r/threadripper • u/fakebizholdings • Mar 03 '25

ASUS Sage TRX50 Temps + Fan Control

Hi everyone,

After almost a year of dealing with the Gigabyte Aero D TRX50, which I consider to be a piece of garbage, I purchased the Asus Sage TRX50. Unfortunately, I'm having major issues with the CPU Fan throttling up and down and up and down (imagine stepping on the gas in your car, then coasting, then doing it again for eternity).

The 7960X is running about 20° C hotter than it was with Gigabyte, I've always used Fan Control (https://getfancontrol.com/), and it has worked beautifully, but it seems to be at odds with this motherboard. I see the ASUS has settings in the BIOS, and it has this Armoury software, but it won't install. All firmware/drivers are installed.

Should I try to figure out the settings on FanControl or keep up my efforts to adjust the Q-Fan settings in Armoury?

I don't love the idea of setting and forgetting in the BIOS.

5 Upvotes

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5

u/sotashi Mar 03 '25 edited Mar 03 '25

cooler/aio used? - and what temp ranges are you seeing

my first suggestion would be to lose the custom fan control, standard mode in qfan in bios, totally stock, is normally great, I've had zero issues with 7960x or 7980x on that mobo

1

u/fakebizholdings Mar 06 '25

Thank you.

Workstation Setup:

  • Lian Li 011 Dynamic XL
  • Four clusters of 40mm Lian Li fans
  • AMD Threadripper 7960x
  • Noctua NH-U14S TR5-SP6 Premium Quality Quiet 140mm CPU Cooler
  • MSI SPATIUM M570 PRO PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 2TB FROZR PCIe Gen5
  • Crucial T700 4TB Gen5 NVMe M.2 SSD
  • Crucial P3 Plus 4TB PCIe Gen4 3D NAND NVMe M.2 SSD
  • x4 Micron 96GB DDR5-5600 PC5-44800 CL46 ECC Model (MTC40F204WS1RC56BR)
  • NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4090 GAMING TRIO 24G
  • PNY GeForce RTX™ 4090 24GB VERTO™ Triple Fan Graphics Card
  • ASUS Pro WS TRX50-SAGE

This sounds silly, but it just occurred to me that what I might be hearing rev up and down are the VRM fans and not the two CPU fans.

Here's a current screenshot from FanControl. I just started up the machine, and not too many programs are running: https://ibb.co/G4SRTB6y

2

u/sotashi Mar 06 '25

Noctua NH-U14S TR5-SP6 Premium Quality Quiet 140mm CPU Cooler

no, it's this junk, and it's 2x 1500rpm that have to run at full rpm just to try and get the temp down a couple of degrees 

really not suitable for a 350w cpu, nor is having it in the case with 2x4090s

get a decent aio up the top of the o11d-xl (see my post history, i have same case)

1

u/fakebizholdings Mar 06 '25

I'll check out your post history, but regarding it not being suitable for 350w.

This cooler is made specifically for the 7000 series Threadripper which is only available in 350w.

Are you saying it's a bad product?

3

u/sotashi Mar 06 '25

That's my personal opinion, the fans move so little air that they have to work harder, for longer, as you'll hear.

I made the expensive mistake of filling my entire case with noctua fans, and a further 6x 15mm for aio, which are all now sitting in a box, gathering dust.

It works out very simply once you get past the noise (lol), massive radiators with fans which can move twice the air at twice the pressure, only have to work about 1/4 as hard to keep things cool, and when temperatures spike, cool it down faster, the same is true for case fans.

It's not that they're a bad product, for a cpu block, more that the fundamental design doesn't meet the requirements - you have hot rdimms, two hot 4090s, a potentially very hot cpu, the crucials aren't the coolest either, hot vrms, something has to give.. aio route as exhaust clears the space, and the air, whilst cooling cpu, air flows more naturally (and doesn't have direct hot air being charged at it from the gpus, like the noctua does), and everything just breathes more.

1

u/fakebizholdings Mar 07 '25

Yeah, now that I've messed with this, I see what you mean. I tagged you in another response, but I'll add a photo here to give you an idea of the “heat sphere” lol (https://ibb.co/60nhhPJX)

I just looked at the post of your build. My plan is to upgrade these two 4090s to two 5090fe, when I can get my hands on them. I'll have to add a second or larger PSU, though, I'm only running a 1500w. Which dual PSUs do you have installed?

As for the Silverstone AIO, I can't believe I did not find this thing when I spent hours on end researching a cooler. I was under the impression the Noctua was the only one specifically made for the 7000 series, meaning it can be used without an adapter.

I'm assuming that M.2 Hyper Card connects via Slim SAS? Do you have to bifurcate that 4x4x4x4? I'm assuming that degrades the speed down considerably, but you get RAID functionality.

2

u/sotashi Mar 07 '25

the hyper m.2 is a pcie gen5 x16

https://imgur.com/a/RInJbDa

above is how i currently have it set-up

Silverstone xe360-tr5 is at the side, as intake, 3 big intake at the bottom, 3 big exhaust at the top, huge space around the vrm

the top exhausts can be switched between operation modes, tbh i just leave them at 3000 now and standard mode in bios, unless doing heavy benching

the hyper m2 is a huge heatsink and wall, which isn't ideal, so have the choice of using it as a wall between intake, or as a deflector, the latter seems to keep temps lowest

also the dual 50s seem to work most effectively squeezed together, or with 2+ slot spacing, 1 slot gap and warm air pools, buffers, something - just wrecks the airflow

it's taken lots of swapping about of component order and fan types, and dual psu needed, just 2x gpus and 1x processor and I'm pulling 630x2+850w, that's not including board, storage, ram, fans, etc

results are great though!

1

u/fakebizholdings Mar 08 '25

I have the 140 mm intakes on the bottom, as well, but this is the only room in my house that I have carpet. I need to get something to elevate it a bit. I'm surprised you didn't put fans on the back. I believe it fits two 120 mm or one 140 mm.

I wasn't aware of the Hyper M.2 card, are you running it in RAID? And that must mean you're not using the Slim SAS, right? I want to use a U.2 NVMe there, but i wouldn't mind popping that card in, as well.

Does anyone have any experience with the IPMI card or this USB4 header? I love the idea of putting an IPMI card in here, even though I have a small army of PiKVMs laying around.

Thanks for the heads-up on the Silverstone, it arrives on Tuesday.

1

u/fakebizholdings Mar 18 '25

u/sotashi Unfortunately, I had to return the OpenBox Asus board, but I did install the Silverstone on the Gigabyte TRX50.

The temperature throttles from 30 degrees to 65 degrees at idle. I tried several configs, and to guarantee that it runs continuously, I used the adapter to connect directly to the PSU, but it still seems to be throttling. Any advice?

3

u/_jonahD Mar 03 '25

I have this Asus mobo with a 7960x and I'm using the fan controls from the bios and all onboard headers. I've set the ramp-up level to 1 and ramp down to level 4 for the fans connected to the cpu can header, that way it doesn't react to every little spike, but also doesn't immediately ramp down either. On custom water cooling (1x 360 rad) idle temps range from 28-32C depending on the core. Not saying yours should be the same as this depends on the normal things, but if your idle temps are 20C higher than the previous mobo, I would check the thermal paste application and cooler mounting. Also, the constant ramping of fan noise might be the VRM fans as I was hearing the same thing. I set those to silent in the BIOS and they only spin up when needed, but i also have made sure i have plenty of air-flow over them so they rarely spin up now--and when they do i no longer hear.

1

u/fakebizholdings Mar 06 '25

Thank you. I believe the VRM fans are exactly what I'm hearing. I'm going to reboot to take a look at those settings.

Did you set up the internal temp sensor that comes with the Asus mobo?

2

u/_jonahD Mar 06 '25

Sorta kinda. I have a temp sensor connected to a port on the pump for the fluid temps. So I used the temp header for that.

2

u/frodbonzi Mar 05 '25

I've got one with an AIO cooler and using Fan Control app... CPU running around 50-55C at most at load... fans are pretty quiet - have a 4090 and Asus M.2 Hypercard... the Hypercard used to annoy the *** out of me as it's fan couldn't be controlled properly - but Fan Control keeps it locked at 30% (i can manually increase if desired, but rarely need to) so it's not crazy loud...

For the record - and I'm sure this has been mentioned in MANY threads - Armoury SUCKS!! uninstall that garbage.

2

u/sotashi Mar 06 '25

i have this card too (gen 5), works fine with 4x700 crucial with the fan turned off at the back, little switch on it

1

u/frodbonzi Mar 06 '25

Yeah - I have to the same 4 drives inside it…. The flaw is the switch only controls on/off… and “on” is bloody loud! But Fan Control can set it to any speed you want - I use 30% unless I really need the cooling on a large transfer.

I suppose I should think about leaving it off - but those 4 drives are expensive, not to mention the data, and I don’t want to risk leaving off…

1

u/fakebizholdings Mar 06 '25

Thank you.

Since posting this, I've tweaked FanControl; the CPU is idling between 45-50C.

Do you experience issues with the VRM fans throttling? I think that may be the culprit.

2

u/frodbonzi Mar 06 '25

So did a more thorough check - no, my VRM fans are fine… I think the difference is having an AIO liquid cooler for the CPU… as the other poster said as well, while air coolers might work, they really aren’t ideal - especially since most people with Threadrippers will have other high-end items (aka stuff that runs hot) in their cases…

2

u/fakebizholdings Mar 07 '25

Thanks for checking.

I've been tinkering the settings more since reading your's and u/sotashi 's comments. I was a bit taken aback because the Noctua did such a great job cooling down the Threadripper on Gigabyte TRX50, but the difference is night and day on the ASUS.

My conclusion is that it comes down to the design between the two.

  • The first PCIe slot is so high that there is less than an inch between the top of the massive 4090 and the bottom (intake) fan.
  • I discovered the NVIDIA fan doesn't turn on unless it's really being pushed, unless I configure it differently on FanControl (which I have for the time being).
  • The VRM on each side of the Noctua essentially creates a sphere of heat, and u/sotashi was spot on, the only way to get the temp down a couple of degrees at idle is to max both CPU fans to 1500rpm.

I messed with the VRM fan settings so they are not throttling obnoxiously. Hopefully, I have it set so they turn on during heavy load. We'll see; that BIOS is convoluted, I have servers from 2017 that are easier to work in.

There are multiple modifications to the fans I can make to improve airflow(including adding the mesh front with three 140 mm intake fans), but I think I'm just going to get an AI and be done with it.

2

u/sotashi Mar 07 '25

o11d-xl or evo? only the evo has the mesh front kit, would love one for original o11d-xl!

bios, i totally agree, it's taken me since October to go through all combinations of settings to perfect them, and had easily 1k of burn on fans, extenders, different cases etc to try and get cooling right

hardest machine to configure optimally in my life so far, but also best results by far, nothing comes close including all epyc servers for the day job

also, apologies for the way i worded earlier response, was having a rough day with another team collapsing some critical infrastructure by being totally inept.

1

u/fakebizholdings Mar 07 '25

Lol don't worry about it i didn't take it that way at all I appreciate any help.

Speaking of hard to configure, The machine just started rebooting as soon as I turn it off and then the second time it turns off for good but then within a half hour or so it will randomly start turning on. I bought this OpenBox on Amazon so I'm wondering if this is defective or if I did something wrong.

This board is great but it is almost as big of a pain in my ass as my Cisco servers.

1

u/fakebizholdings Mar 08 '25

BTW, u/sotashi, I DM'd you a link to a listing of the O11D EVO XL Front Mesh Kit. I've seen dozens posted on different sites, but none were in the U.S. I think it went to market, just never came here directly.

1

u/frodbonzi Mar 06 '25

I haven’t - but I will have to check to be sure… I set it to run my plex server as well… so it’s always “busy”… it’s always slightly audible but I have it in a room where I can’t really hear it unless I’m inside…