Built a cheap DIY fan controller because my motherboard never had working PWM

Re:Built a cheap DIY fan controller because my motherboard n... by gzread on Thursday April 02, 2026 @04:34AM (#47611602)

What if Windows crashes? It's better to attach a thermal sensor to the heatsink, I think.

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Re:Built a cheap DIY fan controller because my motherboard n... by johndough on Thursday April 02, 2026 @05:08AM (#47611876)

Just send a heartbeat every few milliseconds and set fan speed to 100% if it died. Bonus: You get an audible indicator that the system crashed.

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Re:Built a cheap DIY fan controller because my motherboard n... by crote on Thursday April 02, 2026 @10:27AM (#47614977)

Well, what if?

We don't live in the AMD Athlon era[0] anymore. Modern CPUs are designed to boost until they hit a thermal limit, improper cooling is just going to result in a lower clock speed.

[0]: https://youtu.be/UoXRHexGIok?t=55

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Re:Built a cheap DIY fan controller because my motherboard n... by joe_mamba on Thursday April 02, 2026 @11:04AM (#47615446)

Damn, that video took me waaay back.

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Re:Built a cheap DIY fan controller because my motherboard n... by bobsterlobster on Saturday April 04, 2026 @02:33AM (#47636450)

What a blast from the past. I still remember seeing it for the first time on my Socket A Athlon 1900+ pc.

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Re:Built a cheap DIY fan controller because my motherboard n... by bobsterlobster on Thursday April 02, 2026 @08:04PM (#47621830)

If windows crashes, then the audio generation crashes, so the fan will start to operate without PWM. Should default to 100%. At least that's how the PWM fans I have behave when the PWM signal suddenly disappears.

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