Method of controlling system fans

[kevin miller]

I am curious of how one can take control of the system fans on the computer. It would seem there would be a way to adjust the speeds of the front and back case fans, the cpu fans, etc. I have gone into my bios and set the fans to "turbo" whatever that means rather than auto. There does not seems to be a difference. The cpu fan reads a pretty constant 1800 rpm. I downloaded speed fan and tried using that. None of the fan controls really did anything except for one where I could really crank up one of the internal fans and make it go. However, it really did not impact the cpu temps on coretemp at all.

 

I have a ASUS sabertooth P67 with a I7 2600K 3.4 overclocked to 4.5 at the moment. The mid-tower case has 3 120 mm fans with two of them pushing from the front and one exhausting from the rear. I have 2 120 mm fans on the CM EVO 212 cpu cooler and there is obviously a fan on the video card and 650 watt power supply.

 

Thanks for any suggestions.

[numerobis]

from the manual http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1155/SABERTOOTH_P67/E6150_Sabertooth_P67.zip i would say setting it to manual and the desired values should help. Did you try "manual" as well?

If you want more control you could buy a fan controller but i don't think this is necessary.

[kevin miller]

I did try setting the fans via the MB but I cannot tell what effect it has. I am reading up on the effects on positive and negative pressure int he box and how to best set up fans but I am getting lost. Basically, I am trying to figure out the best cooling solution without creating turbulence or strong negative pressure. I currently have two 120mm front intake fans but I have no idea how much air they are pushing. I have one 120mm exhaust fan. The assumption would be at this point that I am exhausting less air than I am bringing in so that would create positive air pressure. I would assume the heatsink fans are contributing nothing at this point since they should be pushing air over and out past the heatsink. No more air would be exhausting since these fans are internal within the case interior. My thought it that is I were to install a 140 mm exhaust fan on the top opening over the cpu, I would need to be careful of now exhausting more air that I am bringing in which would create a negative pressure situation but it would probably cool better.

 

With all of this said, I am thinking that if I could somehow measure and control each fan, I could still have two intake and two exhaust but dial in the intake fans at 800 rpm each and the exhaust at 600 rpm each and have better air movement AND still positive pressure. Am I thinking correctly and if so, how do I do this and if not, what suggestions might one have?

[numerobis]

i'm more on the side of negative air pressure because i think it exhausts the hot air more controlled. In my air cooled systems i have one 120mm fan on front and back and the 120mm or 140mm cpu fan right in front of the rear fan. The PSU sits at the bottom building its own air cycle with fresh air through a bottom hole. So without a video card in the case there is a clear defined air stream through the CPU cooler to the back. If you have a video card in the case that will build up a second stream if it has a direct exhaust to the back. But i think i wouldn't add a top fan because this could weaken the other two streams.