Can only control fan speed of 2 out of 5 fans

[Jonas256]

Hi, I recently installed Corsair iCue (v.4.33.138) for better control of my fans. I have a H100i Elite Capellix (i picked the specs of my PC but did not build it myself) with 5 fans: 2 in the front, 2 on top and 1 in the back.

Turns out only 2 fans (the ones in the front) are reacting to iCue changing the fan speed. (with the pump it works as well)

Fan #3-#5 do not react at all, also when setting up a curve. Since I have seen multiple suggestions for similar problems that said "use a curve instead of the settings up there": No, that doesn't work either.

Changing RGB settings works perfectly fine for all fans+pump which confuses me the most, also the wizard at "Lighting Setup" you can run in the bottom left corner recognizes all the fans:

I don't know incredibly much about PC stuff so I don't know if I can do anything against it or if it's just a hardware problem I probably can't do anything about. So I would appreciate some help ^^ Thank you in advance

[Corsair Notepad]

What specific fans are connected to what PWM ports on the controller?

[Jonas256]

I'm not gonna lie I have no idea, like I said I didn't build it myself and I don't know all too much about computer hardware. Is there a way I can check that without disassembling half of my PC? Like what exactly do I have to look for?

[c-attack]

Shutdown the pc snd flip the PSU off. Then go around back and disconnect the fans on ports 3-5. Look to see if there are 3 or 4 holes on the fan connector. Possibility someone used the older SP-Pro fans that look like your AIO fans but are DC motors with the usual 3 wire connector. The Commander Core is a PWM only controller and there should be 4 wires/holes on the fan end. 
 

If they all do have 4 wires, then this is not all for naught. If a fan is not responding to its control signal, first thing you should do is disconnect and reconnect. This is complicated by the auto detect feature on the Commander Core. The PSU power off while you fiddle with it will then force the controller to do a full check when you power back on. 
 

RGB is completely separate from fan speed on these. There are two separate wires and power sources for each. 

[LeDoyen]

Just an example of what a DC controlled  fan connector (3 pins) looks like compared to a PWM fan connector (4 pins). Yours will be black, but they will be like this, with either 3 wires or 4 wires.

 

The controller can only change the speed of 4 pin fans.

When you look on the controller, it will have two rows of connectors, one labelled "RGB HUB", that's for the fans LED lighting and you don't care about it 🙂 

Check the connectors on the side labelled "Fans"

That's the side where the motors of the fans are connected, for speed control.

 

[Jonas256]

Would really like to try and check that, if I knew where to look. I don't see the Commander Core anywhere in my PC, where is it usually located? Probably a dumb question, but I think it's pretty tidily built, you don't really see where the cables are going and I am not very confident disassembling anything to look for it

[LeDoyen]

it depends on what case it is 🙂

Usually it's behind the motherboard, and you can access it by opening the case's side panel.

[LordDarkseid]

On 2/18/2023 at 9:16 AM, LeDoyen said:

Just an example of what a DC controlled  fan connector (3 pins) looks like compared to a PWM fan connector (4 pins). Yours will be black, but they will be like this, with either 3 wires or 4 wires.

 

The controller can only change the speed of 4 pin fans.

When you look on the controller, it will have two rows of connectors, one labelled "RGB HUB", that's for the fans LED lighting and you don't care about it 🙂 

Check the connectors on the side labelled "Fans"

That's the side where the motors of the fans are connected, for speed control.

 

thanks for this breakdown. I wish I would have known before purchasing the AF120s. I got 6 of them plugged into the Commander Core XT and they are loud at full speed 1300rpm. Oddly Fan Control does not seem to be able to see the other 6 LLs I have either

[Jonas256]

Alright well I had a look at it now, and it does look like Fan 1 and 2 are 4 Pin Fans and #3-#5 3 Pin Fans:

Then there is nothing I can do right? Like, you can't control these at all?

[LeDoyen]

Not with a PWM controller as you have now. 

You'd need to change the fans to PWM models, or disconnect those 3 pin fans and connect them to the motherboard, as it can control 3 pin DC fans. But in turn you lose iCUE control over them and will have to set their fan curve through BIOS or with the motherboard software on windows.

Not sure what sounds more comfortable for you to do. Since those 3 fans sound like being screwed directly to the case and not to the AIO, they will be fairly easy to change if you don't mind getting 3 PWM fans. There are several corsair models that are also 8 LEDs and will be plug and play for you, and which conveniently come in 3-packs. It would be a matter of removing the 3 fans ,and reconnecting the new ones the same way to the commander core. You get full iCUE control, speed and lighting.

If you want to connect the existing fans to the motherboard, you just have to unplug those 3 pin connectors and route them to free motherboard fan headers (check on the motherboard manual where they are, you should have a few chassis fan headers).

This way you'll keep lighting control with iCUE as they are connected to the commander, but the speed will be controlled through the motherboard software (no idea what make/model it is, for Asus, it would be AI-suite software for example). You may have to go in the bios though to select for each port the control type (PWM or DC, and set that to DC).

Or, just leave them as is, at full speed, if the noise does not annoy you 🙂