Fan Control / Mainboard¶
Supported hardware¶
SuperIO Chips¶
Argus Monitor requires an supported Super IO monitoring chip in order to display and/or control the speeds of mainboard fans as well as to read the temperature values of temperature sensors attached at or built into the mainboard.
At present the following hardware monitoring chips are supported. These are primarily found on Desktop PC mainboards:
Nuvoton
- NCT6683 D
- NCT6686 D
- NCT6687 D
- NCT6771 F
- NCT6775 F
- NCT6776 F
- NCT6779 D
- NCT6791 D
- NCT6792 D
- NCT6793 D
- NCT6795 D
- NCT6796 D
- NCT6797 D
- NCT6798 D
- NCT6799 D
- NCT6701 D
ITE
- IT8603 E
- IT8606 E
- IT8607 E
- IT8613 E
- IT8620 E
- IT8622 E
- IT8625 E
- IT8628 E
- IT8631 E
- IT8638 E
- IT8655 E
- IT8665 E
- IT8686 E
- IT8688 E
- IT8689 E
- IT8695 E
- IT8696 E
- IT8705 F
- IT8712 F
- IT8716 F
- IT8718 F
- IT8720 F
- IT8721 F
- IT8726 F
- IT8728 F
- IT8732 F
- IT8736 F
- IT8738 F
- IT8771 E
- IT8772 E
- IT8781 E
- IT8782 E
- IT8783 E
- IT8786 E
- IT8790 E
- IT8792 E
- IT8795 E / IT87952 E
Winbond
- W83627 HF/F, THF/THG, EHF/EHG, DHG, DHG-P, DHG-PT
- W83637 HF/HG
- W83667 HG, HG-A
- W83697 HF
Fintek
- F8000
- F71808 A/E
- F71858
- F71862
- F71868 A
- F71869
- F71869 A
- F71882
- F71889 AD/ED/F
- F71889 F
SMSC
- SCH5307-NS
- SCH5317-NS
- LPC47B397-NC
System Management Bus (SMB) monitoring chips
- Fintek F75387SG
- Analog Devices ADT7462, ADT7467, ADT7476, ADT7490
- National Semiconductor LM75, LM75A, LM87
- Maxim/Dallas DS75
- Andigilog ASC7512, ASC7611, ASC7621
- Winbond W83793G
Notebooks¶
For notebooks, mainboard temperature, fan speed and fan control support is much more difficult because of notebook vendor specific embedded controllers and access methods for these without public documentation available.
Currently supported:
- Lenovo / IBM Thinkpad Notebooks until about 2017/2018
Fan Controller Devices¶
- Corsair Commander Core XT
- Corsair Cooling Node
- Corsair Commander Mini
- Corsair Commander PRO
- Corsair Lighting Node
- Corsair Lighting Node PRO
- NZXT Smart Device
- NZXT Grid+ V3
- Argus Controller
Liquid Coolers (AIO)¶
Argus Monitor can control most Corsair and NZXT liquid CPU coolers as well as fan control boards compatible with Corsair CommanderPro.
Not all options of those controllers are available at the moment. What should be possible is the readout of liquid coolant temperature as well as pump/fan monitoring and pump/fan speed control.
Controlling those devices only works if the system service 'CorsairService' and it's associated program iCUE is not running, otherwise Argus Monitor can't safely access the device. The same goes for the software 'NZXT CAM', which also must not be active in order for Argus Monitor to access the devices.
Argus will display a message if it could control such a device but a service for it is already running.
Supported devices:
Corsair
- Corsair H80
- Corsair H100
- Corsair H80i
- Corsair H100i
- Corsair H80i GT
- Corsair H100i GT
- Corsair H110i GT
- Corsair H110i
- Corsair H100i GTX
- Corsair H110i GTX
- Corsair H80i GT V2
- Corsair H100i GT V2
- Corsair H110i GT V2
- Corsair H80i Pro
- Corsair H100i Pro
- Corsair H110i Pro
- Corsair H115i Pro
- Corsair H150i Pro
- Corsair H115i Extreme
- Corsair H100i RGB Platinum
- Corsair H115i RGB Platinum
- Corsair H100i Platinum SE
- Corsair H100i PRO XT
- Corsair H115i PRO XT
- Corsair H150i PRO XT
NZXT
- NZXT Kraken X42, X52, X62, X72
- NZXT Kraken X53, X63, X73
EVGA
- EVGA CLC
Power Supply Units (PSU)¶
- Corsair HX550i
- Corsair HX650i
- Corsair HX750i
- Corsair HX850i
- Corsair HX1000i
- Corsair HX1200i
- Corsair RM550i
- Corsair RM650i
- Corsair RM750i
- Corsair RM850i
- Corsair RM1000i
Fan control warning¶
Warning
Manual fan speed control is an advanced function and should not be used if the BIOS of your mainboard does offer you an option for fan control.
Setting a fan to a low speed value may lead to insufficient air flow inside your PC and therefore to insufficient cooling of its components. This may damage your processor and/or lead to other problems, including but not limited to, damage to your system components (e.g. your motherboard or memory), system instabilities, data loss, reduction in system performance, shortened processor and/or system component life and in extreme cases, to total system failure.
THE VENDOR OF ARGUS MONITOR DOES NOT PROVIDE SUPPORT OR SERVICE FOR ISSUES OR DAMAGES RELATED TO MANIPULATING THE FAN SPEED OF YOUR PC, AND CANNOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE IF YOU DAMAGE ANY OF YOUR SYSTEM COMPONENTS BY USING MANUAL FAN SPEED CONTROL. YOU MAY ALSO NOT RECEIVE SUPPORT OR SERVICE FROM YOUR BOARD OR SYSTEM MANUFACTURER.
PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU HAVE SAVED ALL IMPORTANT DATA BEFORE USING MANUAL FAN SPEED CONTROL. ONLY ENABLE THIS FUNCTION IF YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING.
In case you decide to use this function please also consider to set a fan speed warning threshold, which can be done in the settings.
Fan control¶
The mainboard page is divided into three sub pages.
The first sub page 'Fan Speed' contains a graph which displays the fan speeds of all fans connected to the appropriate mainboard fan connectors.
The second page 'Fan Control' offers the possibility to control the speed of the system fans if supported by the mainboard Super IO chip. Depending on mainboard vendor and model not all channels might be available for fan speed control.
Fan speed can be controlled manually or by a graphical temperature-fan speed characteristic. With the graphical characteristic, any temperature source (from the temperature sources recognised by Argus Monitor) can be selected.
For each fan controlled in this way, current fan speed, current percent value of the control preset and temperature of selected temperature source will be displayed:
Fan Control with a curve
If you want to apply the last fan speed setting on each start of Argus Monitor, you find the corresponding option in Settings / Mainboard (see picture below).
The valid control range for the manual fan speed setting is between 15% and 100% of the maximum fan speed, you can adjust the lower limit in the settings.
To provide each fan and temperature channel with an unique name there is a specific option in Settings / Mainboard / Configuration. It is also possible to prevent fan and temperature channels from showing up in the respective graphs:
Fan Configuration
Example of setting the fan speed manually (for testing)
Different fan types and mainboard fan wiring¶
The following diagrams show possible wirings on mainboards for connecting and controlling fans as well as a explanation for each.
Usually, the different fan headers and possible fan configurations for a mainboard model are described in its manual.
It is important to note that Argus Monitor as a software tool can not detect which fan wiring the mainboard vendor is using on a particular model, as this is not readable by software.
Nevertheless, as long as the correct type of fan (3-wire or 4-wire) is connected to its header or the correct configuration in the BIOS is set up for that fan, Argus Monitor can control both voltage controlled fans and PWM controlled fans.
The following graphics show the different wirings, as an example for one mainboard fan channel.
Argus Monitor can control the wirings of type B, C and D.
Different types of fan connections on mainboards
Temperatures¶
The page 'Temperatures' shows all temperatures that are provided by the mainboard Super IO chip. Depending on the mainboard vendor and model some of the channels might not be connected to actual temperature sensors and therefore only a limited number of readings might be available. If you want to prevent these channels from showing up in your temperature graph you may deselect them in Settings / Mainboard.
Graph displaying temperatures of two temperature sensors