New to HWiNFO - need help with noisy system fan

[marky000]

Hi all

Pretty new when it comes to HWiNFO.

I have an issue with an old Dell T5500 tower. It has at least 4 fans in total (excluding GPU fan). At first, it was so noisy but I got it quieter by turning on Intel SpeedStep in BIOS. There is nothing else in the BIOS that helps.

While it is better, there is still a noisy fan that I believe to be a system chipset fan, most likely the north bridge chipset. I haven't been able to disconnect the fan to verify due to it being stubborn despite having a go at it with pliers. Regardless, the fan needs to be there anyway.

I get this message when I initially run HWiNFO.

After hitting continue, I am able to find the sensor that seems to be driving all the fans as seen in this image. I suspect the noisy fan is the one reported to be at 4300RPM.

However, I am not having much luck when it comes to fan control, although I am aware that there are other programs that may be better with respect to fan control. Setting manual seems to have no effect and custom auto doesn't make sense as I don't know which fan is which etc.

The fan connector appears to be 4 pin but I see 5 different wires in total (green, yellow/red, black green). Image attached.

Can anyone point me in the right direction as to my next step. Googling says this motherboard's fan control may not be configurable although a few have reported being able to control the CPU fan and HDD bay fan. I have found nothing with respect to the chipset system fans.

Thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[Martin]

HWiNFO currently supports controlling up-to 3 fans. I will extend this in the next (Beta) build to 4 fans, so you should be able to control that fan too.

 

[marky000]

HWiNFO currently supports controlling up-to 3 fans. I will extend this in the next (Beta) build to 4 fans, so you should be able to control that fan too.

Thanks for that but to be clear. I haven't been able to control any of the fans. I would be more than happy to just control 1 fan i.e. for the fan that has over 4000 RPM.

 

[Martin]

What does that mean, the fans don't react to any manual command?
Have you tried with the "Use System Auto Control Method 1" or "Use System Auto Control Method 2"?

 

[marky000]

What does that mean, the fans don't react to any manual command?
Have you tried with the "Use System Auto Control Method 1" or "Use System Auto Control Method 2"?

Correct, they do not respond to manual commands.

 

[Martin]

Then I'm afraid I can't help here, the firmware is blocking it.

 

[marky000]

I guess that I wanted to check that I was doing things correctly. I wasn't really able to find a walk-though guide. Where I am confused is when it says Fan1, Fan 2 and Fan 3, how would one associate the various fans found under sensor status with fan control. This Dell system reports 4 fans of CPU, Mainboard, Chipset and Chipset so there is potentially 4 fans to control. I just don't understand which fan I am controlling in the fan control section. I hope that makes sense and thanks for your efforts.

 

[Martin]

The order of fans in Fan Control is same as in the sensors list. So Fan1=CPU, Fan2=Mainboard, etc.

 

[marky000]

Oh ok thank you. Your first reply now makes sense I will play around with things a bit more to see if I can at least manually control the CPU fan. My final question (I hope) relates to the manual control. Is there a reason why the slider goes up in large increments? For example, on one of my screen shots, Fan 3 goes up in increments of 2700RPM. I figure there is some technical reason behind that.

 

[Martin]

This is due to a limitation in firmware which allows setting only 3 fan speed levels - Off, Low speed, Medium speed.