A few people have mentioned, both here in the forum and in the comments accompanying the Z800 hack article (http://andybrown.me.uk/2014/11/01/z800/), that they're having trouble getting their CPU fans to ramp up from the minimum speed and are therefore seeing some alarming core temperatures when the CPU is under load.
The key to fixing this is the SpeedFan (http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php) utility but setting it up for use with the Z800 is not at all obvious.
Here's a step by step guide to how to do it. This guide is based on my dual X5680 board, you can easily adapt this to a single socket or quad-core configuration.
(http://andybrown.me.uk/wk/public/z800-speedfan/1.png)
Launch SpeedFan and select the Configure button. You'll get a row of tabs.
Select the Fan Control tab and create profiles that look like this:
(http://andybrown.me.uk/wk/public/z800-speedfan/2.png)
To create a profile, click the Add button and give it a name. I used 'CPU0' and 'CPU1'. Check the Controlled speed box and select Pwm1 from ADT7490.... Make sure you select MAX of speeds because we're going to add a group of sensors to monitor (the other option will add all the temperatures together with the net effect of maxing your fan all the time). In the Temperatures box click Add and repeatedly add each core for CPU0.
If you have two CPUs installed then repeat the process for CPU1. All the information you need should be in this screenshot:
(http://andybrown.me.uk/wk/public/z800-speedfan/3.png)
Now go to the Advanced tab and select the ADT7490... option from the Chip dropdown. The important entries are PWM 1 mode and PWM 2 mode. These will be set to Auto on PECI0 and Auto on PECI1. Change them to Manually controlled as shown here:
(http://andybrown.me.uk/wk/public/z800-speedfan/4.png)
Make sure you check Remember it for both properties if you want your settings to survive a reboot.
Finally, you'll probably want to configure SpeedFan to run on startup and startup minimized. You can find the minimize option in the Options tab and there's a guide here (http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/67503-task-create-run-program-startup-log.html) that shows how to schedule a program to start automatically. Some people recommend using the Delay task for option to add a 15 second delay after startup to resolve issues with other auto-start programs.
I have tested that these settings will automatically ramp up the CPU fans when the cores get hot and that they survive a reboot.
Great write uo Andy, This will help people a lot to use SpeedFan with the Z800.
Anyone who's not already selected a heatsink/fan for their Z800 might like to take a look at this intel document (http://www.intel.co.uk/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/design-guides/xeon-5500-5600-guide.pdf). The tables from section 5.1 are particularly relevant:
(http://andybrown.me.uk/wk/public/z800-speedfan/xeon-boundary-conditions.png)
Andy,
Following your guide, I can get SpeedFan to control both CPU fans, and the RAM fan (from the 6-pin connector at the top right of the board).
However, I cannot get SpeedFan to control the system or chassis fans (labelled front fans and rear fans on the board). SpeedFan does not
read their RPMs either.
I can get RPM readings for those fans from other other software (e.g., AIDA, HWMonitor).
Any suggestions?
I don't know about the chassis headers because my case fans are connected through Nanoxia's own external controller card to a molex connector on the PSU.
Are there any clues in the programs that can see the fans as to which smbus chip they are connected to?
Andy,
SpeedFan reports PWM 1 and 2 from FDC37N972 on ISA at $4E.
I got some information from HP -- the two rear fans (6-pin header) and the two front fans (2x 4pin headers) are not interactively controllable.
Their base RPM is set in the BIOS as 'Idle Fan Speed'.
The 6-pin header pinout is in the service manual for the Z800 (and has been posted in this forum). The 4-pin header pinout is gnd, 12V, tach, CMD.
CMD is some kind of fan detect (locked rotor sensor?). The fan is a Delta, but I haven't found the manual for it on their website.
In the original Z800 case, the speed of these 4 fans looks to be controlled by the front cable assembly thermistor, apparently connected to pins 11&12 of the P5 front panel header. I can't take credit for finding this information -- you actually did Andy, back in late 2014, posting in the HP support forums.
Idea 1 -- wire up a potentiometer across the P5 pins and control the fans that way. The reported temperature will be wrong of course.
Idea 2 -- wire up a remote thermistor (say, placed in the exhaust air flow) to ramp up speeds when needed.
Given the odd pinout of the front header, I don't know if a standard 3-pin fan could be controlled this way (would require voltage control), or if a normal 4-pin PWM fan would work either. Details on the OEM HP fan (Delta QUR0912VH) would be useful to determine this.
Andy thanks for the great write-up. I was able to get my fans working as described in the write but they seem to be either full on or off but nothing in-between. The percentages on the home page jump from 50% to 100% but nothing in-between as soon as either CPU hit 50C. I have tried the same curve you had in the write and a few others but always the same result. Fans are on or off. I can manually select the speed if I deselect the automatic fan control and then set them at say 70% an the fans work. Is this a faulty motherboard fan controller?
So after digging into and doing some research I found that windows 10 pro was the problem. I had several BSOD, Watchdog timer errors (CPU related) and a few just simple reboots out of nowhere. I thought is was the processors overheating but I managed to catch a log file from HWmonitor in which the CPU cores where at 69 or lower when it rebooted. I have since gone back to windows 8.1 and no I have no issues, speedfan is controlling the the CPU fan correctly and no more BSOD or random reboots.
So Windows 10 is still very buggy for some systems and it seems like Xeon CPU's did not get a lot of love from Microsoft with windows 10 or they have not gotten around to fixing it yet...
That's strange. I wonder if it's one of your peripheral drivers causing the resets. There's often a clue in the humble event viewer when you get a bsod but it's too late now you've reverted back. I'm using Windows 10 with complete stability and Windows 8.1 before that.
The only problem I had was with Samsung's fancy SSD drivers that I had to remove but that was back on 8.1. I also have occasional issues with the crappy AMD drivers for my 7970 taking ages to boot and sometimes Windows has to step in and recover the graphics driver but it's rare and doesn't cause a crash. I think upgrade day for my 7970 may come soon. It can't play high-bitrate (16Mb+) 1080p video without stuttering when even the built-in graphics on the wife's i5 can handle it.
Actually I found that it was my add-on SATA III controller. I had added a 6 gig PCIe four port card (2 SATA and 2 eSATA) because I wanted my SSD boot drive to be fast and at least one eSATA for my drive dock. The card even had a Marvell chipset.
But after 4 hours of playing around having issues getting windows 10 to reload, I took the card out and just used the motherboard SATA connectors and moved my five 3 TB drives over the SAS ports and bam, been working like a champ ever since. Reloaded right away, no more issues with slow choppy movements or disk reads etc. Overall running much better and more like I expect Windows to run.
The one thing I did not do was make a driver disk with the chipset drivers used during OS install but it worked fine with windows 7 and 8.1 so I thought it was not needed. Since it is working great as is, the card is not going back in. Got to say even with the SATA II it still boot pretty fast is is overall faster than windows 8.1 with the same setup. WOOHOO!.
Quote from: mbppg on April 12, 2016, 08:59:43 am
So after digging into and doing some research I found that windows 10 pro was the problem. I had several BSOD, Watchdog timer errors (CPU related) and a few just simple reboots out of nowhere. I thought is was the processors overheating but I managed to catch a log file from HWmonitor in which the CPU cores where at 69 or lower when it rebooted. I have since gone back to windows 8.1 and no I have no issues, speedfan is controlling the the CPU fan correctly and no more BSOD or random reboots.
So Windows 10 is still very buggy for some systems and it seems like Xeon CPU's did not get a lot of love from Microsoft with windows 10 or they have not gotten around to fixing it yet...
First things first: Thanks Andy for the easy-to-follow guide.
SpeedFan works for me on W10Pro, but it ranks the fan up to 100%(5000rpm) as soon as temps raise even by a bit, doesn't matter how i adjust the temperature curve. :(
Quote from: Picco on September 29, 2016, 04:44:45 am
SpeedFan works for me on W10Pro, but it ranks the fan up to 100%(5000rpm) as soon as temps raise even by a bit, doesn't matter how i adjust the temperature curve. :(
That doesn't sound right at all. Can you double-check on the page with the speed chart on it that both CPU0 and CPU1 are set to "MAX of speeds" and not "SUM of speeds".
Back on the main speedfan page you should be able to watch the two circled speeds changing in response to the temperature.
first of all thank you for great tutorial. however it is not working on Win 10 Pro :(
it worked flawlessly on Win 7 with system that was delivered with Z800. i made clean install of Win 10 Pro not installing special drivers instead of graphics card only. i get through the tutorial as previously and it doesn't work? or I am missing something to install?
Windows 10 Pro is the OS that I used to create these instructions and I haven't installed any unusual drivers. Speedfan just worked out of the box. Do you see the "ADT7490" being detected in the "Readings" information box?
Quote from: Andy Brown on October 24, 2016, 10:39:47 am
Windows 10 Pro is the OS that I used to create these instructions and I haven't installed any unusual drivers. Speedfan just worked out of the box. Do you see the "ADT7490" being detected in the "Readings" information box?
Yes. "ADT7490 (ID=$6F) found on SMBus at $2D"
any sugestions?
Hi
Well, i still can control both CPU and the Ram-Fan with speedcontrol....
BUT
After hybernation-mode, speedfan doen not work properly (fanspeed does not change)
Also, when I quit speedfan and restart it again, i got a lot of errors, that the bus does not response properly.
Only thing that helps is to disconect the PC from its powersource. (Simply reboot does not work, mainboard does NOT start)
Thats boaring, because i also have the problem, that without speedfan, the internal fancontrol of z800 does not response to cpu-temperature. RPM are always the same (approx. 400 rpm, with speedfan on it matches to the temp between 400 and 1200 rpm)
Any idea?
Thanks
* I can follow the instructions with speedfan to react to the cpu temperatures.
Urschnak, how do you control the memory fan, especially if it is independent?
* I have a basic problem, the memory fan is noisy and I don't quite need it with just 2 slots full on one side, the other side empty. Can I slow that down to minimum? Is it still controlled by the ADT7490?
I ran with the memory fan module removed for some time until I found this article. Speedfan sees a constant stream of messages on the bus when the module is removed, and the machine will pause while booting until pone presses f1. 'Slow but running' is likely better for me in the long run regardless.
there is a memory temperature in the bios, I am not sure if one of the numbers in speedfan actually shows the memory, that would let me pick a low number more scientifically, though they don't feel warm.
Machine is under constant fixed load in my use.
Thank you!
Found out by experimenting:
One can set
configure->advanced->ADT7490->pwm3 to manual
And then pwm3 setting controls the memory fan.
Since I have stable load I turned off auto control and tuned for low noise while keeping an eye on temperatures.
I can shut memory fan down, I chose to leave it at 10% (~300 rpm, which the program displays as fan 2 I believe). This was almost all my noise.
The second "pwn1" for me is the only cpu fan I have, I pegged that also. The cpu fan may need changing at some point, it seems that will take more work.
I had to repeat some of the settings after a reboot, I dont have to keep speedfan running otherwise with pegged values. Reboots are rare for me.
In summary Any's guide gave me a quiet stable setup, thank you!!