Discussion:
TIP: GPU Temperature and blowing out fans
(too old to reply)
T
2018-03-03 03:37:41 UTC
Permalink
Hi All,

A non-invasive way to check your Graphics processor (GPU)
temperature and your CPU temperature:

Speed Fan:
http://almico.com/sfdownload.php

A too hot CPU or GPU usually means your fan has seized up, or is
full of dirt.

If you blow out your fans, be sure to capture the blades to
keep them from spinning. Fans are reservable electric generators
and will send a current back to what it is plugged into and can
also burn out your fan controller circuitry

HTH,
-T
VanguardLH
2018-03-03 12:29:57 UTC
Permalink
Post by T
A non-invasive way to check your Graphics processor (GPU)
http://almico.com/sfdownload.php
A too hot CPU or GPU usually means your fan has seized up, or is
full of dirt.
If you blow out your fans, be sure to capture the blades to
keep them from spinning. Fans are reservable electric generators
and will send a current back to what it is plugged into and can
also burn out your fan controller circuitry
The video cards that I've used with their own fans have their own fan
speed control. Safer to let those cards regulate their fan speed than
to let the user decide to run it slower. That is, the card already
regulates its own fan speed so don't you try to unregulate it. Speedfan
is still handy to regulate the CPU and case fans; however, again, the
BIOS or software that came with the mobo might already regulate fan
speed to reduce noise but will up speed to make sure the device gets
sufficiently cooled. I use Speedfan but only to monitor GPU
temperature, not to alter the fan speed the video card already self-
regulates (and I don't need software to have the video card self-
regulate its fan speed). It is handy for its charting: you can see how
temperatures have fluctuated depending on your use of your computer. it
also has a log but I've found the chart (for temperatures, fan speed, or
voltages) gives me enough history to monitor temperatures as I change
how I use my computer. Make sure to enable its option "Set fans to 100%
on exit" to up fan speeds to full RPM when it is exited. You don't want
the fans left spinning slower all the time when you play a game or do
GPU or CPU intensive computing. Make sure you aren't using Speedfan
against the temperature controls that may be available in the BIOS.

It is more important to blow out the heatsink than the fan. Fans don't
accumulate much debris (unless you have the computer in an area with
smoke, like cigarette smoke or in or near the kitchen). Lint and dust
accumulate in the heatsink's fins and reduce its utility. For fans, use
an ear swab to scrub the dirt loose on its blades. When blowing out the
dust, yeah, use the ear swab or a tooth pick (through a grill) to hold
the blades from spinning or put your finger on its hub if the fan is
exposed (when inside the case). Besides protecting the logic, a fan
spinning because you're blowing compressed air across its means less of
the air is getting blown into the heatsink.

Remember to get those cables out of the way of the air flow inside the
case, too, especially if any are the old flat IDE cables. Fans don't
work so well trying to blow through a forest of cables. If you have a
side panel fan, make sure it blows in the same direction as the CPU's
fan. Having them blow at each other or away from each other means less
air flow. GPU heatsinks can be a bit tricky to blow out their dust
because often there is a plastic shell around the GPU, heatsink, fan,
and maybe the memory. If you must use the mobo card slot next to the
video card, make sure it is a half-length card that doesn't overlap
where is the fan on the video card. Much harder to get air flow in a
tight space and around obstacles.

Personally I would not recommend using Speedfan to user-regulate the
GPU's fan speed. Maybe on low-end video cards don't have speed self-
regulation but the ones that I buy do. They'll spin down when not
loaded and producing less heat and spin up when they get hot, like when
playing a video game. I don't need software for that and shouldn't use
software for that. The BIOS of the low-end mobos don't have much in the
way of CPU and case fan speed control. The salvaged one I'm using at
home only has a threshold alert, no fan speed control, so Speedfan comes
in handy to quiet that computer but used only for the CPU and case fans
and just monitoring the GPU temperature, and to provide alerts for all
(if you define events to issue popups).

Be aware to not accidentally change the CPU's fan speed to zero or some
very low RPM. The BIOS will see the CPU fan speed is too low and shut
down the computer. It won't wait until the CPU's temperature spikes too
hot. Configuring Speedfan can be tricky because it can sense the
hardware but may not provide easy-to-identify labelling. You might
think you are setting fan speeds for the case fan but are instead
setting them for the CPU. Once I figure out which sensor is for which
fan, I relabel them in Speedfan. You won't find help, a menu, or
right-click context menus to let you figure out how to rename the fans.
Hit F2 on a selected fan under the Fans tab in the configuration screen.
Seeing "Fan1 on IT8720F at $A0 on ISA" won't tell the user which fan it
represents.

If my mobo's BIOS had a decent fan speed control configuration, I'd be
using that instead of Speedfan. I don't use Speedfan on a video card
that already employs self-regulation. If the hardware can do it, don't
use software. Speedfan is one of those useful tools *if* you know what
you're doing with it. It is /NOT/ an install-and-go tool for boobs.
Considering you come here getting help on how you can help your
customers, you better hope you installing Speedfan on their computer
means they never putz around with its configuration assuming you get it
correct in the first place.
T
2018-03-03 23:38:04 UTC
Permalink
Post by VanguardLH
Post by T
A non-invasive way to check your Graphics processor (GPU)
http://almico.com/sfdownload.php
A too hot CPU or GPU usually means your fan has seized up, or is
full of dirt.
If you blow out your fans, be sure to capture the blades to
keep them from spinning. Fans are reservable electric generators
and will send a current back to what it is plugged into and can
also burn out your fan controller circuitry
The video cards that I've used with their own fans have their own fan
speed control. Safer to let those cards regulate their fan speed than
to let the user decide to run it slower.
I only use it to check the temperature too.
Paul
2018-03-04 00:43:12 UTC
Permalink
Post by T
Post by VanguardLH
Post by T
A non-invasive way to check your Graphics processor (GPU)
http://almico.com/sfdownload.php
A too hot CPU or GPU usually means your fan has seized up, or is
full of dirt.
If you blow out your fans, be sure to capture the blades to
keep them from spinning. Fans are reservable electric generators
and will send a current back to what it is plugged into and can
also burn out your fan controller circuitry
The video cards that I've used with their own fans have their own fan
speed control. Safer to let those cards regulate their fan speed than
to let the user decide to run it slower.
I only use it to check the temperature too.
Ah, but that's the trick, isn't it.

Fan speed on video cards is *not* set under
hardware closed-loop feedback.

The fan speed is set by the *software driver*.

At power-on-reset, the fan register is set to "100%".

If you boot a Linux LiveCD that doesn't happen to have a driver
for the fan setting, the card stays at 100% fan for the entire
Linux session. It sounds like a hoover.
(Paul fixed this!!! Paul hates this!!!).

It's also possible for NVidia to release a driver which
writes "0" into the register (stopping the fan) and nothing
more. This too is a breaking of the feedback loop. Nvidia
pulled this driver relatively quickly, but at a guess,
some video cards must have been damaged. I think actually
a couple of drivers, over the years, were released with this
particular defect in place.

What I did to the video card in this machine sitting next
to me, is:

1) Run demanding video apps.
2) Measure fan speed that results.
3) Disconnect fan from video card.
4) Make up a voltage source that runs the fan
at the same speed as (2).

Now, the card no longer relies on an NVidia driver
or a Linux driver or any driver. I can boot a Linux LiveCD
with a VESA driver, and the video card makes the same amount
of noise as it does in Windows.

I can do this because the card is low power, and the
moderate fan speed used, is of no consequence...
other than to guarantee the chip doesn't get too hot.
High power video cards, have occasions where the fan must
run at 100%. The fan on this card, handles everything
at only a 20-30% setting. There's really no need to change
the fan speed, ever.

*******

The video card companies should do two things:

1) Implement a proper hardware closed-loop-feedback fan control.
I'm not aware of any card doing that... yet.

2) Implement THERMTRIP for the GPU. If the heatsink falls off
the GPU, the GPU should be able to send THERMTRIP to the
Volterra "disable" pin, and drop the core to zero volts
instantly. I'm not aware of any video card that has the
capability to "protect itself". They will get so hot they
melt the plastic fan frame, then the GPU will laugh at you as it
overheats further.

The closest thing to a self-protecting chip, was the ATI9800Pro.
If you didn't plug in the Aux power connector, a red dialog box
would appear on the screen, telling you to plug in the power cable.
That's how I determined the card had burned right through one
of the Aux power pins one day. I got the red dialog. That's an example
of defensive design, where someone went to the trouble of storing
a canned image, to be loaded if the card wasn't powered properly.

Other than that, video cards are rather poorly equipped for
the real world. It's almost like they wanted them to burn out.

Paul
Jeff Barnett
2018-03-03 21:17:25 UTC
Permalink
Post by T
Hi All,
A non-invasive way to check your Graphics processor (GPU)
     http://almico.com/sfdownload.php
A too hot CPU or GPU usually means your fan has seized up, or is
full of dirt.
If you blow out your fans, be sure to capture the blades to
keep them from spinning.  Fans are reservable electric generators
and will send a current back to what it is plugged into and can
also burn out your fan controller circuitry
At issue with speed fan is that its list of compatible motherboards is
older than I am. As an example, I think that the list of compatible ASUS
boards has exactly the same number of entries as it did about 5 years
ago. Win 10 compatibility is mentioned on the web site and I believe it.
However, I wont download that software unless I know that it will work
with my board and, therefore, do no damage when it initially pokes
around. I hear it's a great toy but the stale information spooks me.
--
Jeff Barnett
Paul
2018-03-03 21:53:00 UTC
Permalink
Post by Jeff Barnett
Post by T
Hi All,
A non-invasive way to check your Graphics processor (GPU)
http://almico.com/sfdownload.php
A too hot CPU or GPU usually means your fan has seized up, or is
full of dirt.
If you blow out your fans, be sure to capture the blades to
keep them from spinning. Fans are reservable electric generators
and will send a current back to what it is plugged into and can
also burn out your fan controller circuitry
At issue with speed fan is that its list of compatible motherboards is
older than I am. As an example, I think that the list of compatible ASUS
boards has exactly the same number of entries as it did about 5 years
ago. Win 10 compatibility is mentioned on the web site and I believe it.
However, I wont download that software unless I know that it will work
with my board and, therefore, do no damage when it initially pokes
around. I hear it's a great toy but the stale information spooks me.
On newer boards, I believe some sort of ACPI table was added,
which allowed the motherboard developer to pass the value of the
scaling resistors, to people like the SpeedFan developer.

As a result, the SF no longer needs a table of motherboards.
Older motherboards, yes, if they hadn't been added to the
table, manual work would be needed to get the scaling on
the voltage values done correctly. An older motherboard still
relies on the manual method, if the motherboard isn't in
some table of previously-collected empirical results.

But with newer motherboards, the SF guy doesn't even have to know
the motherboard exists. Probing the buses, reading the ACPI table
(whatever table it is), is supposed to give enough info to get
the job done.

It relies on the motherboard developer "encoding" the information
correctly. Why, the motherboard developer could use his
copy of the existing SpeedFan, to verify it all works :-)

*******

Just the name in the example here, hints at how it may be working.
It looks like all the sensor info is available as an ACPI object.
The "atk0110" thing is the Asus hardware "punch-thru" driver that
gives hardware access from a running OS (solves the Ring3/Ring0
problem).

https://www.linux.com/learn/discovering-and-monitoring-hardware-linux

$ sensors
atk0110-acpi-0
Adapter: ACPI interface
Vcore Voltage: +1.23 V (min = +0.85 V, max = +1.60 V)
+3.3 Voltage: +3.31 V (min = +2.97 V, max = +3.63 V)
+5 Voltage: +4.97 V (min = +4.50 V, max = +5.50 V)
+12 Voltage: +12.15 V (min = +10.20 V, max = +13.80 V)
CPU FAN Speed: 3183 RPM (min = 600 RPM)
CPU Temperature: +44.0C (high = +60.0C, crit = +95.0C)
MB Temperature: +40.0C (high = +45.0C, crit = +75.0C)

Using the ACPI dumping utilities in Linux, you may be able
to spot how it's being done.

Paul
J. P. Gilliver (John)
2018-03-03 21:54:04 UTC
Permalink
In message <p7f3d4$vj7$***@dont-email.me>, Jeff Barnett <***@notatt.com>
writes:
[]
Post by Jeff Barnett
At issue with speed fan is that its list of compatible motherboards is
older than I am. As an example, I think that the list of compatible
ASUS boards has exactly the same number of entries as it did about 5
years ago. Win 10 compatibility is mentioned on the web site and I
believe it. However, I wont download that software unless I know that
it will work with my board and, therefore, do no damage when it
initially pokes around. I hear it's a great toy but the stale
information spooks me.
I think it knows how to read from certain _chips_, if they're on an
appropriate interface; I hadn't registered that it _had_ a list of
suitable motherboards, but I'm guessing it works with more modern ones
as long as they have chips it can talk to.

If you only use it for _monitoring_ temperatures (and possibly fan
speeds), and dismiss any obviously wrong ones (0 RPM, or -40 degrees, or
possibly even sensible temperature but doesn't change), then it's
probably safe to use (though I take no responsibility if it isn't!). I
just use it for temperature monitoring.

There are (or were last time I looked, which was many years ago) other
utilities that could read temperatures; not sure why I chose SpeedFan -
I think just that it seemed to work well, and as someone else (Paul was
it?) mentioned, its graphing of them is handy.

Better quality mobos might have (on the CD if any that came with them,
or downloadable) specific such utilities from the manufacturer. They
might even run under 7 to 10.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)***@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If you believe in telekinesis, raise my right hand
Rene Lamontagne
2018-03-03 22:12:44 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
[]
Post by Jeff Barnett
At issue with speed fan is that its list of compatible motherboards is
older than I am. As an example, I think that the list of compatible
ASUS boards has exactly the same number of entries as it did about 5
years ago. Win 10 compatibility is mentioned on the web site and I
believe it. However, I wont download that software unless I know that
it will work with my board and, therefore, do no damage when it
initially pokes around. I hear it's a great toy but the stale
information spooks me.
I think it knows how to read from certain _chips_, if they're on an
appropriate interface; I hadn't registered that it _had_ a list of
suitable motherboards, but I'm guessing it works with more modern ones
as long as they have chips it can talk to.
If you only use it for _monitoring_ temperatures (and possibly fan
speeds), and dismiss any obviously wrong ones (0 RPM, or -40 degrees, or
possibly even sensible temperature but doesn't change), then it's
probably safe to use (though I take no responsibility if it isn't!). I
just use it for temperature monitoring.
There are (or were last time I looked, which was many years ago) other
utilities that could read temperatures; not sure why I chose SpeedFan -
I think just that it seemed to work well, and as someone else (Paul was
it?) mentioned, its graphing of them is handy.
Better quality mobos might have (on the CD if any that came with them,
or downloadable) specific such utilities from the manufacturer. They
might even run under 7 to 10.
Speed fan is good but I prefer Link 4.0 from corsair, Free, nice GUI
interface Graphing on all points, temp and speed, Really nice program.

Rene
T
2018-03-03 23:41:09 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Link 4.0 from corsair
This one?

http://www.corsair.com/en-us/downloads#download_form_84

I am always leery of folks that want your
information before giving your something free.
J. P. Gilliver (John)
2018-03-04 00:25:30 UTC
Permalink
Post by T
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Link 4.0 from corsair
This one?
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/downloads#download_form_84
I am always leery of folks that want your
information before giving your something free.
There is a "Or skip this step and start Download" link below the boxes.
(The version appears to be 4.9.5.25 .)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)***@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Life, liberty and the happiness of pursuit!
Mark Lloyd
2018-03-04 15:54:48 UTC
Permalink
On 03/03/2018 06:25 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

[snip]
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
There is a "Or skip this step and start Download" link below the boxes.
(The version appears to be 4.9.5.25 .)
It does look like they're trying to trick you into paying (help them
advertise) for that free software. They hope you don't notice that it's
optional (and sometimes the trick works).
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"All diseases of Christians are to be ascribed to demons; chiefly do
they torment freshly-baptized Christians, yea, even the guiltless
new-born infants." [Saint Augustine (354-430)]
J. P. Gilliver (John)
2018-03-04 23:59:32 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
There is a "Or skip this step and start Download" link below the
boxes. (The version appears to be 4.9.5.25 .)
I did not see that. Thank you!
I downloaded that, and installed it: when I ran it, something zoomed up,
but did not remain visible, though a bar appeared in the taskbar. If I
minimised all windows, then repeatedly clicked on the taskbar bar,
something zoomed out (and back in on every other click), but did not
remain visible (i. e. I still had a blank desktop). So I thoroughly
_un_installed it, and downloaded the earliest (if you put Link into the
search box, it lists ten versions). That installed; when I ran it, it
told me there was a later version, did I want it? I said yes, and it
seemed to install and work fine now.

I haven't heard my fan run, in normal operation, since running that,
though, and the laptop _is_ rather hot. I've run the built-in Toshiba
diagnostic, which _did_ run the fan, and said it was good. But I still
have the feeling that running Link may have changed some setting
somewhere )-:, even though I've done my best to ensure it's not running
(there's certainly nothing called Link showing in task manager). When I
was running link, there was one place where there seemed to be three
modes, but one of them had to be selected, you couldn't select none.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)***@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Imagine a world with no hypothetical situations...
T
2018-03-04 23:20:06 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
There is a "Or skip this step and start Download" link below the boxes.
(The version appears to be 4.9.5.25 .)
I did not see that. Thank you!
Ken Blake
2018-03-05 17:53:58 UTC
Permalink
On Sun, 4 Mar 2018 00:25:30 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Post by T
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Link 4.0 from corsair
This one?
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/downloads#download_form_84
I am always leery of folks that want your
information before giving your something free.
There is a "Or skip this step and start Download" link below the boxes.
(The version appears to be 4.9.5.25 .)
There are several choices of downloads on that page. Can you, or
someone else here, tell me how to know which one to download?

And I don't see a "Or skip this step and start Download" link there.
Rene Lamontagne
2018-03-05 18:53:03 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ken Blake
On Sun, 4 Mar 2018 00:25:30 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Post by T
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Link 4.0 from corsair
This one?
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/downloads#download_form_84
I am always leery of folks that want your
information before giving your something free.
There is a "Or skip this step and start Download" link below the boxes.
(The version appears to be 4.9.5.25 .)
There are several choices of downloads on that page. Can you, or
someone else here, tell me how to know which one to download?
And I don't see a "Or skip this step and start Download" link there.
On that page there is a select category box, choose "Corsair Link".
then on the page that opens you want Link 4.9.5.25, that is the latest.

Rene
Ken Blake
2018-03-05 20:52:51 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by Ken Blake
On Sun, 4 Mar 2018 00:25:30 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Post by T
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Link 4.0 from corsair
This one?
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/downloads#download_form_84
I am always leery of folks that want your
information before giving your something free.
There is a "Or skip this step and start Download" link below the boxes.
(The version appears to be 4.9.5.25 .)
There are several choices of downloads on that page. Can you, or
someone else here, tell me how to know which one to download?
And I don't see a "Or skip this step and start Download" link there.
On that page there is a select category box, choose "Corsair Link".
then on the page that opens you want Link 4.9.5.25, that is the latest.
Thanks very much Downloading now.
Rene Lamontagne
2018-03-05 21:27:00 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ken Blake
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by Ken Blake
On Sun, 4 Mar 2018 00:25:30 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Post by T
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Link 4.0 from corsair
This one?
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/downloads#download_form_84
I am always leery of folks that want your
information before giving your something free.
There is a "Or skip this step and start Download" link below the boxes.
(The version appears to be 4.9.5.25 .)
There are several choices of downloads on that page. Can you, or
someone else here, tell me how to know which one to download?
And I don't see a "Or skip this step and start Download" link there.
On that page there is a select category box, choose "Corsair Link".
then on the page that opens you want Link 4.9.5.25, that is the latest.
Thanks very much Downloading now.
You're welcome.

Rene
Rene Lamontagne
2018-03-04 00:34:50 UTC
Permalink
Post by T
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Link 4.0 from corsair
This one?
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/downloads#download_form_84
I am always leery of folks that want your
information before giving your something free.
I would think that you would be interested in receiving their newsletter
about all the corsair products, seeing you are in the computer sales and
repair business.
In any case all they ask for is your E-mail address, name and country.
And, if you look near the bottom of that form you will see that you can
skip that part and download the software anyway.

Rene
Bob_S
2018-03-04 01:36:18 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by T
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Link 4.0 from corsair
This one?
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/downloads#download_form_84
I am always leery of folks that want your
information before giving your something free.
I would think that you would be interested in receiving their newsletter
about all the corsair products, seeing you are in the computer sales and
repair business.
In any case all they ask for is your E-mail address, name and country.
And, if you look near the bottom of that form you will see that you can
skip that part and download the software anyway.
Rene
Rene,

Thanks for the the suggestion on Corsair Link - that works great. I'm on my
daily driver which is an old i7 system with a Gigabyte motherboard, Corsair
memory and a half dozen SSD's and a 4 hard drives with a water cooler and
extra fans. Nothing - until I loaded this up could tell me *all* the temps
and fan speeds (5 case fans, 2 on water cooler, 2 for GPU's). This is nice
to see everything at a glance on the Home tab and then use the Configure tab
to drag 'n drop the individual device sensors on the graphic. Great way to
see if there is any hot spots building up.

On a new build, I use my digital infra-red thermometer to take spot
readings. That involves cooking it for awhile with the cover/door on, then
quickly opening and taking readings and running some other software to read
the sensors. I like this new toy....

Thanks
--
Bob S.
Rene Lamontagne
2018-03-04 02:15:57 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by T
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Link 4.0 from corsair
This one?
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/downloads#download_form_84
I am always leery of folks that want your
information before giving your something free.
I would think that you would be interested in receiving their
newsletter about all the corsair products, seeing you are in the
computer sales and repair business.
In any case all they ask for is your E-mail address, name and country.
And, if you look near the bottom of that form you will see that you
can skip that part and download the software anyway.
Rene
Rene,
Thanks for the the suggestion on Corsair Link - that works great.  I'm
on my daily driver which is an old i7 system with a Gigabyte
motherboard, Corsair memory and a half dozen SSD's and a 4 hard drives
with a water cooler and extra fans.  Nothing - until I loaded this up
could tell me *all* the temps and fan speeds (5 case fans, 2 on water
cooler, 2 for GPU's).  This is nice to see everything at a glance on the
Home tab and then use the Configure tab to drag 'n drop the individual
device sensors on the graphic.  Great way to see if there is any hot
spots building up.
On a new build, I use my digital infra-red thermometer to take spot
readings.  That involves cooking it for awhile with the cover/door on,
then quickly opening and taking readings and running some other software
to read the sensors.  I like this new toy....
Thanks
You're welcome Bob, Yes it is a well done program.
I also use an IR none contact digital thermometer to check for hotspots
in my PC, that's how I discovered my PSU was running too hot and led me
to installing a new Corsair 750i unit which led me to Link 4.

Rene
Paul
2018-03-04 23:52:04 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rene Lamontagne
I would think that you would be interested in receiving their
newsletter about all the corsair product
I use Kingston for memory products. In 22 years I have only
had one bad Kingston module. And Kingston's Tech support is
unbelievably good.
Corsair seems like I have to return every other thing I order
from them. I don't care for their stuff.
To keep current, I look at the new products newsletters my
distributors send out. A lot of that is junk though.
Kingston is generally pretty good, with a tiny caveat.

Kingston makes datasheets for the modules not intended
for specific machines. This has the advantage that you
know in advance what you're buying (high density or low
density RAM).

However, in recent years, they've slipped up. And once
you slip up, your reputation is ruined, because now
people have to be on the lookout for trouble.

They mixed single sided and double sided DIMMs for the same
SKU. It depended on what contractor they came from,
what the spot market price was for two different sizes
of chips. Since the chips were so close in price per
bit of storage, this would vary from week to week.

Then, when someone with a VIA chipset board bought the
DIMMs, the spec sheet said they were basically low density,
while what was shipped was a mixture (a "crapshoot"). And this
effectively negates the purpose of spec sheets.

Kingston is only as good as their QA people. Since the
goods may be packaged without Kingston looking at them,
they need to sample their wares and make sure what's being
shipped is described accurately. For some reason, they
flat-out refused to make two SKUs, so the low and high
density sticks would have separate datasheets.

Then, when they use specific-enough SKUs for things,
and the customer uses their database, they can be confident
the purchase will be right on the first attempt.

I only know this stuff, by debugging problems people
bring to USENET, with their DIMM purchases. I use
the visual info about the product, plus (if I can get
them to do it), use CPUZ to dump the SPD chip contents,
which helps verify some things. But at least in a few
cases, an educated guess (lots of edge cases where a
certain size double-sided works, while the single
sided with 2x larger chips doesn't work) is sufficient
for a start. And picking up a Kingston PDF showing
double sided and someone tells me there were chips on
only one side, that's a dead giveaway of a QA problem
right there.

Paul
T
2018-03-04 23:25:20 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rene Lamontagne
I would think that you would be interested in receiving their newsletter
about all the corsair product
I use Kingston for memory products. In 22 years I have only
had one bad Kingston module. And Kingston's Tech support is
unbelievably good.

Corsair seems like I have to return every other thing I order
from them. I don't care for their stuff.

To keep current, I look at the new products newsletters my
distributors send out. A lot of that is junk though.
VanguardLH
2018-03-04 16:31:44 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Speed fan is good but I prefer Link 4.0 from corsair, Free, nice GUI
interface Graphing on all points, temp and speed, Really nice program.
Nice GUI? Are you kidding us? What a farking mess. Extremely busy GUI
compared to the data. A perfect example of a bloated UI.

http://www.corsair.com/en-us/landing/corsair-link-dashboard#page=system-panel

Do they provide simple skins to present the information? Else, by
comparison, Speedfan is elegant because it is simple. This is like
comparing this outfit:

Loading Image...

to this outfit:

https://imgur.com/a/JpVUA

I've seen lots of users that love to make their desktops busy by using
loud and dense backgrounds and even animated ones (and too often have a
mess for a Start menu). I use a simple black background on my PC and
smartphone. The objective isn't the noise, it's the information. When
did users start relishing disorganization?

The only advantage with the Corsair tool is that is works with some
specific Corsair products other than just the fan and speed sensors on
the motherboard. If I had a Corsair mobo and PSU, I'd sure wish this
tool had alternate and less busy skins.
Rene Lamontagne
2018-03-04 16:54:16 UTC
Permalink
Post by VanguardLH
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Speed fan is good but I prefer Link 4.0 from corsair, Free, nice GUI
interface Graphing on all points, temp and speed, Really nice program.
Nice GUI? Are you kidding us? What a farking mess. Extremely busy GUI
compared to the data. A perfect example of a bloated UI.
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/landing/corsair-link-dashboard#page=system-panel
Do they provide simple skins to present the information? Else, by
comparison, Speedfan is elegant because it is simple. This is like
If you cared to look they provide plain dark or light skins.
Post by VanguardLH
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/08/22/08/377AF8D500000578-3752483-image-m-39_1471851393284.jpg
https://imgur.com/a/JpVUA
I've seen lots of users that love to make their desktops busy by using
loud and dense backgrounds and even animated ones (and too often have a
mess for a Start menu). I use a simple black background on my PC and
smartphone. The objective isn't the noise, it's the information. When
did users start relishing disorganization?
Look again
Post by VanguardLH
The only advantage with the Corsair tool is that is works with some
specific Corsair products other than just the fan and speed sensors on
the motherboard. If I had a Corsair mobo and PSU, I'd sure wish this
tool had alternate and less busy skins.
It works on any number of motherboard, I have it on Asus, Gigabyte and MSI.

Look once more,It has 5 Skins

Rene
Rene Lamontagne
2018-03-04 19:51:50 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Speed fan is good but I prefer Link 4.0 from corsair, Free, nice GUI
interface Graphing on all points, temp and speed, Really nice program.
Nice GUI?  Are you kidding us?  What a farking mess.  Extremely busy GUI
compared to the data.  A perfect example of a bloated UI.
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/landing/corsair-link-dashboard#page=system-panel
Do they provide simple skins to present the information?  Else, by
comparison, Speedfan is elegant because it is simple.  This is like
If you cared to look they provide plain dark or light skins.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/08/22/08/377AF8D500000578-3752483-image-m-39_1471851393284.jpg
https://imgur.com/a/JpVUA
I've seen lots of users that love to make their desktops busy by using
loud and dense backgrounds and even animated ones (and too often have a
mess for a Start menu).  I use a simple black background on my PC and
smartphone.  The objective isn't the noise, it's the information.  When
did users start relishing disorganization?
Look again
The only advantage with the Corsair tool is that is works with some
specific Corsair products other than just the fan and speed sensors on
the motherboard.  If I had a Corsair mobo and PSU, I'd sure wish this
tool had alternate and less busy skins.
It works on any number of motherboard, I have it on Asus, Gigabyte and MSI.
Look once more,It has 5 Skins
Rene
to add to my last post to VanguardLH that link you posted is way out of
date and Not the Program I was referring to.

Try 4.9.5.25, LINK 4
Lets get on the same page Please.

Rene
VanguardLH
2018-03-05 19:32:57 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by VanguardLH
Do they provide simple skins to present the information? Else, by
comparison, Speedfan is elegant because it is simple.
If you cared to look they provide plain dark or light skins.
Look WHERE? I did care to look. In fact, I gave the URL to their
product page that you did not so I had to guess that is the tool to
which you referred. I see no skins. They present no skins. Visit the
URL that I gave. Where do YOU see any skins presented?
Rene Lamontagne
2018-03-05 19:51:02 UTC
Permalink
Post by VanguardLH
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by VanguardLH
Do they provide simple skins to present the information? Else, by
comparison, Speedfan is elegant because it is simple.
If you cared to look they provide plain dark or light skins.
Look WHERE? I did care to look. In fact, I gave the URL to their
product page that you did not so I had to guess that is the tool to
which you referred. I see no skins. They present no skins. Visit the
URL that I gave. Where do YOU see any skins presented?
Yes you seem to have an old page, I should have included the proper one.

You need the version 4.9.5.25 which is the one I have, it is the latest
one on this page.

http://www.corsair.com/en-us/downloads

Select category, Corsair Link, than 4.9.5.25
Then you will find all the settings etc

Rene
VanguardLH
2018-03-05 20:50:26 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by VanguardLH
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by VanguardLH
Do they provide simple skins to present the information? Else, by
comparison, Speedfan is elegant because it is simple.
If you cared to look they provide plain dark or light skins.
Look WHERE? I did care to look. In fact, I gave the URL to their
product page that you did not so I had to guess that is the tool to
which you referred. I see no skins. They present no skins. Visit the
URL that I gave. Where do YOU see any skins presented?
Yes you seem to have an old page, I should have included the proper one.
You need the version 4.9.5.25 which is the one I have, it is the latest
one on this page.
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/downloads
Select category, Corsair Link, than 4.9.5.25
Then you will find all the settings etc
Ah, so Corsair won't show be the proper (latest version) screenshots.
Instead I would have to *install* the program before I can see what it
looks like. Thanks for the info but no thanks. I don't install
software just to see what it might look like. I do that ahead of time
as part of researching the software. Corsair really needs to update the
product page to show screenshots for their latest version.

I did a Google Images search on "corsair link" and found some users had
posted screenshots showing a different skin than the one Corsair shows
on their site, like:

Loading Image...

So they have a less busy page. Hopefully the user can turn off the
blaring white-on-bright-red section titles but it's better than the
background showing the inside of a computer case.
Rene Lamontagne
2018-03-05 21:12:56 UTC
Permalink
Post by VanguardLH
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by VanguardLH
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by VanguardLH
Do they provide simple skins to present the information? Else, by
comparison, Speedfan is elegant because it is simple.
If you cared to look they provide plain dark or light skins.
Look WHERE? I did care to look. In fact, I gave the URL to their
product page that you did not so I had to guess that is the tool to
which you referred. I see no skins. They present no skins. Visit the
URL that I gave. Where do YOU see any skins presented?
Yes you seem to have an old page, I should have included the proper one.
You need the version 4.9.5.25 which is the one I have, it is the latest
one on this page.
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/downloads
Select category, Corsair Link, than 4.9.5.25
Then you will find all the settings etc
Ah, so Corsair won't show be the proper (latest version) screenshots.
Instead I would have to *install* the program before I can see what it
looks like. Thanks for the info but no thanks. I don't install
software just to see what it might look like. I do that ahead of time
as part of researching the software. Corsair really needs to update the
product page to show screenshots for their latest version.
I did a Google Images search on "corsair link" and found some users had
posted screenshots showing a different skin than the one Corsair shows
http://i.imgur.com/T8DNKnW.png
So they have a less busy page. Hopefully the user can turn off the
blaring white-on-bright-red section titles but it's better than the
background showing the inside of a computer case.
Yes, you can make the text any color you like (color picker)
and you can make the title bars any color you want also.
The updated computer case page is available as a separate page if desired.
There are 5 skins some are plain black or white.
The image you showed is a typical home page, another page is graphing
where you can see all your fan speeds and voltages as graphs.
What more can I tell you.

Rene
J. P. Gilliver (John)
2018-03-05 23:24:19 UTC
Permalink
CORSAIR LINK STINKS. (Details below.)
Post by VanguardLH
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by VanguardLH
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by VanguardLH
Do they provide simple skins to present the information? Else, by
comparison, Speedfan is elegant because it is simple.
If you cared to look they provide plain dark or light skins.
Look WHERE? I did care to look. In fact, I gave the URL to their
product page that you did not so I had to guess that is the tool to
which you referred. I see no skins. They present no skins. Visit the
URL that I gave. Where do YOU see any skins presented?
Yes you seem to have an old page, I should have included the proper one.
You need the version 4.9.5.25 which is the one I have, it is the latest
one on this page.
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/downloads
Select category, Corsair Link, than 4.9.5.25
Then you will find all the settings etc
Ah, so Corsair won't show be the proper (latest version) screenshots.
Instead I would have to *install* the program before I can see what it
looks like. Thanks for the info but no thanks. I don't install
software just to see what it might look like. I do that ahead of time
as part of researching the software. Corsair really needs to update the
product page to show screenshots for their latest version.
I did a Google Images search on "corsair link" and found some users had
posted screenshots showing a different skin than the one Corsair shows
http://i.imgur.com/T8DNKnW.png
So they have a less busy page. Hopefully the user can turn off the
blaring white-on-bright-red section titles but it's better than the
background showing the inside of a computer case.
I agree, that UI with the computer case isn't to my liking either.

I've already posted some of this once, but it seems to have got lost, so
here goes again. I installed that 4.9.5.25 (the latest on the page), but
when run, I just got a title bar which disappeared. So I uninstalled it
with prejudice, and tried the oldest on the page (4.7.0.77). That
installed, but when run, it told me there was a later one, did I want it
(it obviously 'phoned home to ask, without asking permission); I said
yes, and it got it and ran.

Since then, my machine has been running hot. At one point I fired up
SpeedFan (in monitoring mode only!), and it was over 100 (C)! I've
quickly plugged in the old USB fan tray I'd been using with my XP
machine, and things are more manageable now (below 60C). I have in the
meantime run Toshiba's own test of the cooling system (takes about 23
minutes), and that said all is well (I heard it run the fan up and
down). Since overheating was what killed my XP machine, _and_ the fan on
this one used to cut in quite audibly for even a slight rise, I'm
decidedly unimpressed with Corsair Link: it seems to me that it has
set/changed some control, even though I only intended to use it as a
monitor; any suggestions to fix what it broke welcomed. I'm certainly
going to uninstall it again: the only reason I haven't is in case it
needs to be there to do any fix.

I thought I'd give it one more chance, so clicked on the start menu
shortcut it installed. It now comes up with (ding) a window saying
"Problem with Shortcut\The parameter is incorrect." So I look at the
properties of the shortcut: it's one of those with the Target box greyed
out and blanked - the sort of thing Microsoft do for Internet Explorer
and some Office things. Fortunately it has something in the "Start in:"
box ("C:\Program Files\CorsairLink4\"), so I look there. The .exe -
which is 26,479 KB! - just for a fan monitor?!? - is indeed 4.9.5.25.
When I try to run it directly, it's back to being the
title-bar-only-and-that-briefly behaviour, although it does add a bar to
the taskbar and an icon to the tray. Left or right clicking on the tray
icon makes nothing happen. I can kill (close) it by right-clicking the
taskbar bar. (There was one task in Task bar, which disappeared.)

So - Corsair Link:
o installs "funny" shortcuts.
o is huge.
o won't run for me more than once (as far as me actually seeing the UI,
that is; _something_ runs when I run it).
o has a pretty horrible UI. (_Might_ be possible to change to a plain
one as described in this thread _if_ the UI would actually come up!)
o _seems_ to have done something to my fan control.

(The one time I did actually see the UI, there seemed to be three modes,
one of which _had_ to be chosen - I think one of them was called
something like "performance". There did _not_ seem to be a "monitor
only" option.)

Thoughts? I do have a full image from only the other day, as it happens,
but I'd rather not go to that if I don't have to. (I may also have
System Restore points.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)***@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I hate petitions, they're the modern-day equivalent of villagers with
pitchforks and flaming torches. - Alison Graham RT 2016/2/20-26
Rene Lamontagne
2018-03-06 00:53:42 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
CORSAIR LINK STINKS. (Details below.)
Post by VanguardLH
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Do they provide simple skins to present the information?  Else, by
comparison, Speedfan is elegant because it is simple.
If you cared to look they provide plain dark or light skins.
Look WHERE?  I did care to look.  In fact, I gave the URL to their
product page that you did not so I had to guess that is the tool to
which you referred.  I see no skins.  They present no skins.  Visit the
URL that I gave.  Where do YOU see any skins presented?
Yes you seem to have an old page, I should have included the proper one.
You need the version 4.9.5.25 which is the one I have, it is the latest
one on this page.
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/downloads
Select category, Corsair Link, than 4.9.5.25
Then you will find all the settings etc
Ah, so Corsair won't show be the proper (latest version) screenshots.
Instead I would have to *install* the program before I can see what it
looks like.  Thanks for the info but no thanks.  I don't install
software just to see what it might look like.  I do that ahead of time
as part of researching the software.  Corsair really needs to update the
product page to show screenshots for their latest version.
I did a Google Images search on "corsair link" and found some users had
posted screenshots showing a different skin than the one Corsair shows
http://i.imgur.com/T8DNKnW.png
So they have a less busy page.  Hopefully the user can turn off the
blaring white-on-bright-red section titles but it's better than the
background showing the inside of a computer case.
I agree, that UI with the computer case isn't to my liking either.
I've already posted some of this once, but it seems to have got lost, so
here goes again. I installed that 4.9.5.25 (the latest on the page), but
when run, I just got a title bar which disappeared. So I uninstalled it
with prejudice, and tried the oldest on the page (4.7.0.77). That
installed, but when run, it told me there was a later one, did I want it
(it obviously 'phoned home to ask, without asking permission); I said
yes, and it got it and ran.
Since then, my machine has been running hot. At one point I fired up
SpeedFan (in monitoring mode only!), and it was over 100 (C)! I've
quickly plugged in the old USB fan tray I'd been using with my XP
machine, and things are more manageable now (below 60C). I have in the
meantime run Toshiba's own test of the cooling system (takes about 23
minutes), and that said all is well (I heard it run the fan up and
down). Since overheating was what killed my XP machine, _and_ the fan on
this one used to cut in quite audibly for even a slight rise, I'm
decidedly unimpressed with Corsair Link: it seems to me that it has
set/changed some control, even though I only intended to use it as a
monitor; any suggestions to fix what it broke welcomed. I'm certainly
going to uninstall it again: the only reason I haven't is in case it
needs to be there to do any fix.
I thought I'd give it one more chance, so clicked on the start menu
shortcut it installed. It now comes up with (ding) a window saying
"Problem with Shortcut\The parameter is incorrect." So I look at the
properties of the shortcut: it's one of those with the Target box greyed
out and blanked - the sort of thing Microsoft do for Internet Explorer
and some Office things. Fortunately it has something in the "Start in:"
box ("C:\Program Files\CorsairLink4\"), so I look there. The .exe -
which is 26,479 KB! - just for a fan monitor?!? - is indeed 4.9.5.25.
When I try to run it directly, it's back to being the
title-bar-only-and-that-briefly behaviour, although it does add a bar to
the taskbar and an icon to the tray. Left or right clicking on the tray
icon makes nothing happen. I can kill (close) it by right-clicking the
taskbar bar. (There was one task in Task bar, which disappeared.)
o installs "funny" shortcuts.
o is huge.
o won't run for me more than once (as far as me actually seeing the UI,
that is; _something_ runs when I run it).
o has a pretty horrible UI. (_Might_ be possible to change to a plain
one as described in this thread _if_ the UI would actually come up!)
o _seems_ to have done something to my fan control.
(The one time I did actually see the UI, there seemed to be three modes,
one of which _had_ to be chosen - I think one of them was called
something like "performance". There did _not_ seem to be a "monitor
only" option.)
Thoughts? I do have a full image from only the other day, as it happens,
but I'd rather not go to that if I don't have to. (I may also have
System Restore points.)
Sorry to hear of all your troubles, I would also uninstall it if it gave
me such a hard time.
I am running an i7950 CPU system and an Asus X58 Sbertooth MB.
I left mine running in the performance mode to be sure it used all fans
and everything is good, So I ran it in balanced and quite mode and all
fans and temps stayed the same.
Is yours in Performance mode?
Quite mode may slow down or stop fans, But mine did not
I have one bogus temp on mine always shows 64 deg C both in Corsair and
Speedfan,
some kind of sensor not present thing.
Can't think of anything else to try except uninstall if its not
compatible wit your system.

Rene
J. P. Gilliver (John)
2018-03-06 02:15:15 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
CORSAIR LINK STINKS. (Details below.)
[]
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Sorry to hear of all your troubles, I would also uninstall it if it
gave me such a hard time.
I am running an i7950 CPU system and an Asus X58 Sbertooth MB.
I left mine running in the performance mode to be sure it used all fans
and everything is good, So I ran it in balanced and quite mode and all
fans and temps stayed the same.
Is yours in Performance mode?
Those were indeed the three modes - balanced, quiet, and performance. I
chose performance as I thought that was likely to do the best cooling;
my point was that there didn't seem to be a way to tell it to revert to
whatever had been in place before I installed/ran it. And just stopping
it, or even uninstalling it, seemed not to revert things. I couldn't
tell you what mode it was in now, as I couldn't get it to open up the
UI.
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Quite mode may slow down or stop fans, But mine did not
[]
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Can't think of anything else to try except uninstall if its not
compatible wit your system.
Rene
Well, I tried uninstalling, without success. However, I have now done a
system restore to just before I installed it the first time, and things
seem - touch wood! - to be good: the cores are below 50C, and I've heard
the fan occasionally.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)***@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

You can't abdicate and eat it - attributed to Wallis Simpson, in Radio Times
14-20 January 2012.
Rene Lamontagne
2018-03-06 02:50:53 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
CORSAIR LINK STINKS. (Details below.)
[]
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Sorry to hear of all your troubles, I would also uninstall it if it
gave me such a hard time.
I am running an i7950 CPU system and an Asus X58 Sbertooth MB.
I left mine running in the performance mode to be sure it used all
fans and everything is good, So I ran it in balanced and quite mode
and all fans and temps stayed the same.
Is yours in Performance mode?
Those were indeed the three modes - balanced, quiet, and performance. I
chose performance as I thought that was likely to do the best cooling;
my point was that there didn't seem to be a way to tell it to revert to
whatever had been in place before I installed/ran it. And just stopping
it, or even uninstalling it, seemed not to revert things. I couldn't
tell you what mode it was in now, as I couldn't get it to open up the UI.
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Quite mode may slow down or stop fans, But mine did not
[]
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Can't think of anything else to try except uninstall if its not
compatible wit your system.
Rene
Well, I tried uninstalling, without success. However, I have now done a
system restore to just before I installed it the first time, and things
seem - touch wood! - to be good: the cores are below 50C, and I've heard
the fan occasionally.
In that case I would just forget it and carry on as you were, Mine seems
OK so I will leave it in, If it gives me any trouble I will toss it.

Rene
J. P. Gilliver (John)
2018-03-06 15:20:28 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
CORSAIR LINK STINKS. (Details below.)
[]
Post by Rene Lamontagne
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Well, I tried uninstalling, without success. However, I have now done
a system restore to just before I installed it the first time, and
things seem - touch wood! - to be good: the cores are below 50C, and
I've heard the fan occasionally.
In that case I would just forget it and carry on as you were, Mine
That's what I'm doing. I really only installed it because someone here
said it had a nice interface for monitoring, I didn't want any of its
controlling aspects. (I didn't like the default one - with pictures of
computer cases - but apparently there are plain ones, but I couldn't get
it to give me the UI enough times to play.)
Post by Rene Lamontagne
seems OK so I will leave it in, If it gives me any trouble I will toss
it.
Rene
I'm glad it works for you! (Though I still think it's far too big for
what it does.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)***@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"I am entitled to my own opinion."
"Yes, but it's your constant assumption that everyone else is also that's so
annoying." - Vila & Avon
VanguardLH
2018-03-06 04:40:43 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Thoughts? I do have a full image from only the other day, as it happens,
but I'd rather not go to that if I don't have to. (I may also have
System Restore points.)
One attribute I've seen of some software fan controllers is they can
only manage 4-pin fans; i.e., those that are PWM (pulse-width modulated
- ground, +12V, RPM sense, speed control). Speedfan, on the other hand,
can change the duty cycle of the voltage to the fan which emulates PWM.
Instead of regulating the speed control of the fan, it regulates the
average voltage to the fan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_fan_control#PWM-FAN

Check inside to see if your CPU and case fans are 3- or 4-pin.

The PC that I salvaged had a defective mobo in that the PWM control for
the CPU fan didn't work. The BIOS fan control couldn't regulate the CPU
fan but I could use Speedfan to duty-cycle voltage regulate the CPU fan.
If it weren't for Speedfan, I'd have been stuck with a very noisy PC.

Because the fan is not getting constant voltage and using the control
line to change RPM, you could lower the average voltage too low (or make
the off cycle too long). The result is burning out the fan or it won't
start spinning. While I could get Speedfan to lower the CPU fan down to
30% duty cycle (30% on, 70% off) with the fan reliably spinning up and
down to regulate its RPM, I set it to 50%. I could barely detect the
increase in noise from 30% to 50% but I felt better having the fan
experience a higher average voltage.

To get Speedfan to *not* use hardware PWM control for the CPU fan, I had
to set an override. Under the Advanced tab, I selected the "IT8720F at
$A0 on ISA". As I recall, I had to change PWM1 Mode and PWM2 mode from
On/Off (using hardware PWM) to "software controlled"; i.e., Speedfan
would regulate the fan's duty cycle instead of using the PWM control to
tell the fan to change RPM. I can't be sure that's how I got Speedfan
to use duty cycling instead PWM control on the CPU fan because it's been
6 years since I salvaged the circa 2009 Acer PC. I had planned on using
the BIOS temperature controls but they wouldn't work (since they assumed
they would regulate RPM using PWM).

I tried to look at Corsair's knowledgebase to see if their Link tool
worked with both 3- and 4-pin fans or only with 4-pin fans. They wanted
me to login to an account. Not going to happen. Their FAQs didn't have
anything about their Link software regarding what type of fans their
software can control.

From past articles for Speedfan, speed control can also be screwed up if
the wrong table is used for the fan controller. Could be the table that
Speedfan used is wrong. Could be the table burned into the firmware for
the controller is wrong.

After uninstalling Corsair's Link (and doing all the remnant file and
registry cleanup) and rebooting, were the fan speeds still uncontrolled?
Was Speedfan still installed and it couldn't control the fans anymore?
I'd make sure everything of Link got removed, uninstall Speedfan (and do
the remnant cleanup), and reinstall Speedfan to see if it regained fan
speed control.
J. P. Gilliver (John)
2018-03-06 15:40:15 UTC
Permalink
Post by VanguardLH
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Thoughts? I do have a full image from only the other day, as it happens,
but I'd rather not go to that if I don't have to. (I may also have
System Restore points.)
One attribute I've seen of some software fan controllers is they can
only manage 4-pin fans; i.e., those that are PWM (pulse-width modulated
- ground, +12V, RPM sense, speed control). Speedfan, on the other hand,
can change the duty cycle of the voltage to the fan which emulates PWM.
Instead of regulating the speed control of the fan, it regulates the
average voltage to the fan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_fan_control#PWM-FAN
Check inside to see if your CPU and case fans are 3- or 4-pin.
This is a laptop, with I think only the one fan. I'm not at the stage
where I want to open this one up completely yet; the XP machine I used
to have was I think only a three-wire fan.
Post by VanguardLH
The PC that I salvaged had a defective mobo in that the PWM control for
the CPU fan didn't work. The BIOS fan control couldn't regulate the CPU
fan but I could use Speedfan to duty-cycle voltage regulate the CPU fan.
If it weren't for Speedfan, I'd have been stuck with a very noisy PC.
(And one which wouldn't have lasted as long, probably.) Useful to know
SpeedFan can rescue equipment in that way.
Post by VanguardLH
Because the fan is not getting constant voltage and using the control
line to change RPM, you could lower the average voltage too low (or make
the off cycle too long). The result is burning out the fan or it won't
start spinning. While I could get Speedfan to lower the CPU fan down to
30% duty cycle (30% on, 70% off) with the fan reliably spinning up and
down to regulate its RPM, I set it to 50%. I could barely detect the
increase in noise from 30% to 50% but I felt better having the fan
experience a higher average voltage.
Yes, stalling them's not a good idea.
[]
Post by VanguardLH
After uninstalling Corsair's Link (and doing all the remnant file and
registry cleanup) and rebooting, were the fan speeds still uncontrolled?
Was Speedfan still installed and it couldn't control the fans anymore?
I'd make sure everything of Link got removed, uninstall Speedfan (and do
the remnant cleanup), and reinstall Speedfan to see if it regained fan
speed control.
I've gone back using a system restore, and things _seem_ to be OK. I
feel inclined to leave what's working alone now! I don't know if the
built-in control is entirely hardware, or uses _some_ software: it
certainly seems to crank up the fan if the processor load (as shown by
task manager) gets much off the bottom, but that _could_ be a hardware
system responding quickly; I know processors do heat up quickly. All the
time, I've had SpeedFan (4.52) installed purely as a monitor: and, it
doesn't even seem to be able to monitor fan speed, only four
temperatures (called HD0, Temp1, Core 0, and Core 1), as well as four
bars for the CPU Usage. Here's what it says in its little window:

Win9x:NO 64Bit:NO GiveIO:NO SpeedFan:YES
I/O properly initialized
Linked ISA BUS at $0290
Scanning ISA BUS at $0290...
Found TOSHIBA fan driver
Found HGST HTS541010B7E610 (1000.2GB)
Found ACPI temperature
Found Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU M 380 @ 2.53GHz
End of detection
Loaded 4 events

I'm assuming the HD is monitored via SMART. Under the Info tab, it says
No known chipset detected; under Charts, it gives me the four choices
under temperatures, and nothing under fan speeds or voltages. Under
Configure, it confirms (?) that HD0 is via SMART, the other three being
via ISA.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)***@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"I am entitled to my own opinion."
"Yes, but it's your constant assumption that everyone else is also that's so
annoying." - Vila & Avon
VanguardLH
2018-03-06 16:15:10 UTC
Permalink
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
I've gone back using a system restore, and things _seem_ to be OK. I
feel inclined to leave what's working alone now! I don't know if the
built-in control is entirely hardware, or uses _some_ software: it
certainly seems to crank up the fan if the processor load (as shown by
task manager) gets much off the bottom, but that _could_ be a hardware
system responding quickly; I know processors do heat up quickly. All the
time, I've had SpeedFan (4.52) installed purely as a monitor: and, it
doesn't even seem to be able to monitor fan speed, only four
temperatures (called HD0, Temp1, Core 0, and Core 1), as well as four
Win9x:NO 64Bit:NO GiveIO:NO SpeedFan:YES
I/O properly initialized
Linked ISA BUS at $0290
Scanning ISA BUS at $0290...
Found TOSHIBA fan driver
Found HGST HTS541010B7E610 (1000.2GB)
Found ACPI temperature
End of detection
Loaded 4 events
I'm assuming the HD is monitored via SMART. Under the Info tab, it says
No known chipset detected; under Charts, it gives me the four choices
under temperatures, and nothing under fan speeds or voltages. Under
Configure, it confirms (?) that HD0 is via SMART, the other three being
via ISA.
SMART attribute 194 reports temperature, so that's how Speedfan gets it
from the HDD/SDD.

The fans must report their speed using SMBus. Well, Speedfan queries
the devices that will report on the SMBus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Management_Bus

On the Info tab, there is a "Find SMBus devices" button. Does it find
anything? I suspect the laptop came with bundled software. I remember
having to spend days researching what all the software was for that was
getting loaded in Windows startup on a Dell PC. I could get rid of a
lot of the fluff but some were essential. Could be Toshiba is using
their own software to control fan speed and that interferes with
Speedfan querying the devices. Only one fan control program should be
managing the fan speeds.

Speedfan would report what it found on the SMBus but not in your case.
There is no mention of "Scanning SMBus at <address>" or of it finding a
controller (for the fan).

Mobile processors are made to be low-power (reduced heat) but need extra
cooling when there is any load on them. All the laptops that I've used
have cycled through low and high fan speeds repetively while I used
them. Different fan speed controllers have different hysteresis: the
rate at which they will change fan speed based on the rate of
temperature change. Speedfan might not be a good choice for a mobile
processor. Fan speed has to change quickly and Speedfan might think it
has more time (with a larger heatsink for a desktop) to change fan
speed. I didn't find a hysteresis setting in Speedfan but then I don't
know if that's part of the info table in the controller that Speedfan
will read. When I go under Speedfan's Advanced tab and select the
controller chip for the fans, none of the attributes is for hysteresis.

As I mentioned for my salvaged mobo, I had to change Speedfan's default
configuration to "software controlled" for the controller chip. Maybe
you have to do that, too. If that works, make sure to enable the
"remember it" setting; else, when Speedfan next loads, it will use the
default because the setting doesn't stick unless you say so. For me,
"software controlled" was an available selection and worked. For
others, like http://tinyurl.com/ydatp8oa, they may have to deselect one
of the other control methods.

In Speedfan under its Fan Control tab, did you enable Advanced mode
(where you can name a profile, select a fan, and then determine its
speed curve)? http://tinyurl.com/ybwpo3j5 is someone else's example. I
don't bother with this level of control. If you are using advanced
mode, could be there's nothing defined for the speed gradients or
they're wrong from what you expect or want.
J. P. Gilliver (John)
2018-03-06 16:42:58 UTC
Permalink
Post by VanguardLH
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
I've gone back using a system restore, and things _seem_ to be OK. I
[]
Post by VanguardLH
Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Win9x:NO 64Bit:NO GiveIO:NO SpeedFan:YES
I/O properly initialized
Linked ISA BUS at $0290
Scanning ISA BUS at $0290...
Found TOSHIBA fan driver
Found HGST HTS541010B7E610 (1000.2GB)
Found ACPI temperature
End of detection
Loaded 4 events
I'm assuming the HD is monitored via SMART. Under the Info tab, it says
No known chipset detected; under Charts, it gives me the four choices
under temperatures, and nothing under fan speeds or voltages. Under
Configure, it confirms (?) that HD0 is via SMART, the other three being
via ISA.
SMART attribute 194 reports temperature, so that's how Speedfan gets it
from the HDD/SDD.
That's what I assume too (although it does say it "Found" it when it was
scanning the ISA bus, see above).
[]
Post by VanguardLH
On the Info tab, there is a "Find SMBus devices" button. Does it find
anything? I suspect the laptop came with bundled software. I remember
Well it says "Close all running programs.", which I haven't: I don't
know if it has a way of telling whether I have. When I click or
otherwise activate the "Start scanning" button, it presses and the
dotted line around it goes, but nothing happens - nothing appears in the
window, and the button is still called "Start scanning". I assume it
scanned and didn't find anything.
[]
Post by VanguardLH
lot of the fluff but some were essential. Could be Toshiba is using
their own software to control fan speed and that interferes with
Sounds likely - or, the control is entirely in hardware. (It does seem
to go in steps though, which suggests software.)
Post by VanguardLH
Speedfan querying the devices. Only one fan control program should be
managing the fan speeds.
Speedfan would report what it found on the SMBus but not in your case.
There is no mention of "Scanning SMBus at <address>" or of it finding a
controller (for the fan).
Indeed.
Post by VanguardLH
Mobile processors are made to be low-power (reduced heat) but need extra
cooling when there is any load on them. All the laptops that I've used
have cycled through low and high fan speeds repetively while I used
them. Different fan speed controllers have different hysteresis: the
rate at which they will change fan speed based on the rate of
temperature change. Speedfan might not be a good choice for a mobile
[]
Post by VanguardLH
In Speedfan under its Fan Control tab, did you enable Advanced mode
(where you can name a profile, select a fan, and then determine its
speed curve)? http://tinyurl.com/ybwpo3j5 is someone else's example. I
don't bother with this level of control. If you are using advanced
mode, could be there's nothing defined for the speed gradients or
they're wrong from what you expect or want.
If I tick the Advanced box in that tab, a blank window comes up, with
Add and Remove tabs; if I click Add, it prompts for a name. If I type
test, it adds it to the empty box, but nothing else appears - no
controllers or anything. I Cancelled my way out of there. The system
seems to be working - all three are in the high fifties, and the fan
seems to be coming on and going off as required, which I don't _think_
it was when Corsair Link had anything to do with it. I'm not going to
mess with it! (Well, other than keeping SpeedFan _purely as a monitor_.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)***@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I
have one. -Cato the Elder, statesman, soldier, and writer (234-149 BCE)
VanguardLH
2018-03-06 20:09:57 UTC
Permalink
Post by VanguardLH
On the Info tab, there is a "Find SMBus devices" button. Does it
find anything? I suspect the laptop came with bundled software. I
remember
When I click or otherwise activate the "Start scanning" button, it
presses and the dotted line around it goes, but nothing happens -
nothing appears in the window, and the button is still called "Start
scanning". I assume it scanned and didn't find anything.
The scan is very quick. Looks like Speedfan cannot find anything that
responds on the SMBus (assuming your laptop has that bus). There must
be an SM Bus Controller or System Management Controller chipset on the
mobo to support SMBus. The device must install an SMBus driver so it
can be queried on state of the device and to ask it to retrieve info
from the device.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005621/software/chipset-software.html
https://communities.intel.com/thread/110358

The chipset driver package from the mobo maker (or laptop maker, in your
case) must include an SMBus driver to perform the management. That is,
you need to install the chipset driver package (suite of drivers) so
Windows knows how to communicate with THAT hardware. When you go into
Device Manager (devmgmt.msc), do you see an SMBus Controller device? As
I recall, UMBus (User-Mode Bus enumerator) replaced SMBus as of Windows
Vista. It enumerates the devices found (that report themselves) on the
user-mode busses.

https://www.file.net/process/umbus.sys.html
Umbus.sys is a Windows driver. A driver is a small software program
that allows your computer to communicate with hardware or connected
devices. This means that a driver has direct access to the internals
of the operating system, hardware etc.

On my Windows 7 x64 setup, no "SMBus Controller" is listed but there are
a "UMBus Root Bus Enumerator" and two "UMBus Enumerator".
If I tick the Advanced box in that tab, a blank window comes up, with
Add and Remove tabs; if I click Add, it prompts for a name. If I type
test, it adds it to the empty box, but nothing else appears - no
controllers or anything.
After adding the "test" profile, did you click on that profile to select
it? Only when it is selected will the relevant fields show up below,
like Controller Speed (if you want to pick a method), Method, and
Temperatures (where you define setpoints for temperatures and fan speed
at those temperatures).

Since Speedfan found no fan devices on the SMBus/UMbus (assuming there
are any and that mobo's chipset drivers have the SMbus/UMbus drivers)
then it's not much of a surprise that this section remained blank. Your
hardware and driver setup isn't reporting anything for Speedfan to find.
J. P. Gilliver (John)
2018-03-06 20:34:17 UTC
Permalink
Post by VanguardLH
Post by VanguardLH
On the Info tab, there is a "Find SMBus devices" button. Does it
find anything? I suspect the laptop came with bundled software. I
remember
When I click or otherwise activate the "Start scanning" button, it
presses and the dotted line around it goes, but nothing happens -
nothing appears in the window, and the button is still called "Start
scanning". I assume it scanned and didn't find anything.
The scan is very quick. Looks like Speedfan cannot find anything that
responds on the SMBus (assuming your laptop has that bus). There must
be an SM Bus Controller or System Management Controller chipset on the
[]
Post by VanguardLH
Windows knows how to communicate with THAT hardware. When you go into
Device Manager (devmgmt.msc), do you see an SMBus Controller device? As
I recall, UMBus (User-Mode Bus enumerator) replaced SMBus as of Windows
Vista. It enumerates the devices found (that report themselves) on the
user-mode busses.
[]
Post by VanguardLH
On my Windows 7 x64 setup, no "SMBus Controller" is listed but there are
a "UMBus Root Bus Enumerator" and two "UMBus Enumerator".
The bottom of my Device Manager goes: Processors, Security Devices,
Sound, video and game controllers, System devices, Universal Serial Bus
controllers. No sign of SMB or UMB.
Post by VanguardLH
If I tick the Advanced box in that tab, a blank window comes up, with
[In SpeedFan]
Post by VanguardLH
Add and Remove tabs; if I click Add, it prompts for a name. If I type
test, it adds it to the empty box, but nothing else appears - no
controllers or anything.
After adding the "test" profile, did you click on that profile to select
I hadn't.
Post by VanguardLH
it? Only when it is selected will the relevant fields show up below,
like Controller Speed (if you want to pick a method), Method, and
Temperatures (where you define setpoints for temperatures and fan speed
at those temperatures).
It comes up with: a "Controlled speed" tickbox; a dropdown that only has
"Pwm1 - Pwm1 from Toshiba @ $0000 on ISA; a "Method" dropdown containing
the choice of SUM of speeds and MAX of speeds; and a blank box labelled
Temperatures, with Add and Remove buttons below. Clicking on Add brings
up the list of four temp. sensors. Adding one of those then clicking on
it, brings up a graph, with adjustable bottom and top limits, and a
hysteresis up/down one.

Looks like I _could_ set _something_ up if I wanted.
Post by VanguardLH
Since Speedfan found no fan devices on the SMBus/UMbus (assuming there
are any and that mobo's chipset drivers have the SMbus/UMbus drivers)
then it's not much of a surprise that this section remained blank. Your
hardware and driver setup isn't reporting anything for Speedfan to find.
I'll leave it be! But thanks for the tips; I'll know in future about
SpeedFan.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)***@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Where [other presenters] tackle the world with a box of watercolours, he
takes a spanner. - David Butcher (on Guy Martin), RT 2015/1/31-2/6
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