Question ASUS Hyper M.2 Gen5 - power requirements and fan control

[owlzed]

I have a couple of questions about the ASUS Hyper M.2 Gen5 PCIE-to-M2 storage adapter card that I wasn't able to figure out from the spec sheet and documentation.

1. This card has a 6-pin auxiliary power input socket (same as some graphics cards) and I can't figure out when you actually need to use it. There's no explanation anywhere in the documentation. Back-of-the-envelope calculations based on the M.2 and PCI specs seem to indicate that an x16 PCIE slot's power delivery capacity should be more than sufficient even when all four M.2 slots are populated and working flat out, but if that were true, why would they have bothered including the aux power socket at all?
   My PSU only has one matching power feed cable, which my GPU is currently using, and I'd rather not replace the PSU right now unless I absolutely have to (for budget reasons). The card seems to be working just fine with two out of four M.2 positions populated on just the slot power, but I'm worried about potential data corruption due to undervoltage at high load.
2. How do you set it up so that the fan speed is controlled by the heat and/or power draw of the actual storage cards? Right now it seems to be controlled by CPU load and that's really annoying because the fan is really loud. I connected the fan jumper cable to the motherboard, might it be as simple as taking that back out? It wasn't clear from the docs when you're supposed to use that, either.

 

[rgd1101]

sound like the 6 pin is required.

https://www.asus.com/motherboards-c...esk_manual?model2Name=Hyper-M-2-x16-Gen5-Card
connect to the chassis fan header on the motherboard. so it is control by the chassis temp or with their fan xpert 4 app

 

[owlzed]

sound like the 6 pin is required.

I did read the manual before posting 😛

I don't see anything that says it's required to connect the 6-pin connector. It just tells you that what you're looking at is indeed a power supply connector.

And anyway, what I really want to know is, the M.2 spec says no more than 15W per card, and the PCIE spec says an x16 slot can provide up to 75W, so there's 15W of headroom even with all four card slots populated... so why did they bother including an aux power connector?

 

[tomin613]

I am interested in this as well - I feel it was added for the fan, but can we be sure it's only due to the fan?

 

[Paperdoc]

The PCIe slots may be able to supply up to 75W total for all devices installed there, but what do you have in those slots in addition to this board? Some graphics cards can use up a LOT of that! That is why some users will NEED to connect power to the card directly from the PSU.

The cable from the card's 4-pin male fan connector should go to a mobo CHA_FAN or SYS_FAN header. It should be treated just like any other case ventilation fan, because that is all this system can do. There is no way to make the card's fan speed depend on any temperature measurement from the card itself. There is no standard way to communicate such into from card to mobo, so control of that speed will be guided by the general temp sensor on the mobo. In configuring the header used, set it to PWM Mode, Normal or Standard Profile, and to use the temp sensor on the mobo, NOT the one inside the CPU chip. This way that fan should change its speed along with all the other case fans. IF the card fan always runs full speed, try changing the mobo header MODE setting to Voltage Control Mode (aka DC Mode) in case the card fan really is an older 3-pin fan design, even though the connector has 4 pins.

 

[SquidSurprise]

I have one and can confirm you MUST use the 6-pin power adapter if all 4 slots are populated otherwise it won't be recognized...

As for the fan - I've been trying setting it to silent, etc (have it connected to the water pump header) and it still tends to spin full speed.... wish there was a way to control it through Armoury Crate (annoying as that software is).

If anyone knows of a way to have it detect the heat of the actual SSDs - or even the surrounding area - I'm all ears.

 

[Paperdoc]

There would be no way for the temps of the SSD's on that card to be available to control the fan on the card UNLESS the card maker supplies a custom software app for that. No standard method exists for how to access such info on such a card. BUT it would be POSSIBLE to arrange to have the info available on a card data line AND to access that with a custom app running in the background. For example, that is how many makers of VIDEO cards allow their own card management software tool to access the video card's fan control system. I doubt that this SSD card maker did things that way. It is MUCH easier and cheaper to let the normal mobo fan control system do the job, and that is precisely why there IS a cable to connect the card to a SYS_FAN or CHA)_FAN header.

SquidSurpise, there is a clue to why you have no speed control in that scheme. You have the cable plugged into a mobo PUMP header. Most such headers have two characteristics that prevent ANY fan speed control, because they are designed for use with a PUMP that must always run full speed. So even if they MIGHT be able to control fan speed, when they are configured for use with a PUMP they will NOT try to reduce the speed of the connected device. Beyond that, many such headers CAN be configured in BIOS Setup to be used for a FAN instead of a pump, and that means it WILL reduce fan speed as appropriate, just like any common SYS_FAN or CHA_FAN header. Check your header configuration for that.

Even if that setting is correct, IF it happens that the fan on the SSD card is a 3-pin type, its speed cannot be controlled by a mobo fan header configured to use the newer PWM Mode of control. The header must be set to use instead the older Voltage Control Mode (aka DC Mode) IF the fan speed on the SSD card cannot be controlled by PWM Mode.

 

[klosz007]

Just to add to this dated thread I just read.

Not all PCIe slots guarantee 75 watts of power delivery. This is typical for 1st slot dedicated to GPU on consumer MB's but even this is not always true. For example on some M/B this depends on whether some additional 6-pin connector (called PCIe power) on M/B is connected to PSU.

75 watts is the maximum amount of power that PCIe slot can deliver (if board is designed this way) but PCIe standard allows for PCIe slots delivering far less power than 75W.
I recall the lowest amount that must be guaranteed by >any< PCIe slot on the M/B is just 20W.

Hyper Gen 5 card allows instalation of PCIe 5.0 SSDs which are very power hungry when writing at full speed.

In corner case, when there is four of such SSDs installed and this card is installed in a slot delivering only minimal guaranteed 20 watts, there might be insufficient amount of power delivered to the card causing instability or some slot power protection circuits to be triggered on.
Since card itself is not able to find out how much power the slot itself can deliver, it is equipped with 6 pin connector that guarantees there will never be insufficent amount of power.

I used to have LSI 9300-16i SAS/SATA controller installed in my home server, it was able to draw up to 25W of power (so more than guaranteed 20 watts from the PCIe slot) and for the same reason it was equipped with 6-pin power connector.

 

[owlzed]

Not all PCIe slots guarantee 75 watts of power delivery. This is typical for 1st slot dedicated to GPU on consumer MB's but even this is not always true. For example on some M/B this depends on whether some additional 6-pin connector (called PCIe power) on M/B is connected to PSU.

I did not know that! This is the answer I needed, thank you.