h105 fans running very high in new 500D SE

[Methedrine]

Hey all,

 

So I have a weird situation, and I'm at my wits end trying to work out what is going on so I hope someone can steer me in the right direction.

 

I just bought a new 500D SE RGB and moved all my hardware across from my old case, and all is mostly running fine, but the stock fans on my h105 are running high and are very loud, and they didn't have this issue previously.

 

In the new case I have the included 3 x LL120s on the front, and have put two more in the top of the case on exhaust, and one on the rear also in exhaust. All fans are connected via the Commander Pro.

 

I've mounted the h105 against the top two of the front LL120s, and set up the stock fans to pull.

 

Mobo is a Gigabyte z170x Gaming 7, and I have the pump connected to the CPU_OPT header which is intended for AIO coolers, and the fans are connected to the CPU FAN header via a Y splitter, which is exactly how I had it set up previously as far as I can recall.

 

First thing I noticed on booting up was how loud the fans were, and they are both constantly running at over 1000 RPM, usually much higher. No matter what changes I make, whether it be in Corsair Link or on the BIOS, they just keep behaving the same way. I tried a custom curve and still no change in behaviour.

 

On a side note as well, the fans are both running at differing speeds with a massive difference between the speeds of the separate fans. I've attached a screenshot from Link, there's 700 rpm difference between the two.

 

 

What am I missing here? I've been trying to find an answer but getting nowhere. I could just disconnect the stock fans, but the LL120s don't really have the performance to cool the radiator.

 

Thank you in advance.

[c-attack]

With the fans connected to CPU fan, control will be exclusive to the BIOS. Whatever options you have lie there and I don’t see any Link controllable devices in your system. You don’t need it. Part of the problem is on cpu fan you are surely tied to cpu temp as the control variable. This can make for some very reactive fans to match the very dynamic 6700-8700 Intel series. I’ll take your word that cpu and opt can be run independently. That has been true on GA boards, but others link cpu & opt controls.

 

Since your fans are on a splitter, there will only be one reading for the pair (or for all 4?). I am not sure if that is fan 1 or 2. The other reading is the pump. I seem to recall the average for the H105 is 1800 rpm and reads true, so that would be fan 2. Make sure opt is set to 100% to get the pump it’s power. It runs at a fixed speed. If you have all four fans on one splitter, you are going to want to break them up into pairs. You’re pushing your luck on current draw (1.0A max on the board header). Additionally, trying to run two different pairs of fans with different rpm ranges is a nuisance. They will always run widely different speeds.

[Methedrine]

Thanks for your response mate.

 

So basically its the pump on CPU_OPT header and I have that running at 100% via BIOS.

 

Only the two fans on the radiator are connected to the CPU fan header via the splitter, all other fans in the case are connected to a Commander Pro.

 

 

Yeah the funny thing has been that no matter what I did in the BIOS it made no difference.

 

But I just managed to get something to change using Gigabyte's App Center and the SIV app, which has some fan control function. Now, Fan 1 is running around 755 rpm and fan 2 is about 850 - 900. So a drastic reduction from before, but it's still noisy as hell and way noisier than it was previously in the old case. This was the first time I was able to make the fans change their behaviour at all.

 

So some positive change, but not enough to get it where it should be it seems.

[c-attack]

Oh, the Commander Pro. I see it in the description above now, but didn't see it in the Link shot. So yes, you do need Link or iCUE for that. You should have a separate box for the 6 fans on the C-Pro in Link. Do you see it?

 

The 100% setting for OPT is correct and whichever reading is the pump (presumably fan #2 in the motherboard section of Link) needs to stay at 1700-1800 rpm. Don't cut that down with other software.

 

I have no idea about the current state of SIV, so I can't walk you through that. If Link is not recognizing the C-Pro, then we need to take care of that so you can the desktop control back.

 

*The stock SP120L fans that come with the H105 are PWM. It would be rather stunning if your CPU header was not, but make sure the switch is toggled the right way. On mine, it can be hard to tell whether it is in DC or PWM mode.

[Methedrine]

Yeah I have both Link and iCue running, and the LL120s on the Pro are all fine. They're doing their thing and they aren't too noisy. Perfectly fine.

 

SIV just let me choose a different setting and it just magically made the speeds drop without really doing much at all, but that noise is still there.

 

Now something I just found a bit strange, I unplugged those fans from the MB and just let the LL120s keep cooling just to see how it goes, and Link was still reporting Fan #1 and #2, with #1 reporting the same values and #2 just sitting at 130rpm... though there should be no fans for it to report back on the RPM plugged in.

 

Feeling the air from the fans mounted to the h105, one is blowing a load of air whilst the other seems to be blowing very little which is strange.

 

I can have a look to check its on PWM, but like I said nothing has changed since the configuration in the previous case. The only thing new is the Commander Pro and the LL120s.

[c-attack]

Yeah I have both Link and iCue running

 

Why Link too? The LL fans do benefit from more complex lighting controls in iCUE compared to the single effect limitation of Link. Link should have no ill effect on the operation of iCUE, but frankly I don't have a lot of data on what happens when you are running both concurrently.

 

One thing is for sure, Link is notorious for wacky motherboard data in that box. I don't recall having an issue with the fans and the older non-i H105/H110 Asetek pumps all reported true speed. I don't know enough about SIV these days to guide you with it. You might also try a full exit of Corsair software, then run HWINFO, AIDA, or one of the other popular monitors to get a second (third) opinion on what is what in the fan speed department.

 

If the two SP120L grey fans are running different speeds on the splitter, switch the two connection ends to put the other fan on the 4 pin connector. Sometimes you get a bad contact.

[Methedrine]

So I switched the fans to different headers on the splitter, and now it seems to be behaving normally again. Not sire what would have caused the problem, but it hadn't occurred to me to try that as it didnt seem to make sense.

 

Well anyway, thank you for your help. I also didn't realise that iCue replaces Link, I thought they ran concurrently so I'll test it out.

 

Now I just have an issue where the RGB isn't lighting in correct order across the fan hub so I guess I'll go work that issue out now.

[c-attack]

They occupy a different physical file location so they are not mutually exclusive the way CUE 2 is with iCUE. There are also a handful of legacy devices (original i coolers) and one rather brand new device that are not iCUE compatible. The hardware I can see for you all should be compatible and for the most part, iCUE has more options. However, if you don't like it, you can uninstall it to return physical control back to Link.