Author: parsec
Subject: Z170 Pro4 Fan Control
Posted: 12 Apr 2016 at 1:01pm
All I can work from is your board's manual, and my experience with ASRock boards, but given that it seems there is no fan speed control in the UEFI/BIOS for the Chassis 3 fan header. There may be a reason for that.
I suspect that the situation is a confusion with the purpose of the three pin fan header on your board, labeled as item 26 in your board's manual.
Many earlier ASRock boards have a three pin fan header that is labeled the Power Fan header. My Z97 Extreme6 board has one of these three pin Power Fan headers.
The Power Fan headers never have any fan speed control associated with them by design. Their intent is to provide a fan header that provides a full 12V at all times. These headers can be useful with low noise fans that constantly run at full speed, for use with manual fan speed controls, or to power the pumps on AIO CLC liquid coolers.
With their Intel 100 series chipset boards, ASRock changed to a four pin connector for the Chassis fans. The four pin chassis fans have fan speed control available in the UEFI/BIOS, and in the board's utility program provided by ASRock.
A few of the 100 series boards like yours have one three pin fan connector, which seems to be of the power fan type. For some reason these fan headers were not labeled as Power fans, but were included as Chassis fans in their identification. That is the confusion I mentioned earlier.
I may be wrong about this, but it fits what I've seen with other ASRock boards, and also fits the design change to all four pin Chassis fan headers in the 100 series chipset boards, that use Smart Fan Speed Control.
I realize the three pin Chassis fan header is listed in the specifications as having fan speed control, but IMO that is a mistake.
Your board's A-Tuning utility will have a fan speed control section, called Fan-Tastic Tuning, that mirrors what is available in the UEFI/BIOS. Do you use that now?
You can check if its Fan-Tastic Tuning feature includes fan speed control for the three pin Chassis Fan 3 connector, but I would not be surprised if it does not include it.
If I'm completely wrong, then your board has gone through quite a few UEFI/BIOS updates (10+) without this omission being corrected. I doubt that is possible, sorry to say.
Subject: Z170 Pro4 Fan Control
Posted: 12 Apr 2016 at 1:01pm
All I can work from is your board's manual, and my experience with ASRock boards, but given that it seems there is no fan speed control in the UEFI/BIOS for the Chassis 3 fan header. There may be a reason for that.
I suspect that the situation is a confusion with the purpose of the three pin fan header on your board, labeled as item 26 in your board's manual.
Many earlier ASRock boards have a three pin fan header that is labeled the Power Fan header. My Z97 Extreme6 board has one of these three pin Power Fan headers.
The Power Fan headers never have any fan speed control associated with them by design. Their intent is to provide a fan header that provides a full 12V at all times. These headers can be useful with low noise fans that constantly run at full speed, for use with manual fan speed controls, or to power the pumps on AIO CLC liquid coolers.
With their Intel 100 series chipset boards, ASRock changed to a four pin connector for the Chassis fans. The four pin chassis fans have fan speed control available in the UEFI/BIOS, and in the board's utility program provided by ASRock.
A few of the 100 series boards like yours have one three pin fan connector, which seems to be of the power fan type. For some reason these fan headers were not labeled as Power fans, but were included as Chassis fans in their identification. That is the confusion I mentioned earlier.
I may be wrong about this, but it fits what I've seen with other ASRock boards, and also fits the design change to all four pin Chassis fan headers in the 100 series chipset boards, that use Smart Fan Speed Control.
I realize the three pin Chassis fan header is listed in the specifications as having fan speed control, but IMO that is a mistake.
Your board's A-Tuning utility will have a fan speed control section, called Fan-Tastic Tuning, that mirrors what is available in the UEFI/BIOS. Do you use that now?
You can check if its Fan-Tastic Tuning feature includes fan speed control for the three pin Chassis Fan 3 connector, but I would not be surprised if it does not include it.
If I'm completely wrong, then your board has gone through quite a few UEFI/BIOS updates (10+) without this omission being corrected. I doubt that is possible, sorry to say.