Very basic question re Commander Mini

Hi,

I'm totally new to this sort of PC gear but have built myself a darn good computer and have added a Commander Mini simply because I didn't have enough fan headers on my motherboard (maybe not what I needed to buy, but hey, it's done now !).

The Commander comes with hardly any documentation, and I just want to know what does it do ? Okay, it allows you to connect devices to it, but I was already doing that via the mobo.

Does the commander mini actually give you better control over your fans, and if so, how ? I simply don't see any difference in the Link software (other than the Commander Mini is being shown in the System picture).

Please help me understand what the Commander Mini actually gives me :)

Thanks.

1: possible to survelliance the memory temperature of DHX equipped memories via the Airflow Pro LED display, once you buy the CL Airflow Pro Cable.

2: You can connect your PSU to that, and avoid wasting precious USB headers on your mobo.

3: Some older hXXXi hydro coolers can connect via a link Cable instead of using a USB header.

You can connect 4 temp sensors, good for example monitoring the temp of your RAID Array (since the temp of a RAID Array cannot be reported to the computer if the raid controller does not specifically support that, and the builtin BIOS RAID does often not support that).

The temp sensors can also be used to montor other temperatures inside the computer.

6 fans with PWM Control.

Also, you can connect one RGB LED Lightning strip too.

Thanks Sebastian, that's pretty much what I figured (apart from your item 1) - which I have no experience of).

After posting my question, I decided to try and right click on the fans which I know are connected to the commander and it seems you have a few more options there.

(see attachment)

Connecting the PSU (mine's an AX760i) directly to the Commander, in my experience, gives me less options in Link than when it was connected directly to the MB ????

Question (now that I don't have any spare USB's on the Mobo but I do have others thanks to my NZXT USB expansion, which gives me more internal USBs) - Can I connect my PSU directly to the NZXT USB expander ? Will that work do you think ? Or does the D-Link for the PSU *have* to be connected to a USB header on the mobo ?

And finally (sorry !) but since adding my Commander, I seem to have all these other dials and temps (labelled ASUSTek) - I have NO idea where these came from or even what they actually refer to. Any ideas why they might suddenly be appearing ?

Thanks :)

PS - what is PWM control and why might I want that (usually I set things to be 'auto' or a preset of some kind but in the case of the PSU being connected to the Commander, I've noticed that it doesn't seem to work unless I change the fan configuration to PWM, and then lower or change the percentage and then the PSU fan goes at 100%......)

JezUK: It shouldnt give you less options, since the small "adapter" you put between the link Cable and USB header, is actually a very small "Commander mini" (call it a Commander Micro).

It might be that you need to update the firmware on Commander Mini.

The all other dials and temps are from your motherboard. Corsair link reads them too. It might be possible, in the BIOS, to completely disable these motherboard fan outputs to avoid these "fans" appearing.

PWM is short for Pulse Width Modulation. Its a technicue for regulating the fan speed with higher efficiently than regulating the voltage.

A normal fan is a brushless motor that is driven at a certain speed by the Circuit on the fan. When you drive the fan at a lower voltage than designed, the Circuit cannot keep up and the fan will run slower - which are your intent, but the fan will degrade quicker and the fan is really not designed to be driven with lower voltage than 12v. The fan also don't run with full Power.

PWM is a new feature on fans that is added by adding a pin, so instead of GND, +12v and RPM, you add a PWM signal, so you have GND, +12v, RPM and PWM.

The PWM signal, allows the circuity on the fan, to itself regulate the timings on the magnetic coils, so the fan can run at a lower speed, but with full Power, since the fan is Always fed with 12v.

Basically, you feed the fan a "desired speed signal" by modulating a Square wave in a way that its "ON" in X ms and "OFF" in Y ms, such as X is Z % of X+Y, and thus the fan will run in a speed of Z % of its max speed.

What you then get back, is the "actual speed signal" via the RPM signal.

To use the PWM function, your fans must have 4-pin connectors with 4 wires emerging from them. If the fans only have 3 wires, I would not recommend running them on Commander mini, instead run them off the motherboard output and set the output on motherboard to "max" or "no fan Control" so the fan runs at full speed.

Auto DO work on the PSU, but the AXi series do have a thing called "0 RPM fan mode", which means the PSU do turn off the fan when its not needed.

If you instead set a preset in %, you should be able to set the fan anywhere between 40% to 100%. If that does not work, try using the RPM mode, but the RPM mode is buggier than the % mode.

I would recommend putting the PSU fan like 75 % or whatever, to cool the PSU more and thus longer the lifespan of the PSU.

About the USB expander, the USB expander is only a "internal USB hub" and will expand the USB ports like a standard external USB hub. So there is no problems connecting the "Commander Micro adapter" delivered with the PSU to that.

HOWEVER, if the USB expander take a while to "boot up", you might end up with multiple AX760i's in Corsair Link. Then you might need to move the USB Cables around a Little bit to ensure the USB ports are ready to initalize the PSU when its time to do that.

BTW: Your GPUs are overheating. Guess those temps are idle, then the GPUs will meltdown as soon as you Watch a video on Youtube or launch a Adobe flash game. I would recommend using your Nvidia software to select a more aggressive fan profile. Theres no HG10's for the Quadro series. Consider upgrading your GPUs instead, maybe GTX 760s to be able to add HG10 + AIO coolers, for example 2x H80i GT, which are then mounted in the front, or you could stick to a single card to mount a h100i GTX or even the upcoming h110i GTX in the front. (I dont know if your chassis can take a 280mm in the front, but it can certainly take a 240mm if you get rid of the HDDs and replace them with SSDs using 5.25 SSD mounts)

Hi Sebastian,

And thank you so much for your thorough reply - I really appreciate it and understand totally what you're saying.

I'll see how my computer fares over the next few weeks. I am sorting out a couple of niggles and seem to be getting there - and one that I'd particularly like to see the back of is this issue that sometimes I see "Zero" gauge and temp. readings in Link with me constantly having to delete those zero gauges and indicators and replacing them with newer, auto-regenerated (by Link) ones that do have readings on them - I don't want to be constantly doing that all the time !

I hope you're wrong about my GPUs :) They're new and were expensive and I've seen much higher temperatures than that on those (I think around 70+ going by memory) as they are professional rendering and viewport performance cards specifically for my 3DS Max software.

(can't remember where I saw or read it but I thought that GPUs could run safe up to a max somewhere around 80+ ?).

Anyway, I'll Google some more and convince myself I'm okay with my GPUs :) (be nice if I could get SLI to work, but it doesn't even come up as a listed option in the NVidia control panel - though the panel does complain when I put the SLI bridge onto the wrong slots !).

Once again, many thanks for your assistance - and have a great day :)

PS - Found and downloaded the Spec sheet for the Quadro K4200 - these things are designed to shutdown at 100degs celsius so I think I'm okay :)