[HN Gopher] A USB Fan Controller that now works under Linux
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       A USB Fan Controller that now works under Linux
        
       Author : arm
       Score  : 50 points
       Date   : 2021-10-05 20:23 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.ktz.me)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.ktz.me)
        
       | cornhole wrote:
       | The front Noctua fan in the picture of the PC is installed
       | backwards.
        
       | Scramblejams wrote:
       | Great news! I love Supermicro boards but a bunch of them give you
       | like half a dozen headers and you can only control them as two
       | sets. I'd looked into supported controllers but nothing currently
       | shipping seemed compelling.[0]
       | 
       | Hope Corsair doesn't rev this hardware soon, or I may have to buy
       | a few just to sit on the shelf awaiting future deployment.
       | 
       | [0] Happy to hear otherwise, alternatives welcome.
        
         | DiabloD3 wrote:
         | As far as I can tell, Supermicro's multiple headers are all
         | duplicates; as in, for example, it gives you like 4 case fan
         | headers all driven off a single 2A+ PWM controller. So,
         | basically, an onboard PWM splitter.
        
       | spicybright wrote:
       | How does is a set of dedicated pins vs routing everything through
       | the USB bus better?
        
         | KingMachiavelli wrote:
         | You shouldn't pull more than ~1 to 2A from a motherboard fan
         | header which means you can probably only have 1-2 fans per fan
         | header. Also controlling the motherboard fan headers from the
         | OS is always finicky (most BIOS are utter garbage anyway). This
         | USB adapter pulls power directly from the PSU so it can have 5+
         | fans and can be more easily controlled from the OS. This
         | specific one can also control some LED strips, etc.
         | 
         | TBH it's not really necessary but people like to have it.
        
         | tenebrisalietum wrote:
         | The pins are not better and USB might be preferable because I'm
         | betting onboard fan controllers are frequently intertwined with
         | ACPI which even to this day continues to give issues for
         | operating systems other than Windows. Speculation on my part
         | though.
        
       | beervirus wrote:
       | Why does any of this need OS support? You should be able to
       | configure fan speed via a BIOS menu as you have been since the
       | late 1900s.
        
         | lights0123 wrote:
         | Not if you run out of fan headers and need an expander.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-10-05 23:00 UTC)