Q-fan step up time

[andyc26]

I've now had two maximus boards, an 8 ranger and X hero, and both have never followed my fan step up and step down bios settings. I have my CPU set to 3.6s step up and 12s step down, case fans at 0s step up and 25s step down, but my CPU fans still ramp up and down instantly eg. opening chrome will result in an instant boost in fan speed and than an immediate decrease once it's loaded. With chrome only taking less than a second to load, obviously my step up/step down settings are not being followed. My case fans are virtually silent at my q-fan settings, hence the 0s step up, coupled with the fact the lowest step setting is 25s for case fans. It is definitely the CPU fan spinning up and down instantaneously. FWIW I have 2x Noctua AF-15 PWM CPU fans.

Is this behaviour that others have had/are having with their Maximus boards?
*
I really want to avoid using AIsuite, but has anyone had any luck using that for fan settings? I know it's not a particularly big deal, and in the past I have just set a level fan setting across all temps, but having my computer on my desk it can get annoying having a symphony of fans going off under light to no load.

Apologies if this has been asked and answered before, but I tried searching "q-fan", "step up time" and got an error saying the words were too short.*

[vBDKv]

I think we should stop giving asus money. If they can't even fix a simple thing such as ramp up times, god only knows what else they'll mess up in the future. Also on AMD, they are running agesa 1002, which is ancient. Other manufacturers are on 1004.

Yeah .. Stop giving asus money.

[mcmarky]

Hello Folks,

I have tested several step up and down settings, also edited the FanCalibrationData.xml and the fanprofile.xml of FanXpert4 on my X Hero. Nothing helps to use the fan speed ramp and down time. FanXpert4 displays the applied and expected fan speed reaction correctly, it shows the yellow point moving up and down, without staying at the fan curve. BUT the fan and the fan headers are not controlled in that way, they react without step up and down time as you can see in the attached screenshot. The CPU temperature just hits the 45°C for 2 seconds, no critical temperature.



So, why has the step up and down time no function in BIOS and FanXpert4 ? Please ASUS fix this.

[mcmarky]

Well, I discovered an additional very big problem in FanXpert4. As you can see in the attached screenshot, the "Water In" temperature which displays the GPU temp. measured by a separate sensor is 49°C. But FX4 controls the chassis fan 1 to the lowest fan setting...instead of using the fan curve !?!?!?!? What the hell !?!?! Also the same at chassis fan 2.

Can anybody explain me this?

[1ntel]

I have the same issue on maximus x hero board. Would be great if fan spin up works properly.

[R5Eandme]

My Rampage V Extreme/i7-5930K system has a BIG Noctua NH-DS15 cpu cooler with the stock 150mm fan (NF-A15) in the middle of it and an additional NF-F12 on the intake end of the fins, all PWM controlled by CPU temps. I used Arctic Silver 5 applied according to instructions of their web site for Intel chips (a single line along the die layout). I also have the problem of instantaneous ramp-up of rpm, even though I tried to control it once with delay settings in AiSuite.

I now use BIOS fan profile settings and I tried to "get ahead" of the cpu heat dissipation by having an aggressive early fan profile as follows:
at lower temp 25C the fan duty cycle is 25%
at mid temp 40C the fan duty cycle is 50%
at upper temp 55C athe fan duty cycle is 100%.

CPU fans still periodically ramp up instantaneously, even though most of the time the normal idle temp is 33C and idle fan rpm ~700.
I once tried higher duty cycle at lower temp and it did not prevent sudden ramping up.

So I am wondering if today's CPUs (at least Intel) have shrunk the die so much that there isn't enough physical mass in the die to dissipate heat before the internal sensors detect that the max temp boundary has been breached as Raja said?

Does AMDs Zen architecture/Infinity Fabric have the same problem, or do the separate modules in their chips mitigate the issue? I don't know enough about the physical layout of the dies in these chips to do more than speculate so any expertise is welcome.

[Greyly]

mcmarky wrote:
Well, I discovered an additional very big problem in FanXpert4. As you can see in the attached screenshot, the "Water In" temperature which displays the GPU temp. measured by a separate sensor is 49°C. But FX4 controls the chassis fan 1 to the lowest fan setting...instead of using the fan curve !?!?!?!? What the hell !?!?! Also the same at chassis fan 2.

Fan Xpert 4 seems to ignore all sources that are not available in BIOS (Q-fan). I have the exact same problem when using my ASUS RTX 2080 GPU as the source, and I've found other posts saying the same thing. This bug has been reported repeatedly for over a year.

It will use the "ghosted" yellow dot to show you what the correct RPM would be if everything worked as it should, while the solid yellow dot below tells you that the fan is actually running at the lowest speed (or even turned off if you have enabled auto stop).

[WizPip]

Well, hello again. This doesn't work on my Maximus Formula VII, or my Maximus Formula XI. You'd think ASUS would have gotten around to fixing it in 4 generations...

Literally no point in having fan curves when they all just go to max the second the CPU is doing any work. The CPU may get to 90 doing something intensive, but that hasn't instantly changed the temperature of the litre of water in my loop from 30C. In fact, it hasn't even moved.

[mcmarky]

Well, the fan speeds ramp up as they ramp down, also when a step down time is set. So there is a problem in AI Suite and BIOS. My friend has bought last year Gigabyte Z370 Gaming 7, and its CPU fanspeed is smooth going up and down. So no real problem to regulate the fan speeds in a usual way.

I am using the Noctua NH-D15S with only one fan in the midle, idle low speed 250 rpm. Inaudible. The only way to cool the hardware in a smooth and secure way is to use Argus Monitor from Argotronic. This program has many options to control the fans in fine smooth steps.

However I am really disappointed that I bought a very expensive board and an important fan control does not work as described. And nobody helps.

[R5Eandme]

mcmarky wrote:
Well, the fan speeds ramp up as they ramp down, also when a step down time is set. So there is a problem in AI Suite and BIOS. My friend has bought last year Gigabyte Z370 Gaming 7, and its CPU fanspeed is smooth going up and down. So no real problem to regulate the fan speeds in a usual way.

I am using the Noctua NH-D15S with only one fan in the midle, idle low speed 250 rpm. Inaudible. The only way to cool the hardware in a smooth and secure way is to use Argus Monitor from Argotronic. This program has many options to control the fans in fine smooth steps.

However I am really disappointed that I bought a very expensive board and an important fan control does not work as described. And nobody helps.

Hi McMarky,

The fact that Gigabyte hardware and BIOS does not have sudden fan blasts is a more compelling argument that the problem is not in the CPU but in the BIOS or Ai Suite. Maybe ASUS can alter their fan control code to anticipate the temp curve and dissipate heat before the thermal maximum is breached rather than waiting until after the fact.

Argus Monitor looks really good. Do you know if there are any conflicts with other monitor/control software such as MSI Afterburner, Samsung Magician, etc?

[mcmarky]

No conflict so far with MSI Afterburner and Argusmonitor.