense it, then trigger another program to shut down the system.

 

[Buz2b]

I just would prefer if the BIOS could take care of any failures - that'd probably be much quicker than waiting for MBM to see it and take some kind of action. The BIOS just goes "flip" to the power; MBM would first have to sense it, then trigger another program to shut down the system.

Actually, when you set up MBM, you are setting up the exact same sensors that the BIOS uses. There will be no difference in reaction time. Besides that, "Smart Doc Anti-Burn shield", as I mentioned in my previous post, will do the same thing. You just need to look deeper into the settings for it and set the thing up to work like you want. All the tools are there. Don't get stuck on 60mm vs 80mm fans; they are not relevent anymore. Just change the settings in Smart Doc.

 

[Jeff7]

Ok, I found it; disabling the Shutdown for CPUFAN setting (think it was like that, it was a whole 30 seconds since I left that screen). It boots now and runs fine.
What program shall I use to shutdown the computer fast if there's a thermal problem? Freeware is good.

 

[Buz2b]

Motherboard Monitor 5 As I stated earlier, you can set it to do almost anything you want as far as shutdown temps or fan rpms.

 

[Jeff7]

In advance thanks for your patience with me. I do see the Alarm settings for MBM, which I always use. However, it seems to require an external program to actually do more than just beep - an external program to shut down the system. I do know about ShutdownNow, but that's shareware, and I feel guilty using stuff like that and not paying for it; I figure there's a freeware utility out there that'd do that too. Or is there a feature in MBM that will just turn off the system when the alarm goes off?

 

[Jeff7]

The latest BIOS on Soltek's site is from October last year. They e-mailed me a BIOS dated from this April, with support for low-RPM fans; works fine. I'm posting a copy of it in my website's public folder.

 

[Buz2b]

I'm happy they were able to provide a "fix" for you. BTW, you mentioned not being able to shutdown the system with MBM. Even though it is now not relavent, I did want to point out that there is a setting to do the shutdown in MBM. Look under the Temperatures and the specific sensor that is being used for your CPU. Scroll down the list of settings and you will find the area you need. I'm not using that and haven't set it up but I remember asking on the MBM forum site and getting some instructions on using Windows to do the shutdown.
Hey, if you want to double your protection I guess you could do it and have it set a few degrees difference. Bottom line though, I'm glad you have the BIOS functioning like it should now.

 

[Jeff7]

Yeah; I don't know why they don't post the new BIOS to their website.