What controls case fan speed/activity?

[Epical]

Motherboard right? In my case, my top 120mm fan is glitched/acting silly and speeding up/slowing down every couple seconds and it makes this loud stopping/starting sound. I can drown it out with music, but I'm not always playing music and it actually keeps me up at night lol. I think it goes away if I turn off my computer for a couple hours.

If there's a control panel for case speed I can access, that would be great. I'm using a ASUS P5W DH Deluxe mobo and an Antec P180 case. Thanks.

[Snowknight26]

Either speedfan, a dial on the fan, or in the bios.

[Epical]

I have the little L/M/H switch on the fan but it's set to H and that's how it started. I'll try SpeedFan... if it works great, if not I'll clean out my tower and adjust all those fan switches again just incase.

[Shadowhusky]

Try setting it to medium (m).

[aceofspades]

it really depends on where the case fan is plugged in, if its a molex plug(like in your HDD) then its only controlled by whatever controls are on the fan, if it plugs into the motherboard then it can be controlled by monitoring software, the bios, cool and quiet drivers(AMD thing)

honestly it sounds like a bearing going out in your fan to me

[Epical]

it really depends on where the case fan is plugged in, if its a molex plug(like in your HDD) then its only controlled by whatever controls are on the fan, if it plugs into the motherboard then it can be controlled by monitoring software, the bios, cool and quiet drivers(AMD thing)

honestly it sounds like a bearing going out in your fan to me

Nope, it's a small, two-pronged female end that plugs into a... small, two-pronged male end >_> on my mobo.

The bearings are fine, because when it speeds up it's silent... it's just that it keeps speeding up and slowing down, but during the speed up it makes this loud sound and it's reallllllllllllllyyyy annoying.

[levish]

case fan plugs and motherboard fan "sockets" are both three pin 12v, gnd and rpm

that being said is that fan one of these?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835999111

The probe might need to be moved or you might want to remove the controller portion of it entirely

If that's not it then you need to manually set the fan speed in bios or disable the motherboards control of it

[Epical]

Bit of a follow up: so today during maint I decided I would play a PC game to pass the time, but as I went to start up the game, I caught my CPU temps out of the corner of my eye. According to Everest, both cores at idling around 55-58, which is about ~10 degrees too high for my liking. I powered down and opened up my case to clean it of the dust and such, and I found something interesting: my case fans are fairly tough to rotate. When trying to spin the top one (that makes the sound I started this thread over), it made that vibrating sound. So I switch all my fans (Antec TriCool 120mm) to M to see if that would help would the vibration noise, and when I turned my PC on, none of my case fans were spinning (probably due to the fact that the power needed to spin them at M speed wasn't enough for move them rotate due to whatever problem they have). Just now as I am typing this post, the top most (vibrating) one has started spinning but the rear has not.

Is there anything I can do before I'm left with replacing the case fans? Any sort of case fan-fixing would probably require my motherboard being taken out and at that point that's almost completely disassembling the system. >< Would a fix be as simple as adding some more lubricant to the ball bearings, or should I just go and get some new fans? They're $20 each which isn't a huge deal (I would get two), but I would like to know what could have caused the ball bearings to have stopped spinning smoothly.

Any help would be great.

EDIT: CPU core temps up to 60-64 now the longer the PC stays on. I looked in the BIOS for the fan controls, but I only found places where I can enable and disable certain features, as well as temperature readings and current fan RPM. What's the safe the operating temperature for a C2D E6600? This site says the thermal specification is 60.1 degrees, which makes me feel a tad better, but having next to no programs open at the moment and already being at those temperatures never mind FFXI and lots of other junk worries me.

[Remyo]

open the case and put a box fan next to it.

[Epical]

Well, I just came back from the store, picked up two case fans. Thing is, I'm wondering if I should install them with the 4 pin connector or just the 3 pin? I would like to have them monitored, thus using the 3 pin either way, but I'm wondering why they give you an option to use the 4 pin as well (they came with an adapter)? Minimum voltage required for the L setting is 5V, max is 12V. I know the 4th pin on those 4 pin connectors gives a constant 12V, but don't the 3 pins do that as well? The reason I'm asking (and not just using the 4 pin anyways), is because: 1) I'd have a 4 pin wire going directly across my mobo from my rear fan if I were to use it, and 2) I don't want the mobo to overheat if I were to run both fans off the 3 pins alone (is that even a concern? It's just a random thought that popped into my head).

Maybe I'm just reading too much into this and the only reason they give you the option for 4 pin is to utilize PWM as opposed to DC in terms of cooling features (personally I don't care if they're at max all the time, I want my shit cool lol).

EDIT: Fixed it, it was the fans. CASE FANS ARE IMPORTANT FOLKS, DON'T NEGLECT THEM.

[levish]

the standard 3 pin fans are (typically) 12v, ground and RPM.

pwm fans (4 wires coming off fan to plug not to be mistaken with molex plugs) typically run to very low speeds without making motor noises. (12v, ground, rpm and PWM pins).

a pwm fan plugged into a 3 pin header would be going 100% (typically).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_fan

If its got 2-3 wires coming from the fan itself and ends in a large molex connector and the normal 3 pin socket, the large plastic molex is what I'd use since some motherboard fan headers (plugs) can be fairly easily burned out.