Gigabyte MO problem

[rrevan]

Hello guys, i have a very iritating problem, and cant find any sollution.



I have purchased 2 Noctua NF-S12B 1200 PWm case fans, and i have trouble making them work on a Gigabyte motherboard model GA-H87-D3H. This model is advertise as having support for PWM fans, this beeing one of the reasons that i bought it.

So, i connect one for exhaust, at sys_fan1 and it works perfectly.

The second one, however, has an issue. It doesnt want to spin, it just twitches every2 seconds, but doesnt start.

If i push him with my hand, give it a spin, then it starts spinning and work fine until i shutdown the computer.

I tried to connect it to both sys_fan2 and sys_fan3, with same results.

I looked in BIOS, and the settings for fans are at Normal position.

However, i noticed something. When i disconnected the first fan, and tried to connect the one with the problems to sys_fan1, it worked fine. Then, i connected it again to the other 2 headers, and it worked fine again.

So, both fans are good, all three fan headers on the motherboard are good, but the fans just wont work when they are both connected at the same time. Only one will work, the one i connected first.

I downloaded and installed Gigabyte AppCenter and SIV app, tried to set the fans from there, but its the same problem. When i first boot the computer, one will only twitch, while the other works fine. Then, if i go to SIV fan control and set them to Full Speed for only a moment, it will start spinning and continue to do so, even if i revert back to regular speed.


I dont know what seems to be the problem,.


I contacted Gigabiye on their support site, but no one there seem to care, as its been 11 days now and no one has even read my ticket.

I also contacted the fans manufacturer, Noctua, and they said:

thank you very much for contacting Noctua!

This sounds like a "fake PWM header" problem. We do not have any solutions here, but probably Gigabyte has. Or any other hardware forum - I would look there for an answer. Sorry!

So i looked around in the MB manual a bit, and seems that indeed that this MB has PWM support only for CPU fan.

Any ideea how can i solve this

please help me

[rrevan]

Re: Gigabyte MO problem

I just received an answer from Gigabyte support:

The system adjusts the power delivered to the fans according to the Motherboard temperature readings. If the temperature is lower than the threshold, the power delivered to the fans will be very low.
Some fans require a power spike to start spinning (hence the twitch you notice) but since the temperatures of your systems are below the threshold, the system doesn't reach that power point and the fan doesn't begin to spin.

In case the temperature goes up, the system will automatically adjust the power delivery making the fan spin until the temperature is regulated below the threshold. This is a feature, the system is working properly.
You can try different settings in the fan profile to get the fans to function according to your needs.

Please try the other fan settings in the BIOS (PWM, High Performance etc.) and compensate with a custom FAN profile from the SIV utility under windows. If the system will boot with a higher power setting for the fan, it will start spinning at boot and it will then regulate according to the settings you apply in SIV.
Please let us know if we can assist further or if we can provide additional support!

However, if that is the case, why is one fan starting to spin as soon as i boot the computer and the other isnt.

[profJim]

Re: Gigabyte MO problem

Welcome to the forum.

In your mobo user manual, page 23 has a description of all five 4-pin fan headers, where only one fan header has PWM (pin #4) and the remaining fan headers are labeled with pin 4 = VCC. Page 44 describes the fan speed, temperature and fan setting options in the bios, but the descriptions leave a lot to be desired.

A web search using: gigabyte 4-pin fan speed control vs vcc will provide some useful information.

Also check out the following threads:

• need help understanding PWM/VCC
• (warning) Gigabyte isn t offering any fan control anymore (z87-z97)

A web search using: gigabyte slope pwm tutorial will provide some useful information.
You can try manually enabling the Slope PWM setting for each fan and experiment with different Slope PWM settings to see if this helps.


EasyTune 6 (aka ET6) should probably be avoided because ET6 has been buggy for several generations of motherboards and a few posts on the web claim that some of the unwanted ET6 changes were permanent and could not be fixed even when the bios was flashed or if the CMOS was cleared.


SpeedFan has been around for many years and this might be simplest solution.
Check out SpeeFan freeware at SpeedFan - Access temperature sensor in your computer
and Advanced Fan Control How-To: SpeedFan article: Advanced Fan Speed Control




edit: It sounds like one of your fans can't start because with your current fan header settings, the voltage to power the second fan is too low, meaning that the required voltage to start the fan is less than the minimum required voltage for the fan to start spinning.

[rrevan]

Re: Gigabyte MO problem

Thank you for reply and advices.

After reading on the subject i think that you are correct about the voltage for the second fan

I will look into those links and try to solve the issue by setting some custom profiles for fans.

What would you recommend using, Fan Speed app or SIV from Gigabyte APPCenter?

[profJim]

Re: Gigabyte MO problem

You're welcome.

All of my first hand experience is with older LGA775 motherboards and this means that I can't provide specific recommendations with your much newer system. By doing several of my suggested web searches, you will run across quite a few threads on respected forums. The best forums, such as overclock.net are "self correcting", meaning that if someone posts bad information, the more experienced forum members will reply with sound information. After looking at the information that you will come across, you'll see what issues that others with similar systems had to deal with.

I have never used SIV so I don't know if this might work for you. SpeedFan should let you customize individual fan profiles for any or all of the fans that are connected to a motherboard fan header.

Some higher end fan controllers have digital displays that let you set individual fan profiles and they will have a digital display that shows fan speed and temperature for each fan sensor. The digital fan controllers are expensive and they have a lot of individual wires for each fan that is connected to the fan controller.

You should find several links to youtube videos that might be helpful. Another source that might be helpful is to look for threads that deal with your motherboard model. You might also find helpful information from websites that have reviewed your motherboard or similar Gigabyte boards.

Let us know how things work out and you can also post additional information if you're having trouble configuring your fans.

An interesting example of bad advice on the web:
I recently installed a Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 4GB video card in my Q9650 + P35-DS4 system and it works perfectly. While searching the web for additional RX 480 information, I came across several posts that said that my RX 480 would only work with newer systems and required a motherboard UEFI setup. WRONG!!

[rrevan]

Re: Gigabyte MO problem

Well, after an exchange of messages with Gigabyte support, and some researching on the web i decided to sell the board and go for an Asus mb.

Its sad for me tho, that even those people at G support know exatcly whats wrong - the fact that their product DO NOT offer pwm case fan support, they still try to misslead me and gave me a list of useless advices and methods.


I had high regards for Gigabyte products...but after this experience, i will never buy one of their product again.