Upgrading my PC's Memory+Cooling Fans & Cleaning it Out

Ophaq · 22 Apr 2016

ignatzatsonic said:

Ophaq said:

Hello all, just an update. I cleaned everything out and did as described above. All of the fans work great and my PC does too luckily! XD

So, a few questions to any who know an answer to them:
1. The Sys_fan4 header causes any fan to run at max which is 4000rpm according to hwmonitor. Is there any way to change this? I looked at SpeedFan and in my BIOS and found nothing.
2. I attached an LNA to the 140mm noctua fan (which is running at 4000rpm) and it still runs at 4000rpm. Should I just take the LNA off then? Why does it not reduce the RPM? I also attached an extension to the LNA because the fan can't reach the header without the extension. Is this double extension safe?

Thanks in advance. :)

What does XD mean? I see it in nearly all of your posts.

Re 1: I'd be very surprised if you had no BIOS control over that fan speed, but you are the one looking in the BIOS. You could also buy an adapter to cut the voltage from 12 volts down to 10 or 7. Or you could buy a slower fan. Or you could likely buy a fan controller to control voltage that way.

2: The LNA makes very very little difference even if it works. The extension should be safe. You'd have to experiment with it on other fans and headers to come to a conclusion. It's typically used by those obsessed with the lowest possible noise, but I couldn't tell the difference when I tried it.

Not sure why you intentionally bought a 4000 rpm Noctua fan if you wanted it to run slower than that.

You may find that HWinfo doesn't correctly identify fans by name (location). It should be accurate for the CPU fan, but I'd stop each fan manually with my finger and then see which fan in HWinfo was then shown as 0 rpm to be sure you and HWinfo are on the same page.

Or even try a different monitoring tool entirely.

Thanks for answering! XD is basically an emoticon, just look at the X as squinty eyes and the D as a smile.

When I got this fan: Noctua NF-A14 PWM 140mm Case Fan - Newegg.com

I didn't know it would be running at 4000 rpm or whatever speeds its running at as the website said it would run at 1500 rpm. Both SpeedFan and HWmonitor say 4k but it could just be some random number. The fan is spinning to be audible compared to the rest of my fans.

In my Bios, it only gives me control over all the headers except #4 which the fan is attached to.

Where can I find an adapter that will cut the voltage down to 7 or so? Doesn't an LNA do something similar or is the difference not very big from default voltage?

ignatzatsonic · 22 Apr 2016

see comments in bold

Ophaq said:

When I got this fan: Noctua NF-A14 PWM 140mm Case Fan - Newegg.com

I didn't know it would be running at 4000 rpm or whatever speeds its running at as the website said it would run at 1500 rpm. Both SpeedFan and HWmonitor say 4k but it could just be some random number. The fan is spinning to be audible compared to the rest of my fans.

I'd be suspicious of that 4000 number. It's rated at 1500 max by Noctua. 4000 should be noisy, period. 1500 should be easily audible, but not noisy. None of the monitoring tools are flawless.

Noctua support by email is typically very good---responses within a day or so. I'd email them and ask them if 4k can be believed with that EXACT fan model.

Regardless, why do you want to reduce the speed? Temps are too low? Noise is too high?

In my Bios, it only gives me control over all the headers except #4 which the fan is attached to.

Taking your word for it, you'd then need to use another header, possibly with a splitter if necessary. If fan 4 has no control, then put a fan on it that you are willing to let run at some fixed speed.

Where can I find an adapter that will cut the voltage down to 7 or so? Doesn't an LNA do something similar or is the difference not very big from default voltage?

As far as I know, the LNAs reduce voltage. That's how they work. I wouldn't expect the difference to be audible, particularly when you've got several other fans spinning and making noise.

If you google around, you can probably find a wiring adapter that will convert 12 to 7 volts. Might cost 5 bucks. I think I still have a couple of them. But those things have gone out of style because BIOSes of the last 5 or 10 years offer direct fan speed control, rendering the adapters pointless.

I'm surprised you've got a header that has no control, but I have no experience with your board.

My idea would be to use header 4 for a fan that would just spin at a constant speed--typically a front intake or a rear exhaust. Get the PWM fans on a PWM header. Use splitters where you have to. Use as few fans as possible. Use multiple monitoring programs to confirm RPM and temps. Utilize board and fan manufacturer support to confirm that header 4 is uncontrollable and that your Noctua can spin at 4000. Expect audible noise on any fan spinning above 1000. Decide if you want temp X with noisy fans or temp X plus 5 or 10 with quiet fans. Decide how anguished you will be with CPU temps constantly in the 70s. Decide if you are willing to buy more fans on mere speculation that they will resolve any perceived issue.

Ophaq · 22 Apr 2016

I tried using EasyTune6 to see if I could control my fan that way. The CPU fan says its 4k even though that's where the H60 is. There's nothing else attached to the header there except the water block on the CPU which is strange. I'm guessing sys4 is header 4. When I lowered the fan speed on that bar I didn't notice any difference in speed even at 0 unless I'm supposed to hit save first.

I also ran 10 passes of memtest86 last night but it was the blue screened version and not the black screen. AKA I ran it in boot priority mode instead of the program letting itself boot from the flash drive from the POST. They're the same thing but one has a better interface than the other. The test between the two doesn't make a difference though, right? All 10 passes passed.

My previously turned off Turbo Boost OC is back on as well. 4.2Ghz seems stable now as I tried running DS3 in fullscreen mode at max settings and leaving it in an intense area for 30-40 minutes -- which would have caused a blue screen prior to the upgrade.

The PC's temperatures are a good 10-25C cooler too except for my GPU which is about 10C cooler during heavy load. I couldn't get all the dust off of the heat sink behind the fans as that would require disassembly. I did however get a ton of dust off any parts shown and the two fans it has.

Also, when I moved some wires around in my PC because the wiring was horrible, I cut a lot of zip ties. To make it neat again I used some regular string to tie the wire bundles back together. Is this alright?

Anyhow, aside from the above, my main problem is how I'm going to adjust this fan speed to see if I can lower the noise a bit. It's a bit higher than I'd like and has a bit of a buzzing noise.