Question Sata voltage regulator for fan speed control

[DrMasterOfNone]

Hi Guys,

Main question - How can I control the speed of pre-installed PC Case fan that connect directly into PSU?

PC enthusiast but a newbie here - so bear with me. I recently built a system (Components listed below). I was going for a reasonable PC - nothing super cheap or nothing super expensive. The one place I skimped out out on was the PC Case. One of my friends had a brand new Gamdias Apollo E2 Elite (https://www.gamdias.com/en/component/case/APOLLO_E2_ELITE) that he just gave to me to use. It comes with three pre-installed ARGB fans (two 200mm in front, one 120 mm in rear) that were already pre-daisy chained. They are attached to each other with a 4 pin male to female connectors, the only available plugs at the end of the daisy chain is a SATA plug that attaches directly to PSU and an ARGB plug.

It is a weird set up because it seems that one fan (200mm front top) is "the main fan". It has the Sata plug at the end of the wire with a proximal male 4 pin connector. The other two fans have a female 4 pin connector at the end with a proximal male 4 pin connector. The Fans are daisy chained - the 120mm rear fan female 4 pin connector plugs into the 200mm front bottom fan 4 pin male connector, the 200mm front bottom fan female 4 pin connector plugs into the 200mm front top fan 4 pin male connector and the 200mm front top fan has the SATA plug that plugs into the PSU SATA cable. The 200mm front top fan also has the ARGB connector coming off it.

The set up essentially keeps the fans on at one speed any time the computer is on. These 4 pin connectors appear different from PWM 4 pin connector as they do not have same indexing notches in the plastic housing. The female 4 pin of the the 120mm and 200mm front lower fan still fit on the Motherboard's 4 pin fan connectors. But when I connect these the fans just stay off. They do not show up in the Fan controller, they don't spin, the RGB stays off.

The only way they work is if they are kept daisy chained and plugged into PSU. I would like to either control the speed as a function of temp (like PWM fans) or at least take the fans down to 70-80% power so they are not as loud even under simple load. Is there a way to do this? Is there a SATA voltage regulator/reducer that I can plug between the PSU and Fans?

Please advise. Thank you

Motherboard: Asrock Z690 Pro RS
CPU: Intel i5 13600K
RAM: 32GB DDR4 3600
PSU: EVGA 850 GA
Graphics: Zotac Geforce RTX 3070
Cooler: DeepCool AK620
SSD: Crucial P5 Plus 1tb
Case: Gamdias Apollo E2 Elite

 

[punkncat]

It sort of sounds like some whacky proprietary PWM type thing, but depending on DC since they only run one speed. Seems strange when you mention there being a 4 pin connector. Are they just Molex?

If that is the case, look up "Molex fan speed controller" on your search engine. There are loads of them.

 

[DrMasterOfNone]

Nope the 4 pin connector is the same size as a regular PC fan plug. It actually fits on the motherboard fan connector.
I have attached the open male 4 pin connector of the rear 120mm fan.

Is there a similar fan speed controller for SATA plug?

It sort of sounds like some whacky proprietary PWM type thing, but depending on DC since they only run one speed. Seems strange when you mention there being a 4 pin connector. Are they just Molex?

If that is the case, look up "Molex fan speed controller" on your search engine. There are loads of them.

 

[DrMasterOfNone]

Forgot to attach the plug pictures.
https://postimg.cc/gallery/qJ4R5K7

 

[CountMike]

That sounds like case should have some own powered fan
hub, thats exactly how they work, you plug all or some case fans in it, it gets power from Molex or SATA PSU connector and one cable goes to MB CHA_FAN header for control thru BIOS. Something like one of those
https://www.amazon.com/fan-hub/s?k=fan+hub
It may be missing from case package or sold as an accessory. Being a 4 pin it must be PWM

 

[punkncat]

Does the case manual mention anything about these fans? I know that can be really hit or miss.

You may have mentioned it, but have you gone into BIOS for the fan tuning and looked at the setting on the header you have these connected to and see if there is an adjustable fan curve, smart fan, tuning, etc. that can be used to slow them down?

 

[DrMasterOfNone]

That sounds like case should have some own powered fan
hub, thats exactly how they work, you plug all or some case fans in it, it gets power from Molex or SATA PSU connector and one cable goes to MB CHA_FAN header for control thru BIOS. Something like one of those
https://www.amazon.com/fan-hub/s?k=fan+hub
It may be missing from case package or sold as an accessory. Being a 4 pin it must be PWM

It's just a weird set up because majority of these hubs I see require 4pin in from all the fans and connect to PSU via SATA. This just has one fan with SATA instead of 4 pin and expects that to take all the 4 pin plugs from the rest of the fans instead of a control board.

What's even weirder is that the 4pin fan connectors for the other two fans can actually fit on the Mobo Fan plugs but don't receive any power, they just remain off when connected directly to the Mobo. I can't see them in the Bios either, I attempted to mess around with the Fan curve while connected directly to the Mobo and nothing happened.

 

[DrMasterOfNone]

Does the case manual mention anything about these fans? I know that can be really hit or miss.

You may have mentioned it, but have you gone into BIOS for the fan tuning and looked at the setting on the header you have these connected to and see if there is an adjustable fan curve, smart fan, tuning, etc. that can be used to slow them down?

Yeah I can control my CPU Air cooler fans in the Bios. But even when the fans are connected directly to the motherboard (only two of the three actually terminate in 4 pin that can sort of fit on the motherboard fan plug) I can't control them in Bios.

 

[DrMasterOfNone]

I ordered a Female SATA to Male Molex converter and will attempt to step down the voltage to 7v from 12v and see how much of a diff it makes to speed, noise and air movement.

 

[CountMike]

I ordered a Female SATA to Male Molex converter and will attempt to step down the voltage to 7v from 12v and see how much of a diff it makes to speed, noise and air movement.

Plus 5v (as negitive side to fan) and plus 12v will give you about that voltage. That may not slow it down too much as it works only by lowering power to fan while air resistance is only thing to actually slow it. That's why PWM motors are more controllable.

 

[DrMasterOfNone]

Plus 5v (as negitive side to fan) and plus 12v will give you about that voltage. That may not slow it down too much as it works only by lowering power to fan while air resistance is only thing to actually slow it. That's why PWM motors are more controllable.

Agreed. But seeing as I don't have PWM fans on the case, just looking to see if I can turn down the fan speed even a little bit to make it quieter. I'm not looking for fine control on the fan speeds... yet. At which point It's probably going to be better to replace all fans.