Commander Pro and splitters

[tribunal88]

I've got 7 fans (iCUE SP120 RGB PRO), and 1 Commander Pro. I had 2 tied to a single port with a splitter, and then today that port stopped working. I've since read a couple posts that this can cause ports to fail. Good to know. So here are the questions.

1. What is the accepted way to get 7 fans working in iCue. 2 Commanders? That's a little impractical.

2. Is there a way to safely use splitters with the  Commander Pro that would give you a good shot at not killing a port?

3. Is there a special type of splitter I might use with these fans to get this to work?

[c-attack]

It’s the DC motor on the splitter rather than the actual splitter itself that likely caused your issues. You can get away with pairing PWM fans on the Commander Pro, but 3 pin dc seems to have near term consequences. 
 

1) Officially splitters are not supported at all, so you need another controller. 
 

2) Not directly with DC fans. 
 

3) There are a few odd powered DC fan splitter/hubs out there but the easiest solution would be to send a single fan to the MB for control. Any kind of DC hub is probably going to have a 5/7/12v switch for low/med/high speeds. I would say the mb is a better option and free. Pick whichever fan is least critical to airflow (bottom front, top-front?) for your configuration and give a low speed curve that won’t jump around too much. Although now I guess you need to find a place for two fans  

Seven is also hard for rgb control. Did you get a 3rd party splitter for that as well or two controllers? A final option would be to replace two of the SP-Pro fans with SP/ML elite that are also 8 LED and identical for RGB, but PWM motors instead. That seems a bit extreme unless there is another reason for doing that. 
 

 

Edited December 3, 2021 by c-attack

[LeDoyen]

with 3 pin fans there's no safe way to use splitters on a CoPro. the slower they run, the more heat they generate in the chip that lowers the voltage sent to them. more fans on one port = more heat = pop

With PWM fans, although it's usually not recommended, it works way better because there is no voltage drop, always 12V out.

Again with PWM fans you can offload the current draw directly to the power supply by using powered splitters. That allows the copro to only send PWM and receive tach signals making it even safer.

But for 3 pin fans, i believe you can only do one fan to one port. The CoPro has to vary the voltage to control their speed so you can't power them straight from the PSU, which would lock them at full speed.

 

Using two commanders would be the cheaper way but DC fans will always stress those inputs keeping them warm, or hot constantly.

A more elegant (and a bit more expensive) way would be to replace the SP pro with PWM fans, like the SP elite, and only use the one CoPro you have.

Even with a dead port you could use a powered splitter or a powered fan hub to connect several to one port.

 

[tribunal88]

2 hours ago, c-attack said:

It’s the DC motor on the splitter rather than the actual splitter itself that likely caused your issues. You can get away with pairing PWM fans on the Commander Pro, but 3 pin dc seems to have near term consequences. 
 

1) Officially splitters are not supported at all, so you need another controller. 
 

2) Not directly with DC fans. 
 

3) There are a few odd powered DC fan splitter/hubs out there but the easiest solution would be to send a single fan to the MB for control. Any kind of DC hub is probably going to have a 5/7/12v switch for low/med/high speeds. I would say the mb is a better option and free. Pick whichever fan is least critical to airflow (bottom front, top-front?) for your configuration and give a low speed curve that won’t jump around too much. Although now I guess you need to find a place for two fans  

Seven is also hard for rgb control. Did you get a 3rd party splitter for that as well or two controllers? A final option would be to replace two of the SP-Pro fans with SP/ML elite that are also 8 LED and identical for RGB, but PWM motors instead. That seems a bit extreme unless there is another reason for doing that. 
 

 

Yeah, I was afraid of that. I have an ASUS Crosshair VIII Hero (wifi) and I can probably find 2 fan hookups, but then I assume I'd lose the ability to control the fan speed through iCue, though I could keep the RGB at least. Probably have to download Asus's fan control software. 

Now just to double check this, I do have an H150i RGB Pro XT AIO, but I'm not using the fan hookups from that as I was told they aren't compatible with the iCUE SP120 RGB PRO fans. Is that correct?

Also, someone else asked if I was splitting the RGB and the answer to that is "No." I have 2 RGB hubs as to get to 7 fans I bought 2 3-packs which each come with the RGB hub.

[LeDoyen]

for the AIO fan controller i'll let the AIO savvy answer, but i believe they are PWM too.

the most affordable solution would be to use Asus AI suite yep. The fan drivers (the chips) are very sturdy on motherboards so they should support the rated 1A per output. And as you assumed, iCUE does not control these.

[tribunal88]

3 hours ago, LeDoyen said:

for the AIO fan controller i'll let the AIO savvy answer, but i believe they are PWM too.

the most affordable solution would be to use Asus AI suite yep. The fan drivers (the chips) are very sturdy on motherboards so they should support the rated 1A per output. And as you assumed, iCUE does not control these.

Over my lunch I went ahead and moved 2 fans to the CHA2 and CHA3 inputs on the motherboard. It turns out Asus lets you set the curves in the BIOS, but since I don't know what temp sensors drive the chassis fans, I just pegged them at 60% output (which would be 800 - 900 rpm). That's where my iCue chassis fans normally stay, even under heavy load. So I've still got the 3 radiator fans hooked to the CoPro, along with my front top and front mid fans which blow air across the motherboard/GPU. The bottom and back fans are driving off the motherboard now, and those will have the least impact on case temps out of the 7, so they can be set-it-and-forget-it. 

Thanks for all the feedback.

[Synica1]

16 hours ago, tribunal88 said:

I've got 7 fans (iCUE SP120 RGB PRO), and 1 Commander Pro. I had 2 tied to a single port with a splitter, and then today that port stopped working. I've since read a couple posts that this can cause ports to fail. Good to know. So here are the questions.

1. What is the accepted way to get 7 fans working in iCue. 2 Commanders? That's a little impractical.

2. Is there a way to safely use splitters with the  Commander Pro that would give you a good shot at not killing a port?

3. Is there a special type of splitter I might use with these fans to get this to work?

I've got 8 fans, and use a Commander Core and Lighting Node Core.  I avoid cable based splitters, but if you absolutely have to use one, I'd recommend a powered board-type splitter, like on some mid-high end cases (one came with my Fractal Design Meshify S2, for example).

Hope that helps!

[LeDoyen]

1 hour ago, tribunal88 said:

 since I don't know what temp sensors drive the chassis fans

You can install Asus AI suite (download link on the asus website, support page for your motherboard model).

The Fan Xpert module of AI suite allows you to tweak it all, select what sensor(s), make fan curves etc.. 

[c-attack]

8 hours ago, tribunal88 said:

Now just to double check this, I do have an H150i RGB Pro XT AIO, but I'm not using the fan hookups from that as I was told they aren't compatible with the iCUE SP120 RGB PRO fans. Is that correct?

That is correct and those 3 pin DC will be stuck at maximum speed all the time.  All the AIO models (Corsair or other) use PWM controllers.  The newest Corsair fan controllers (Commander Core and XT) are also PWM only.  All the new fans are PWM, including the SP-Elite.  There has been a definite move away from DC fans in the RGB era.  

 

You still can fetch the coolant temp data through the Commander/CUE if you keep the 3 radiator fans on the Commander Pro.  Use a custom curve, change the sensor choice to H150i XT Temp, and then click the concave shape tool (2nd from left).  That is equivalent to the quiet fan curve.  You can shift idle or max speed points as desired.  

 

Most recent Asus boards will allow you to change the temp sensor in the BIOS without the need for AI Suite/Fan Xpert.  It's buried in the Advanced BIOS -> Monitoring tab.  It will be text entry with thee data points and a sensor choice.  Motherboard temp is a nice steady one that is relevant to case fan speed.  However, you do need AI Suite if you want to tweak it from the desktop.  

Edited December 3, 2021 by c-attack

[tribunal88]

2 hours ago, LeDoyen said:

You can install Asus AI suite (download link on the asus website, support page for your motherboard model).

The Fan Xpert module of AI suite allows you to tweak it all, select what sensor(s), make fan curves etc.. 

I don't like the AI Suite and avoid using it.