This is a relatively simple guide to help you setup Speedfan to control fans on EVGA motherboards. Although the fan control options in the BIOS are quite extensive (I have EVGA FTW 657), Speedfan allows finer control and also allows assigning fan control to different temp sensors. My own setup is based around water cooling. 3 x 120mm fans on the water radiator and a number of 120mm case fans.
The first problem is that the CPU fan header on EVGA FTW will only speed control a 4 pin fan. If your radiator or case fans are 3 pin then you are forced to use SPWR or SYS fan headers because those do allow PWM speed control of 3 pin fans.
So, on my setup I have a multiple fan adaptor that allows me to plug in 3 x fans on one header. My 3 x rad fans are connected to the SPWR fan header (since my rad fans cool water rad which in turn cools CPU, it would be better to have rad fans connected to CPU fan header but remember my rad fans are 3 wire so this won't work. If connected to 4pin CPU header then my rad fans won't have speed control. So if I want speed controlled rad fans, they must be connected either to SYS or PWR fan headers on mobo.
A note about using multiple fans on a single header... Most (all of the boards I have owned over the years) are capable of driving more than one fan from a single header. Some motherboard makers specify how much current a fan header can deliver and typically this is in the region of 1 amp! Most 120mm fans consume in the region of 250ma or less (depending on their speed as well) so you can connect a number of fans to a single header. I make my own multiple fan adaptors using 3 pin header sockets and a 3 pin header plug but I guess you can buy ready made units?
In extreme cases you can hard wire several fans to a single fan but I prefer making an adaptor cable. A 3 wire fan has Black = Ground. Red = 12v power and the 3rd = Yellow (speed sense). If you connect more than 1 triple wire fan to a mobo fan header, ensure that you only have the speed sense (yellow) from one of the fans going to the fan header or else the speed reading will be meaningless!
Also you must be sure to read the power rating on the fan before connecting multiple fans. Old fans can consume as much as half an amp. Enermax also make a 120mm fan with a 500ma rating. You must ensure the multiple fans don't except 1 amp! First step...
Download and install latest Speedfan...
Untick the auto fan speed on the main window as shown below.
You will also see 4 up/down fan speed boxes as marked with arrows. These allow manually setting of fan speeds which we will use for testing later...
Above: Click on the Configure button on the main window, then click on the ADVANCED tab as shown above.
In the drop down box for CHIP - select F71882F (or whichever chip gives you motherboard fan access).
Once the fan info appears, change the PWM1, 2 and 3 in the list to Manual set PWM and tick remember it for each one.
Click OK to confirm settings and once you are back on the speedfan main panel, take all of the SPEED xx boxes down to zero speed using the down arrows (make sure the auto fan tick box is UNTICKED).
Use your eyes and ears to detect any changes in fan speed. Whatever fans you have connected on SYS and PWR fan headers should stop turning! Note that it can take almost a minute in some cases for fan rotation to stop!
If the fans have stopped turning, you have successfully gained control of the fans through speedfan. If the fan speed doesn't change... Go back to the advanced tab, reselect the relevant sensor chip and again ensure that PWM 1, 2 and 3 are set to MANUAL set PWM and that the Remember it box is ticked for each fan.
Once you have fans that respond to manual speed settings on the speedfan front panel, you need to begin making the fan speed profile...
Click the Configure button on the main panel, then click the FANS tab... On my FTW 657, Fan 2 and Fan 3 are relevant to SYS and PWR fan headers and once you have determined which one controls which set of fans, you must double click on the Fan2 a few times until you can rename it. Do the same for Fan3. You can see from the Fan tab below I have renamed them Rad fans and Case fans.
Next click on the SPEED tab...
You should now see your renamed fans in the list of 4 fans...
Above: You must set the minimum and maximum fan speed percentages at the bottom of the Speed TAB. You can see my Rad fans have been assigned a min of 30% and a max of 100%. Automatically variated must be TICKED!
You should play around with the fan speeds under manual control from the front panel to determine what minimum speed you want for the fans on SYS and PWR fan headers. Also the max. Once you've set the min and max speed % for the fans, move on to the Temperatures TAB...
The Temperature tab below is where it gets a little more complicated because you will need to think about when you want the case fans to speed up and which temperatures will cause the fans to speed up/down.
In the Temperatures tab I have selected System... If you click on the + to the left of System, you can expand it to show the 4 fans... 2 of the fans should be the ones you renamed in the Fans tab.
Above: When you click on the respective device (i.e. CORE, GPU, HD etc), you see a Desired and Warning temps boxes at the bottom of the window. You must TAKE NOTICE of what your IDLE temperatures are when you set your Desired temp!
Above example: You want to set your CPU CORE 0 to control Rad fans... Expand the Core 0 to reveal the 4 fans. Untick the fans you don't want controlled by CPU core 0 temp and tick the one you do. In my example I have unticked all but Rad fans. That's because my water rad fans cool my CPU so I want Core 0 (and u can set the other cores the same) to control the rad fans.
At the bottom of the window you see Desired and Warning. This is the temp range for Core 0. If your IDLE core 0 temp is 30c. Set Desired to about 35c. Warning is the temperature that will trigger the fans to speedup to the max you set in speed tab.
What you need to do is expand each device in the Temperature list, and Untick the fans you don't want to be affected by a particular device. For example.. I don't want my Rad fans responding to Vreg temp, so I expand the vreg (pwr) item and untick the rad fans. I do however set the Case fans to ticked, because I want Vreg to speedup my case fans when vreg gets hot.
Once you've figured out what temps you want to speedup fans and assigned them to the respective fans, you have completed your fan control profile. You can click on OK and then back on the main panel, tick the Auto fan control... Your fans should drop to the minimum speed you set under the speed tab if the temperatures are as you specified for idle temps. You should now test your profile by making the relevant parts hot! Does it work?
You may find you need to go back and tweak the temperatures. But as a general rule for setting DESIRED temps... Set DESIRED temp about 5c higher than the component's IDLE temp.
Would you like to add AUTOMATIC SHUTDOWN of your computer in the event that components go beyond certain temps?
You have two options for this...
1: Windows built in shutdown command.
2: A shutdown utility such as superfast shutdown.
The windows shutdown command will shut your pc down properly which of course can take a little while.
A shutdown utility such as superfast shutdown can shut down your PC in less than 10 seconds. I must say I've never had any problems using the superfast utility (and I used it for several years back when I had water and TEC/Peltier on CPU).
Unless you're running a TEC on CPU (and need really fast shutdown because your pump has failed and your TEC is melting your waterblock) then I would suggest the built in shutdown command is perfectly ok to use...
Above: Method 1 using the built in windows Shutdown command. In this example, I have only set 1 shutdown condition based on Core 0. In reality you would want to set shutdown conditions for as many cores as you have and perhaps other parts such as Vreg etc.
Note also that you can set shutdown or warning notifications for fan speeds (i.e. you could set shutdown to occur if a fan fails) and voltages as well.
In the above example, I have set 1 shutdown condition: If Core 0 temperature > 45c, execute shutdown /s
Note that the box to the right of the shutdown command is where you add "/s" parameter. You must add the "/s" for the shutdown command to work properly.
Note also that in the above example I specify for "3" times means the condition has to happen 3 times before we take action. Allow every n second means the event will be delayed by the number specified. If for example the action you set is a warning beep instead of shutdown, once the core temp has reached critical for "n" times, beep but allow every n seconds. If allow every n seconds is set to 5 for example, the beep action will be repeated every 5 seconds while the core is at critical temp.
For our shutdown command we can leave the "allow-every" parameter at zero.
Method 2: Superfast shutdown utility... 
Above: Go to the Events tab and choose the sensor you want from the If box. In the above example, If System (temp)...
Then choose a < less than or >= greater than or equal to specifier..
Then set the temperature that will trigger the computer shutdown...
For n times (how many times does it have to reach this temp before we shutdown?)...
Then: Execute...
In the box to the right of Then: execute, you must set a hard disk path to a program you will download called "superfast shutdown"
You must then click the Add button and the event will appear in the list window.
Click ok.
Make sure you download and install the relevant shutdown program (I have used superfast shutdown - a free application).
You don't have to shutdown your computer in an emergency, you can create an event to beep or flash a notice on screen etc...
That concludes my tutorial for speedfan fan control.
Feathers
post edited by feathers632 - Thursday, January 07, 2010 9:34 AM