Z170 Pro4 Fan Control

I purchased and installed a Z170 Pro4 board, and while it's working great so far, it's somehow missing fan control settings for Chassis Fan 3. The settings are there for the CPU Fan and Chassis Fans 1 & 2, but there's simply no option to adjust Chassis Fan 3, which is troublesome for me because that's my rear fan and is very noisy.

I am on the latest BIOS and did not see if it was present in the stock BIOS. Is this a bug or am I somehow missing the option?

Edit: Additionally, while the setting is present for Chassis Fan 2, it doesn't actually work.


Edited by PiERiT - 12 Apr 2016 at 10:10am

Well, I'd prefer it if my board's features worked. :)


Edited by PiERiT - 12 Apr 2016 at 10:07am

All I can work from is your board's manual, and my experience with ASRock boards, but given that it seems there is no fan speed control in the UEFI/BIOS for the Chassis 3 fan header. There may be a reason for that.

I suspect that the situation is a confusion with the purpose of the three pin fan header on your board, labeled as item 26 in your board's manual.

Many earlier ASRock boards have a three pin fan header that is labeled the Power Fan header. My Z97 Extreme6 board has one of these three pin Power Fan headers.

The Power Fan headers never have any fan speed control associated with them by design. Their intent is to provide a fan header that provides a full 12V at all times. These headers can be useful with low noise fans that constantly run at full speed, for use with manual fan speed controls, or to power the pumps on AIO CLC liquid coolers.

With their Intel 100 series chipset boards, ASRock changed to a four pin connector for the Chassis fans. The four pin chassis fans have fan speed control available in the UEFI/BIOS, and in the board's utility program provided by ASRock.

A few of the 100 series boards like yours have one three pin fan connector, which seems to be of the power fan type. For some reason these fan headers were not labeled as Power fans, but were included as Chassis fans in their identification. That is the confusion I mentioned earlier.

I may be wrong about this, but it fits what I've seen with other ASRock boards, and also fits the design change to all four pin Chassis fan headers in the 100 series chipset boards, that use Smart Fan Speed Control.

I realize the three pin Chassis fan header is listed in the specifications as having fan speed control, but IMO that is a mistake.
 
Your board's A-Tuning utility will have a fan speed control section, called Fan-Tastic Tuning, that mirrors what is available in the UEFI/BIOS. Do you use that now?

You can check if its Fan-Tastic Tuning feature includes fan speed control for the three pin Chassis Fan 3 connector, but I would not be surprised if it does not include it.

If I'm completely wrong, then your board has gone through quite a few UEFI/BIOS updates (10+) without this omission being corrected. I doubt that is possible, sorry to say.

The fan headers are not quite all the same, most of them are four pin fan headers that can work with both three and four pin fans.

IMO, since you don't have any fan control for the Chassis 3 fan with Fan-Tastic tuning, it is not missing by mistake. The Chassis 3 fan header on your board seems to be the same as the Power Fan connectors on other ASRock boards.

Are you using Fan-Tastic Tuning in the BIOS, in Windows with A-Tuning, or both?

The Fan-Tastic tuning in A-Tuning has a Fan Test button for each of the fans it controls. That runs the fan from its highest to lowest speed, and shows the RPM vs speed % setting in Fan-Tastic Tuning. Did you run the test for each fan?

What is the exact model of fan you are using on the Chassis 2 connector? Does it have a three or four wire connection?

All fans are different regarding their highest and lowest speed, what voltage they need to begin spinning, how much power they use, etc. There are very few standards about fan performance and speed. That means a few fans can have such unique operating characteristics that they need special adjustment or configuration to be controlled as you desire.

jausling wrote: I'm having the same problem!!!! Its infuriating. Its like a jet, especially as i have an in win 303 and theres like 6 fans inside. I only need to control the 3 fans attached to the 3 pin outlets, as the others are quiet, but I cannot.

Have you configured the fan speeds in the UEFI/BIOS, in the H/W Monitoring screen?

What model of fans are you using, the exact model name please.

Chassis Fan 1 and Chassis Fan 2 have individual configuration settings in that screen. You must also select which temperature source to be monitored, the CPU or mother board temperature.

You can select a preset fan speed curve, or select Custom where you set five temperatures, each with a corresponding fan speed percentage.

Do you use the A-Tuning utility that is supplied on your board's download page? If so, do you have it set to auto-run when Windows starts? If so, while the A-Tuning fan speed control settings should match what you have set in the UEFI/BIOS, the A-Tuning settings will override the UEFI/BIOS settings while you are in Windows. Once you restart the PC, the UEFI/BIOS settings will be used.

If you have not configured the fan speed control in the H/W Monitoring screen yourself, it is possible that the default settings will run your fans at a high speed, and be loud.

Are you telling us that in spite of configuring the fan speeds in the UEFI/BIOS, the fans still run at full speed? Are you using a program to monitor the fan's speed? Did you ever run the Fan Test for each fan connected to a fan header, in the Fan-Tastic Tuning feature in A-Tuning? What does A-Tuning show for the fan speeds?