Talk:Computer fan control

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Some are mounted in 5.25" drive bay and has knobs or something that can adjust the speed?

Fan Speed Controllers

Ah. Made the big changes to the article, and forgot the hardware hacking manual fan speed controller. *smack*. Alright, adding time!

Branespace 18:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, added fan speed controllers

Branespace 18:21, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Voltmodding? WHAT?! since when does +5v and +12v = 7v across a fan?

who wrote that crap? Asicmod (talk) 04:14, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Popularity of PWM

The article says "The method by which the software physically controls the fan is usually PWM". I'm not sure that's right. I haven't seen any fans with four wires or any motherboards with four pin fan headers yet but, then, I haven't seen so many fans or motherboards (not above a dozen of each in the last 12 months).

Especially given the aural perception problem with PWM and its expense plus it being relatively new I suspect most of the fan control being done by software right now is by varying the voltage supplied to the fan, not PWM. --Nh5h (talk) 12:36, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Intel has been including two PWM fan header on it's motherboards for years, such as the D975XBX ("Bad Axe"). Likewise, Intel's stock fan/heatsink assemblies also use PWM. 68.84.185.233 (talk) 00:17, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What PWM Fan Noise ?

There is a problem with this sentence in the article:

"Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is a common method of throttling fans, but has a big disadvantage if used to silence fans."

Perhaps this theoretically true, but in practical desktop computer applications it is absolutely false and misleading. I now have 6 PWM high performance Delta fans. PWM makes these Delta beasts quiet enough for daily use. That is half the point of using PWM in the first place.

If others agree, I suggest that they change this text to something more accurate. Furthermore, the theoretical PWM noise issue should reference and put in some kind of practical context.

If you externally PWM an fan already being driven by the onboard PWM control circuit you could then cause audible (to human hearing range) harmonics due to the whole Nyquist thing. Since PWM usually is at a frequency above human hearing, if you double-modulated it you'd get harmonics/aliasing. Perhaps that's what they're referring to?

Possibly you could get around this by using a low pass filter on the onboard PWM, to provide clean power to the external PWM, but I'm not even sure if any/some/most external speed controls are PWM.* Asicmod (talk) 04:07, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How does software, which is digital, exert physical control?

"The method by which the software physically controls the fan" -- What does "physically" mean here? Software is not a physical component. That's why it's "soft". What other kinds of control are you trying to differentiate from? Does the fan also control the fan mentally? Emotionally? Financially? Why not just say "The method by which the software controls the fan"?