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Fan control when using Linux?

tonka-tommy
Level 7
I have the mentioned motherboard.
Running Windows 10 Pro 64bit.

I would like to use a different fan controlling software other than Fan Xpert 3.
Downloaded SpeedFan, but it can't see any of the fans connected to the motherboard.
HWMonitor also can't see any of the fans connected to the motherboard.

When I'm using Linux Mint 17.3.
lm_sensors can't see any of the fans either.
As well as a lot of other sensors etc.

Is this to do with the circuitry ASUS have created or am I just missing something?
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8 REPLIES 8

Chino
Level 15

Chino wrote:
Other than SpeedFan, I don't know of any alternatives to Fan Xpert III. Why not control them via the BIOS?


Hey Chino, yea I may just have to.. It's just nice to have control without having to go to bios each time.

sl@sh wrote:
I see you have a corsair 780 T. Did you connect the fan power cables to the connectors coming from the front panel, or to the fan connectors on the motherboard?


Hey sl@sh, Straight to the motherboard, I haven't used the fan controller that comes with the case. I might just give it a go and see what it's like.


I still have the issue with not being able to see the connections through the OS. Is this a common problem?

tonka-tommy wrote:
Hey Chino, yea I may just have to.. It's just nice to have control without having to go to bios each time.

Make sure you buy PWM fans and you can control them by temperature. I set mines and just leave them alone. 🙂

sl
Level 7
I see you have a corsair 780 T. Did you connect the fan power cables to the connectors coming from the front panel, or to the fan connectors on the motherboard?

sl
Level 7
@tonka: I am using the case connectors. But that means the motherboard is not connected to them at all, and therefore the BIOS can't see them. I only connected the water pump and CPU fan to the appropriate pins on the mobo. Those I see, both in BIOS and in cpu-z. But not the others.

I never tried, but I would expect that the BIOS recognizes fans connected to the mobo. I take it you do see them in BIOS?

sl@sh wrote:
@tonka: I am using the case connectors. But that means the motherboard is not connected to them at all, and therefore the BIOS can't see them. I only connected the water pump and CPU fan to the appropriate pins on the mobo. Those I see, both in BIOS and in cpu-z. But not the others.

I never tried, but I would expect that the BIOS recognizes fans connected to the mobo. I take it you do see them in BIOS?


Yea I can see all the fans in the BIOS, but I can't see them using SpeedFan or HWMonitor or using Linux at all.
Seems strange that only the AI Suite 3 can see them. Unless ASUS has done this on purpose??

Menthol
Level 14
Personally I use the bios to manage my fans both CPU and case fans, ASUS bios is very good at this, once you set them to your liking it's done, I don't like installing software that is not needed, in my experience these programs can cause conflicts and issues that are difficult to troubleshoot
Simplicity is Bliss

Menthol wrote:
Personally I use the bios to manage my fans both CPU and case fans, ASUS bios is very good at this, once you set them to your liking it's done, I don't like installing software that is not needed, in my experience these programs can cause conflicts and issues that are difficult to troubleshoot
Simplicity is Bliss

98% agreed, I prefer to have the BIOS control things, but the 2% is that I do like to be able to check it in the OS which is where linux is problematic.

tonka-tommy, to incompletely answer your question and share your frustration - I doubt anyone is trying to hide anything, but rather linux needs to be made aware of how/where/what it needs to talk to get this information and control these things. Even if you know its on an i2c bus for instance, you still need to know what registers are there and how they work to control/view it (hence my question about lm_sensors, I am too lazy to figure it out myself if someone already has).

Much like the corsair USB situation - its just a dumb device on the USB bus. In fact, people have reverse engineered its register space, but over the years standards and consistency have been hard to come by unless some killer app/feature/competitor forces the issue, so they scatter such things around as hardware needs dictate and then assume they will pretty it up in software.