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Intel Skylake Stock CPU Cooler Fan Speed Control Issues

idata
Employee
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I tried searching for similar posts on this topic, but found nothing.

As a moderator in a major mother board manufacture's support forum, we have been getting multiple complaints about fan speed control problems with the stock/boxed Intel CPU cooler provided with mainstream Skylake processors. Specifically, this happens ONLY with the Skylake box CPU cooler using a NIDEC Servo PWM fan, the E97379-001 12V 0.28A model.

The problem is this fan seems to not spin up until the CPU Fan PWM fan speed configuration is set to 50% in the mother board's fan speed control options. At a 50% setting this fan will then finally start and spin up to ~2000 RPM. Fan speed percentage settings above 50% provide little to no change in the fan's speed.

This situation is happening with multiple Intel 100 series chipset boards made by the mother board manufacture I am associated with.

I must say that I am not ruling out a problem with the fan speed control provided on these mother boards. I personally do not have experience with the Skylake boxed CPU cooler, since I have only purchases 'K' Skylake processors.

What information I do have includes: pre-Skylake boxed Intel CPU coolers seem to work fine with these Skylake mother boards. I've used many different 120mm and 140mm PWM fans on the CPU fan header on my Skylake boards made by this manufacture, and they function normally.

What I would like to know is, if Intel is aware of any problems with any of the NIDEC E97379-001 12V 0.28A fans used with Skylake processors?

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idata
Employee
2,830 Views

Hello Robert,

 

 

In regards to your inquiry about the fan not working properly on Skylake processors, I just wanted to let you know that there is no known issue with those fans, and the fan should start as soon as you turn the PC on.

 

 

So, the reasons why this is happening can be, as you mention before, because of a problem with the fan speed control located in the BIOS of the motherboards, could be a problem with the pins of the fan on the board, or it could be a problem with the fan itself, and in that case, we can always replace it for you.

 

 

Please let me know if you are interested in replacing the fan.

 

 

Alberto

 

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idata
Employee
2,831 Views

Hello Robert,

 

 

In regards to your inquiry about the fan not working properly on Skylake processors, I just wanted to let you know that there is no known issue with those fans, and the fan should start as soon as you turn the PC on.

 

 

So, the reasons why this is happening can be, as you mention before, because of a problem with the fan speed control located in the BIOS of the motherboards, could be a problem with the pins of the fan on the board, or it could be a problem with the fan itself, and in that case, we can always replace it for you.

 

 

Please let me know if you are interested in replacing the fan.

 

 

Alberto

 

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idata
Employee
2,830 Views

Thank you Alberto and Intel for your response. You answered my question regarding whether or not Intel is aware of any problems with the boxed Skylake processors fans.

As I said in my first post, I do not own or use a boxed Skylake CPU cooler. I have an i5-6600K, which is not supplied with a CPU cooler. None of the Skylake 'K' type processors are supplied with a CPU cooler. So I don't have one that could be replaced.

I wish I had a stock Intel Skylake boxed CPU cooler with the NIDEC fan model I included in my first post, so I could experiment with it myself. I might buy a non-K Skylake processor simply to get one of the boxed coolers to test myself.

Thanks for your help.

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idata
Employee
2,830 Views

Hello Robert:

 

 

We can always assist you in getting the Intel® Skylake boxed CPU cooler for your processor.

 

 

In order to get the fan, please get in contact directly with us through chat, email, online support or phone support, here is the link to do that:

 

 

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/contact-support.html# @12 http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/contact-support.html# @12

 

 

Once you get in contact with that department, just let them know that you need a fan, since the one you have is not working properly.

 

 

Alberto

 

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idata
Employee
2,830 Views

Alberto, thanks very much for your assistance and offer, I'll try contacting Intel as you suggested.

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idata
Employee
2,830 Views

Alberto, I've tried several times over the last two day to submit an Online Service Request, the option I chose among those provided in the link you provided in your last post.

I've logged into the new page that is opened when I click on the link in your post. I then filled in the fields in the two page form multiple times, and checked all of the required boxes. When I submit the form, I consistently get a "Single Sign-On Error", "We can't log you in. Check for an invalid assertion in the SAML Assertion Validator (available in Single Sign-On Settings) or check the login history for failed logins."

This occurred on 6/18 and 6/19, with multiple attempts on both days.

It seems you've had some server problems over the weekend of 6/18, since the Intel DownloadCenter page was not working (it is working now, the evening of 6/19), and I'm having zero luck submitting a Support Request.

I'll keep trying later today and tomorrow if necessary, but this is becoming rather frustrating.

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idata
Employee
2,830 Views

Hello Robert:

 

 

I sent you a private message before on Jun 21st, in order to get your shipping address so we can send you the fan.

 

 

Did you saw that message?

 

 

Please let me know if you still interested for us to send you the fan, since you don't have one, we can always send it as a gift.

 

 

Alberto

 

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idata
Employee
2,830 Views

Hello Robert:

 

 

I just sent you a private message, please verify your inbox.

 

 

Thanks

 

 

Alberto

 

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idata
Employee
2,830 Views

I saw both messages Alberto, and replied to the ID Alberto. There was more than one Alberto listed in the recipient list, both simply "Alberto" as far as I could see.

Just tried replying again to the PM. Not sure what is going wrong here...

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idata
Employee
2,830 Views

Hi Robert:

 

 

I just sent you another private message, just choose the option that says reply and I will be able to get your message.

 

 

Alberto

 

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idata
Employee
2,830 Views

Hello Robert:

 

 

I received your private message.

 

 

I already reply back to it with the order number of the fan.

 

 

Please let me know if you receive it.

 

 

Alberto
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idata
Employee
2,830 Views

Hi Alberto, I have received the fan, thank you and Intel for your generosity and fast response.

You may recall that I said the fan on the Skylake CPU cooler that seemed to have a problem was made by NIDEC. At least that is what the label on the fan states. The question and reason for this thread is whether or not the PWM fan speed control on a mother board manufacture's products was causing the strange rotation behavior of the fan, as I described in my first post, or if the fan itself was defective. I also found a thread describing the identical problem posted by a user in this forum, that was using a different manufacture's Skylake chipset mother board.

The Skylake CPU cooler (I assume) that I received is made by Foxconn, according to the label on the fan. I was hoping to get a NIDEC manufactured fan model, but I decided to try the Intel CPU cooler I received from Intel. If the NIDEC fan models were having a problem, then the Foxconn model would likely work fine.

I connected the Foxconn CPU cooler to the four pin PWM CPU_FAN1 header on my Z170 mother board, and after starting Windows 10, I ran the board's utility program that allows fan speed configuration in Windows. The utility has a "Fan Test" option, that allows the user to compare the PWM percentage to the fan's speed, to let the user create a custom fan speed profile that fits their needs.

This is a screenshot of my result:

This result shows the Foxconn made CPU cooler's fan worked in the manner I would expect a PWM controlled fan to operate. A fairly linear increase in fan RPM from 10% to 100%, over a range of about 1000 RPM.

This behavior is not at all like that of the NIDEC fans I have been told about by several users. Running the same software, the NIDEC fan does not start spinning until a 50% PWM signal level. At the 50% PWM level, the fan's speed is ~2,000 RPM, and does not change significantly between the 50% and 100% levels.

I very recently received a private message from a user in another forum, that had the NIDEC made CPU cooler, and had the apparent fan speed control issue. That user tried a different Intel CPU cooler, from a previous generation processor, with his Skylake CPU and mother board. He told me that CPU cooler worked perfectly, and as he expected. His comments included his belief that the NIDEC CPU cooler fan is defective.

I don't know if all the NIDEC manufactured CPU coolers exhibit the non-standard fan behavior, but Intel might want to test a few as a quality check. I had several owners of the NIDEC made CPU coolers complain about this in the ASRock support forum, whom may be requesting replacement fans.

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idata
Employee
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Hello parsec:

 

 

Thank you very much for all that information, we really appreciate that because that feedback is very important for us to check on the NIDEC fans.

 

 

I will send this information to the proper department so they can do a research in regards to this behavior, they will take a look and some cases and reports in order to find out what might be the reason for this problem.

 

 

So, thank you again for those comments.

 

 

Also, It is great to hear the Foxconn fan is now working properly on your PC.

 

 

Any questions, please let me know.

 

 

Alberto

 

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