3-Pin Fans and PWM

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JBRONCFAN

JBRONCFAN

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All of my fans plugged into my motherboard have 3 pins. Does this mean that I am NOT enjoying the use of the motherboard's pwm capabilities??? Does this mean that they are all just running at their slowest or least amount of RPMs?

My rig uses the ASUS Sabertooth R2 mobo and I do have it set up in BIOS the "Q-Fan Control" which allows me to set up a min/max temps and the correct % of fan rpms for the correct temp. Since my fans only have 3 pins instead of 4 pins is my mobo not really controlling my fans' RPMs?

System temps are awesome btw, I am just curious.
 
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jossrik

jossrik

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I had a Z77 Sabertooth and now use the Z97 Sabertooth, and I gotta say, I love the boards. With my experience, 3 pin fans can use a voltage form of PWM from the motherboard headers. They won't have the 4th pin which I think is the Data pin that tells the motherboard what the RPMs are on the fan, but with the % control, I believe that it is lowered voltage to the fan on a % basis so that it runs slower. The problem is that not all of your 4pin headers are necessarily 4pin PWM compatible. I don't remember how the boards work, I know the CPU 4pin headers are true PWM, but as to the others, just don't recall right now, I use a fan hub on mine that goes to the CPU header for everything. The good news is that your setup should be using slower fan speeds depending on the curve you set in the bios or the Asus Suite. Without a tach, you gotta be the judge by loudness or maybe relative airflow though.
 
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JBRONCFAN

JBRONCFAN

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Been doing searches on the subject and it seems my board will still control the fans' speeds just not with PWM.

Did something different with this rig that I hadn't done with any of my other builds. ANY openings the case has I completely shut them up. Like, today's cases have holes for possible water cooling solutions. Since I don't use water cooling that leaves me with three holes in my case. Same for potential wiring, the case makers left opening here and there for your convenience.

I was looking at all these openings and thinking to myself how the rig was losing a lot of air pressure, which people don't tend to talk about too often. Obviously, the less air pressure your rig has the harder the fans have to work. Harder means faster means more noise.

My latest build I literally locked up EVERY possible opening in the hopes that it would be easier to move the hot air out ASAP. Without a doubt it is the most efficient build to date as far as temps and fans go. It runs the lowest temps I've ever seen, the fans don't work that hard at all (low RPMs) and when you have no openings it makes it hard for ANY sound to escape! I put my ear to the window and can barely hear anything which was a nice side effect cause locking up all the openings was to just to help the fans move the hot air out ASAP.

How is your system?? Got any openings where air can escape?? Any place air can escape means less air pressure means harder work for the fans. Harder working fans means more noise (and of course higher temps).

I'm tellin' ya it's almost funny how "slow" my fans seem to be running when I look at my rig and I got a FULL size case to boot! That's one advantage a mid size or small/micro case has, much higher air pressure means much easier to remove hot air.

I love the full size case because of all the room you get to play in. My first builds were all mid size but I'm hooked on full size cases for now on!!
 
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jossrik

jossrik

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I've got the enthoo pro case, and it's nice, most everything you'd need for cooling. It's a dull roar, but quieter than my house AC, much quieter. I run my TV/monitor at round #5 volume out of 100, and I can hear it fine. I have a custom water loop with a 420 rad cooling cold plates on my 980 ti and 4970K. Noctua pressure fans on the radiator and IPPC 3000 fans for intake on the bottom/front, all slowed *way* down through the bios. I like it, way quieter than when I was trying to get the hot air out of the case, now I just try to keep the air inside mostly cooler, if it heats up a bit, the three 140s on the top exhaust pretty well, and an IPPC on the back for exhaust, all in all, you can hear it if you listen for it, but it's not all that noticeable. Fans run lowest setting for most everything, even on full load. Not the best overclocks, but not bad, so no worries, CPU stays below 60C, GPU stays below 45C full load.
 
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JBRONCFAN

JBRONCFAN

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Both CPU and GPU rarely if ever see 40C. Now, I'm not a gamer or doing any video editing but my rig does run two separate monitors (42"/32") at the same time. HDTV on the bigger one and internet stuff on the smaller one.
 
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