Question Can a fan controller work without a motherboard?

[lil' timmy]

So long story long, my motherboard is ancient. It came in my Alienware Aurora R4 which I bought about 800 years ago. The software that came with the computer which controls the fans has been wonky for about 6 years, and finally crashed and stopped working. Now, when I boot up the computer, the fans do not spin at all, including the AIO watercooler. I tried to find the software on dell's website, the oldest they have is a few generations past mine. I tried 3rd party fan control software, nothing. The BIOS does not have fan control options.

So before I finally shell out for a new PC, can I just buy a fan controller and not have it go through my motherboard at all?

 

[kerberos_20]

most fan controllers have their own power input, they dont need mainboard to operate, they may have circuit to connect with mainboard for the purpose of sending tachometer readout from first fan, so mobo wont throw tantrum when theres no fan conected to cpu header

 

[geofelt]

It is the motherboard that has sensors that can detect cpu and other temperatures.
You should be able to find a manual fan hub to which you can connect case and cpu fans.
An example:
https://www.newegg.com/p/376-025G-0...499-_-fan controller hub-_-controller|fan-_-7

 

[Paperdoc]

Virtually ALL third-party Fan Controllers are stand-alone devices that do NOT need any connection to the mobo. Many are designed to fit into a 3½" or 5¼" front panel slot so you can see their displays and use their manual controls. Many have several separate output channels so you can control different fan groups separately. Almost ALL use MANUAL control for every channel. That is, YOU decide how fast each fan (or group) should run and set that with its controls, and those speeds are kept constant until you change them. HOW do you decide? You can use whatever software tools your mobo has to display the temperatures measured at a sensor on the motherboard and the one inside the CPU chip, and use them to guide how fast to run the fans.

There are a few such Controllers that include temperature sensors of their own to connect to the Controller, and you must decide where to place those to display what you decide are temperature points relevant to your decisions on fan speed. One problem with these may be that making good thermal contact with the mobo components can be tricky and hard to maintain - sensors may work loose from their intended contact points. For that reason in part, VERY FEW such Controllers actually use those measured temperatures for automatic fan speed control; by far the majority depend on your MANUAL control decisions. Still, the temps read by those sensors are displayed on the front of their Controller panels and some users find that info useful for setting fan speeds.

There are almost NO such third-party Controllers that try to use the existing sensors on your mobo for temp info. To do so they would need to be running software that accesses those mobo sensors and feeds their data out via some communication link (e.g., USB2) to the Controller. The BIG dilemma there is that there is NO "standard" way on mobos to install and calibrate and access temperature sensors, so writing any such software is an enormous undertaking that would need constant updating for new mobos on the market.