[SOLVED] Control molex hub fan speeds

[TadeuGT]

Hello,
I've recently bought some new fans for my pc, and while when there were only 3 it was almost silent, now with 6 fans running at full speed all the time, it's like a ventilator in the room.
The thing is, my fans are argb from Aigo Darkflash and they connect to Aigos included hub, which in addition to a motherboard sync plug for Aura Sync, it gets its power trough a molex plug, and there isn't another free cable slot in it, only a 2-pin labeled RESET. The hub has a remote and I can change the fan speed through it, but it resets back to full speed every time the PC reboots, so it isnt very viable to keep setting it every time, and ideially the fans would auto-ramp up when the PC needs to.

So it seems that there's no way to control the fan speed via software since the hub is molex powered to the PSU. And I was wondering if is it normal for the hub to be molex powered? And how could I control my speeds if thats the case? I've checked and my motherboard (ASUS Tuf B550M Plus) has a CHAS_FAN connection, which is shown in the bios as a way to control the fans speed, but since the hub goes to the molex I don't know how would that be possible. What would I need to do to ramp down those fans?

 

[rgd1101]

and a hub with a controller

 

[Paperdoc]

You cannot use another maker's Hub and controller for this. It appears that the Aigo RGB fans use a non-standard 6-pin cable from their Hub to the fan.

You MAY be able to make a different connection - the AIGO web pages have inaccurate information. At one end of their Controller box there are two ports - a 2-pin one for a 2-wire cable that normally should be connected to the wires from the case's RESET button. (Originally those wires may have been connected to pins of the mobo's Front Panel header near bottom front). A second port with more pins comes with a cable supplied to make other connections to the mobo. It is this second cable that is not adequately shown. Does it have ONE connector on its other end, or is it split into two with different connectors? IF it has two branches, one of them should fit a common 4-pin mobo fan header, and the other should be wider and fit a common mobo ARGB 3-pin lighting header. IF that's what you have, I can suggest how to do this. On the other hand, if it has only ONE connector on the cable's end, what mobo header does that fit onto?

 

[TadeuGT]

You cannot use another maker's Hub and controller for this. It appears that the Aigo RGB fans use a non-standard 6-pin cable from their Hub to the fan.

You MAY be able to make a different connection - the AIGO web pages have inaccurate information. At one end of their Controller box there are two ports - a 2-pin one for a 2-wire cable that normally should be connected to the wires from the case's RESET button. (Originally those wires may have been connected to pins of the mobo's Front Panel header near bottom front). A second port with more pins comes with a cable supplied to make other connections to the mobo. It is this second cable that is not adequately shown. Does it have ONE connector on its other end, or is it split into two with different connectors? IF it has two branches, one of them should fit a common 4-pin mobo fan header, and the other should be wider and fit a common mobo ARGB 3-pin lighting header. IF that's what you have, I can suggest how to do this. On the other hand, if it has only ONE connector on the cable's end, what mobo header does that fit onto?

Thank for your answer Paperdoc, so here are some pictures from Aigo's controller hub. The power cable is fixed, going to the psu molex, and its got the MB Sync and RESTART 2-pins. The MB Sync (pictured) has solely one connection and goes to the mobo ADD GEN 2 connector, which is a 3-pin. The RESTART one isnt connected, as Aigos documentation is really lackluster and I didn't know what it was supposed to do. Guess connecting it to the PCs reset won't do much. From my research, the motherboard will not be able to control the fan speeds since it should be a 4-pin for that, right?

https://imgur.com/a/YSekHO8

View: https://imgur.com/a/YSekHO8

 

[Paperdoc]

I believe you are quite right. There does NOT appear to be ANY way for a mobo fan header signal to be fed into that Aigo Hub, so your only option for fan speed control is the manual control box that comes with that Aigo system. You already have the lights controlled by the mobo system, I believe - I presume its displays do what you want. The unused 2-pin pair for RESET is NOT needed. They are used only if you are NOT able to use the mobo or the hand-held remote for LIGHTING display control.

 

[TadeuGT]

I believe you are quite right. There does NOT appear to be ANY way for a mobo fan header signal to be fed into that Aigo Hub, so your only option for fan speed control is the manual control box that comes with that Aigo system. You already have the lights controlled by the mobo system, I believe - I presume its displays do what you want. The unused 2-pin pair for RESET is NOT needed. They are used only if you are NOT able to use the mobo or the hand-held remote for LIGHTING display control.

Yeah, I suspected. Aigo is crap but are no doubt the best bang for the buck here in Brazil. But I'll look into replacing all the coolers and controller soon, now that I know that 4-pins usually control the speeds. Anyway, thanks for your help!

 

[Paperdoc]

Thanks for Best Solution. You should know that the speed of BOTH 3-pin and 4-pin fans CAN be controlled - the secret is in configuring the mobo fan header to use the correct MODE of signal to do the job. This does have an impact on how to use a fan HUB or a fan SPLITTER. ALSO you should be aware of naming confusion. The labels "3-pin" and "4-pin" are used both for the TYPE of MOTOR and for the type of LIGHTS in fan frames or light strips, BUT there is NO relationship between those two fan features. There are 3-pin (Voltage Controlled) and 4-PIN (PWM Mode) fan designs, and each fan type might have 3-pin (ARGB) or 4-pin (plain RBB) lights, or no lights. If you need complete details, post back here.