Periodic Fan speed oscillation, perhaps a key for a more silent operation?

[Sacco Belmonte]

I wonder if any vendor ever considered a fan controller that works like this:

 

- You set the fan to 800RPM

 

- The software will control the fan using a long sine wave (with a 4s period or more) to make it oscillate between 750 and 850 RPM. Or maybe even less 790 to 810RPM.

 

Fans are more quiet when changing speed, when they settle they tend to resonate and create a tone.

 

iCUE could totally do that via software.

 

What do you think?

[Sacco Belmonte]

Bumpty bumpty Bump!

[Sacco Belmonte]

Really. nobody?

[c-attack]

Were you hoping one of us would launch a kickstarter campaign? More seriously, from times past I do remember a few motherboard fan controllers had deliberate oscillations. I understood what they were doing and why, but as you might suspect people complained incessantly. I would not expect to see this anywhere except in aftermarket manual fan controllers. I suppose you could mimic to some extent by setting everything to CPU Temp as the control variable, but that might be more than you bargained for.

[Sacco Belmonte]

I seriously think it could be a great thing to have in iCUE

[Corsair James]

If I recall, fans inherently have up to a 10% variance in RPM (you're never going to get an exact 800 RPM). Also, most of the noise you hear isn't from the fan but rather the volume of air being moved (i.e., ML fans). But I can always bring this up internally to see if there are any benefits.

[Sacco Belmonte]

Yeah might be a good idea to run experiments and see if there's a real benefit. Mostly between 600RPM and the 1100RPM range. Anything below or over makes no sense to test as real slow speeds aren't audible and at high speeds there's probably nothing you can do.

 

I don't know which amount of oscillation would be the best, that would need to be tested with an actual low frequency oscillator modulating the set speed of a fan until you hopefully find an amount small enough to avoid having it staying at a fixed frequency that can make itself and the case resonate.

 

The source of the sound could be a combination of a bit of mechanical sound in the bearing area and the actual blades beating the air. All I know is that a fan is more silent while sweeping from one speed to the other and resonates when it settles.

 

If the results conclude there is an advantage then that would be yet another reason for customers to buy Corsair and use iCUE.