4pin CPU fan speed annoyances

[timelesspa]

I currently have a Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7 (rev2) heatsink fitted and lve had annoyances at times where the fan took a couple of power cycles to actually start spinning, however since l tend to not power down much lve not noticed this issue allot.

however recently lve noticed the fan speeds are lower than previous boots (lve had to shut down a few times due to storms) and lm pretty sure it relates to the PWM ability on the fan.

essentially ld just like to know if l got a 3pin to 4pin converter would it remove my fan speed issue as ld assume it would just power the fan to full instead of using the PWM management but at the same time still allow me to keep an eye on fan speeds/temps when required and allow the fan to go at the full 2500rpm its rated at rather than occasionally dropping to 500rpm on cold boots and run faster than the current 1840rpm lm getting as none of the bios settings checked really do much in fact turning on q-fan tends to make the fan spin slower even when set to turbo.

(l might be upgrading some point in the next few months so l just want to keep this system going until l manage to get the cash together).

 

[wingman99]

Sounds like your fan is giving out. Cant you go into bios and set the CPU fan speed to full speed.

 

[timelesspa]

lve had issues with it since day one really, and from searches lve done the bootup issues lve had are pretty common (or they are with the cooler l have).

in fact lve been wondering how many of the fans from arctic cooling could be improvised onto the freezer pro l have fitted. some of them look pretty similar in connectivity to the heatsink.. tho their main to other heatsinks is my current one has a sort of mesh with rubber things on the fan (something about reducing noise and rattle or something l read) however ld assume some of the fans of the same size would clip onto the heatsink anyways but ld prefer to be more certain when replacing.

that said, l havent ever been able to get the fan to go full speed. and lm pretty sure its down to the PWM which is why lm trying to find out if it would work if l just removed the pin that controls the ability of PWM by using a converter to plug in as 3pin but connect to the fan as 4pin if that makes sense (as others have suggested connecting to a 4pin molex that converts into 3pin, but ld rather know my fan is actually spinning faster than the occasional 500rpm drop lve seen after cold booting since l believe connecting as 3pin should still allow fan speed recording.

 

[timelesspa]

just an update, was playing around with q-fan.. did a cold boot on turbo bios was monitoring it at way over spec in speed going from a few 1000000rpms to 0rpm, ended up disabling again however since l did that lve managed to touch just shy of 1900rpm.. seems l gained about 100rpms messing with the settings.

 

[wingman99]

Sounds good, I still think you have a bad fan.

 

[timelesspa]

l took a look at the spec page on the arctic website and it mentioned something in their faq about it (tho l dont have any of the bios settings they detail l can edit). that for a fan that costs £1.70/$3 lm not spending £7/$12 just to have it shipped to the UK. that is unless someone knows of a supplier who does fans in the UK that ships from within the UK.


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Edit

l just had a novel idea, allegedly the Arctic F9s 92mm fans use the same setup as the freezer pro7 for vibration/noise reduction and essentially connect to the brackets/clipping mechanisms the same way and since arctic offer replacement of the rubber bits it should be changeable. and since l can choose between 3 and 4 pin versions l could just replace it by getting the 3pin version.

 

[RnRollie]

ebuyer.co.uk (ebuyer.com) , pcworld.co.uk ,microdirect, scan , arena ... plus numerous others in the yellow pages

and ..... http://www.arctic.ac/eu_en/where-to-buy/

 

[timelesspa]

l went through that page, but it seems l can only buy the whole unit.. lve not seen any that offer fan replacements on their own.

 

[RnRollie]

2,99 at ebuyer
http://www.ebuyer.com/410491-arctic-f9-pro-pwm-92mm-case-fan-afaco-09pp0-gba01

Remember, they'll ship from near Hull, so if you live close, you can pick it up

Anything else i can do for you?

 

[timelesspa]

after some thought l came to a similar conclusion with regards to how l could get around buying the whole unit. originally l just wanted to get the whole clip unit.. but after some thought l went the route you mentioned after googling some more and someone suggesting that the F9 essentially clipped to the heatsink clip in the same way the F9 clipped to the base so l purchased the 3pin model which will get around the annoying pwm if thats part of my issues while at the same time renewing the fan. lm just hoping it wont be too annoying taking it off the base as l dont have spare rubbers.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

You could save the fan for something else, by taking the sticker off the back, and dropping in a few drops of oil.

Doing that regularly will also help increase the fan's life too

 

[timelesspa]

knowing my luck it would drip out, and a couple of pounds spent on a fan that should work is much better than 15.. plus l can remove the pwm without adding extra cables to remove the pwm ability (the 3 to 4pin cable my friend is bringing me on monday).

 

[ehume]

That was the first heatsink I bought, back in 2009. It was one of the two mistakes I made in trying to learn all about computer-building in 2-3 days.

Get a totally different heatsink. Even if it is 3 heatpipes like this one, a heatsink with a 120mm fan will work ever so much better and the fan will be ever so much quieter.

 

[timelesspa]

when l built my current system it was such a pain to fit that lm contemplating upgrading (given the system is about 3yrs old now) tho its going to take some time to get cash together.

that said, lm hoping its easy enough to change the fan without damaging the rubbers on the clips and get my current system to last long enough in order for me to get my kit together, tho lm contemplating for the next build to get an easier heatsink to fit (along with better cooling) as well as getting a larger SSD and maybe 8 extra gig of ram given l have 2 extra slots for it, would be nice to see how 16gb ram runs along with a better, larger SSD. but l have to wait a month or two before l can even consider starting to get bits together.

so for the time being lm hoping that 3pin F9 will do the job better than the current stock Freezer pro 7 (rev2) tho it was and still is better than the original stock heatsink l got with the CPU.

 

[timelesspa]

Just an updat, fitted the f9 and although it's not completely flush it works fine and I'm getting 2200 rpm out of it (l should mention that I'm using the 3pin version).

 

[ehume]

You are lucky. I gave up on trying to replace the fan on that heatsink.

 

[timelesspa]

it works, tho its not completely flush as the stock fan with the freezer pro 7 (the vibration rubbers arent as flush with the clips as before as there is a small change in the fans shape) it works l guess saving me a good £8 in shipping etc just to get a stock version.

 

[wingman99]

Glad you got it fixed.

 

[timelesspa]

next upgrade l'll make sure l get a heatsink thats easier to replace a fan on tho will have to be careful about how high it is considering current clearance in my case (its a cooler master elite) tho l'll definitely contemplate one with a 120mil fan either way lm just glad that we are past the days of using a screwdriver to do the clips on the CPU and that these days its clips/pins/screws l hated changing heatsinks on socket A boards which is why l put off building my own system till AM2 came in since lve generally only had AMD based systems.

either way lm not really a gamer, so l'll prolly go for a price range of £200 for my next upgrade ideally updating the motherboard/cpu along with getting a new heatsink and a larger SSD (at least something over 120gb as my current 60gb SSD is too small to really install much more than the essential programs on).