Z170A-X1 3pin fan speed control?
Printed From: ASRock.com
Category: Technical Support
Forum Name: Intel Motherboards
Forum Description: Question about ASRock Intel Motherboards
URL: https://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=3465
Printed Date: 20 Jul 2025 at 7:18pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.04 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Z170A-X1 3pin fan speed control?
Posted By: ThatGuy
Subject: Z170A-X1 3pin fan speed control?
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2016 at 9:53am
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I have a 120mm 3pin case fan plugged into CHA_1 and CHA_2. When I use Fan-Tastic I can control the 4pin CPU fan, but the 3pin fans just run at maximum no matter the setting. Does this budget board not support 3pin voltage-adjust fan speed or am I missing something? I don't see any settings to change, I thought it was supposed to auto-detect between 3pin and 4pin. Thanks for the help. Just built this system and I'm really happy with the value of this board so far.
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Replies:
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2016 at 11:32am
I would be surprised if all the fan headers on your board were only able to control four pin, PWM fans. That is normally more expensive to implement. But I don't know if that is true or not. That would be unique in my experience with ASRock boards. What model of 120mm three pin fans are you using? Which Fan-Tastic tuning are you using, the one in the UEFI/BIOS, or the one in your board's A-Tuning program? If you use the Windows A-Tuning program, do you have it configured to Auto-run when Windows boots? The Fan-Tastic tuning feature in your board's UEFI has the GUI type interface, have you used it? If so, did you use the Custom fan speed option? If so, did you select which temperature source is being monitored for the Chassis fans? That should be either the CPU or mother board, mother board is normally the default. The specs for your board does not mention the automatic three and four pin fan detection. My Z170 Extreme7+ board has all four pin fan headers, and I can use three pin fans on any of the Chassis fan headers, and control their speeds fine. But my board's specs include the auto-detect feature. The Fan-Tastic tuning option in your board's A-Tuning program, should have a Fan Test button on each fan header's screen. All it does is run the fan from full voltage downward until either the fan stops spinning, or the minimum voltage is reaches. Have you ever tried that with your three pin fans? ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow"> 
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ThatGuy wrote:Posted By: ThatGuy
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2016 at 12:34pm
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Thanks for your reply parsec. The fans are 3 pin coolermaster 120mm. I was originally using the BIOS fan control. I tried custom and all the presets, switched the temp from CPU to motherboard temp monitoring, nothing makes a difference, they just run full speed (~2050rpm). After seeing your reply I installed A-Tuning and it wouldn't work either. Fan test shows same full RPM from 100%-10%. Is it possible I'm missing a driver for my motherboard? I don't have an optical drive so I didn't use the disc it came with, I just got the LAN driver on a USB and let windows update do the rest. No yellow ! in the device manager so I figured I'm good, but maybe I'm missing something? |
Posted By: ThatGuy
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2016 at 1:57pm
| I installed the drivers from the ASRock website for the motherboard, just in case that was the issue, but I still have no control over the 3pin fans on either CHA_FAN1 or CHA_FAN2. |
Posted By: ThatGuy
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2016 at 3:47am
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Still trying to solve this. I read about the skylake cpu fan issues and saw that once someone updated their bios they had another setting of auto or 4pin, and I thouoght maybe 3pin would be in there too. I updated to 1.7 and there are no new fan settings in my bios. If I can't figure this out soon I'll have to send the board back for refund and get a different one that can control my 3pin case fan speed, because I can't handle this noise in my living room. ASRock boards seem to have fan control issues/poor documentation. There's not a word anywhere I can find about the fan headers in the manual other than where they are on the board, and for some reason, how to plug the fans in the right orientation, even though they're keyed and you can only plug them in one way. Take out that useless information and include the specifics about speed control.
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