Hi, Does anyone know if there is software to minimise computer fans speed. Mine sounds like a jet engine. I did use Asus pc suite but it's unstable. Just curious if there was anything else I. Could try. Thanks.
What motherboard are you using, and is this fan connected to the board or directly to the power supply. Is it a three or four wire fan (4-wire = pwm and that should be adjustable). Recently I had an AMD cpu fan that went bad and would only run on the highest speed, could not slow down. I wrote to AMD and they did send me a new fan, the new fan could adjust it's speed properly and ran quietly again.
If you are on 3 wire header buy an 3 pin Y-cable for two or more fans and a low rotation fan is advised.
Also, before doing anything, check your hardware temperatures (google "hwmonitor"). If your system sounds like a jet engine, maybe something is wrong with it. If your system sounds like a diesel engine, you have damaged/worn out fans and most probably they need replacement
I am experimenting over a long period of time with noisy fans. What I figured out is that throttling fans through software is like painting your oil lamp black out from your car if it lights up. (Instead of refilling oil and fixing the real problem not only symptoms) In my experience the first step is always cleaning up the fan. It require often to dissamble it completely but it's worth it if you see the dust you can remove from it. The next is the thermal paste renewal - I have good experience with arctic thermal paste that is fluid over years and changes the temp up to 5-10 degree down Celsius in my cases. The next part is to replace fans with ultra silent ones - I went also with arctic ultra silent fans as you have to push you ear onto them to hear them work. One successful way is to use triple as effective fans and coolers as needed like 150w tpm for a 40w tpm cpu and drive the fan with 5V instead of 12V. I use step down modules for that but keep the temperature always in mind. If the budget and the space in the case allows it, there are corsair water cooling all in one solutions that are also silent for 50 to 150 bucks. All I mentioned be for is from 5 to 30 bucks in cost. No you reached the step in my opinion to mess with fan speed, cpu throttling and stuff, tools are mentioned before. If you are fancy a teensy usb controller could make your day by programming it's hysteresis to your fan noise in relation to temperature courve in combi with temp sensors and voltage regulation and if you like some led lights and stuff. The beauty with the teensy is that you can flash it via usb and you can use it independent from a pc with every 5V or usb adapter. Hope that might help you.
These are the major causes of fan making high noise that I have often come across. Some second tier cooling fans(we called them fake fans over here) can also be a big factor.
The 7V wiring can be dodgy because it is possible to sink current into the 5V regulator in the PSU, which is usually designed to source current only. The result could be unfortunate, depending on the exact topology. Laboratory PSUs' regulated outputs are designed differently (and at more expense) to cope with this reversed situation and allow sink as well as source. However, it often works because the 5V rail is already sourcing much more current that the little bit of sink current from the fan. So, this just lowers the source current from the 5V rail rather than reversing the flow. Effectivelly, the current sink from the 12V/fan goes though the other components attached, and hence to ground, rather than back into the 5V rail. Naive but illustrative example: Fan draws 100mA at 7V. If there is no load on the 5V rail, this 100mA reverses into the regulator - bad!. If the current drawn from the 5V rail by other hardware is already 500mA, then the 100mA reverse from the fan simply lowers the draw from the 5V rail to 400mA, still in the correct direction. Effectively we are now sourcing a little 5V rail current from the 12V supply. Personally, I buy quiet fans and replace all I can (including inside the PSU) and keep them clean. I like Noctua.
@foxyrick: Spot-on IMHO. PC power supplies are almost always switching regulators because the transformers needed would have to be huge to support the currents needed. A Lab supply is almost never a switcher because they need to be quiet and not inject noise into the circuit under test. You would need a -very- large forward-biased schottky diode to keep the 5V from being "back-fed". (When I design, I tend to derate by at least 2X if possible) To me, that means a 10 Amp diode if your PC supply can source up to 5 Amps.
Going with 4 pin pwm fans is the best option. But because their will always something running on the 5v side, it does work. it was a bigger issue with older power supplies but the newer (circa 2009 or about's?) do not blow up, at least I should say they are not supposed to go "pop" when or if you connect the 7 volt thing correctly.... but is it debatable as to whether or not it is the proper thing to do.
I think I'm gonna e-mail Intel and see if they will send me a thermal pad and a fan for free. probably not but you never know. there are certain things about processors that have lifetime warranty's such as "it is supposed to work isn't it? if it really doesn't work I will just throw it away" sometimes that will get them to send you something.