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I just bought a replacement case fan (link to Tiger Direct here) and the fan seems to be working great, but unfortunately I was under the impression this fan had speed control. I have checked my BIOS and I can see "SYS FAN 1 SPEED" although it is read-only. Is it possible for me (using Vista) to control the speed of a case fan connected to the motherboard?

masegaloeh
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Kyle B.
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3 Answers3

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Look at Wiki - Fan Control

Fan Types:
Common cooling fans will have either two, three, or four pins on the connector.

Two-pin fans operate either as an on/off fan, or can be controlled by varying the voltage.
Three-pin fans add a tachometer reporting wire so the controlling system can measure the actual speed.
Four-pin fans add a fourth wire to control fan speed using PWM (Pulse-width modulation.)

4-pin connector enables fan speed control. 3-pin connector just enable fan speed sensing. The one you've got is unfortunatelly with a 3-Pin connector.

You need something like this ZALMAN FAN MATE 2 Fan Controller to control the speed.

Jindrich
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I have used speedfan and am pretty happy with it, especially its logging features.

If you dont want to run speedfan, this article claims that you can control the speed of any fan inside your box with a simple and free hack:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/496

cop1152
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Take a look at Speedfan, it'll let you control fan speeds and more.

snacsnoc
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    Speedfan can control fan speeds of PWM fans, but is unlikely to be able to help in this case. In addition, having speedfan installed on a server just doesn't seem like a robust solution. – thomasrutter Feb 25 '10 at 05:40