It was a time of darkness.
The people continuously adjusting controllers, reinventing set points in Playground, or using simple but inefficient settings that appeared to get the desired results.
Nothing worked perfectly, but it was enough.
One dared challenge the status quo.
One stepped up and built something of elegance.
Something built for the simplicity and beauty, purely out of a dedication to laziness...
A new path using math and mad science.
Now is the time where enough is no longer enough.
Now is the time of The Thermal Regulator.
The Thermal Regulator is a collection of inputs and functional elements that have been tested for over a year. Simple, elegant, intelligent; the Thermal Regulator is built for controlling pumps and with a few modifications, fans. It's purpose-built with the intention of finding your system's optimal cooling sweet spot and automatically providing that information into the curve that best suits your system's cooling needs.
Deep in it's core is the information coming in from your CPU and GPU, though any number of heat producing loop-integrated components in the same ranges can expand the data points for consideration. Multi-GPU? No problem.
It begins by consuming the temperatures, looking for the highest in the stack, it channels that into four elements. The first smooths the noise with a low pass filter set for response to changing loads. The second and third find the high and low over the past minute and takes the delta as another consideration. The fourth finds the trend over the past 5 seconds to anticipate your system's needs.
By multiplying the delta with the trend, it serves to nudge the filtered high temperature demanding the most attention. It finds the sweet spot that your system craves. Both subtle and elegant, it creates a feedback that helps determine the average thermal output of your system while giving it the power to demand more or take a breather.
Finally, the peak of that average is rounded to the nearest tenth for safe measure and to hold that position where your temps are median. This quells the constant tweaking associated with more pedestrian methods of shaving the middle-ground or ineffective manually guessed set-points that don't understand your loop's turbulent flow demands.
Connected to a controller of your desire for sure, but optimally a curve will suffice. This will vary based upon your pump(s) and their performance specs. Too low and you risk stall from restrictions. Too high and you miss the point of this. You should have a flow indicator of some kind. You know better than to not.
The Thermal Regulator will increase the estimated temperature of your system's heat producing items and given their reaction to your pump curve, it will strive for the median-average temperature. But does it end here? No, my friends.
No, by all means...
I give you the Intercooler Regulator (radiator fans) version of the Thermal Regulator.
It's said that man cannot live on bread alone, and neither does flow. Flow demands cooling. Cooling requires control. Control brings order from chaos. You demand the most from your system, so why shouldn't it get what it needs to do your bidding?
This powerful expansion requires your system to know how hot the loop is at the hottest point. Don't have a temperature probe at the end of your components? Jury rig a sensor to the intake side of your hottest rad with electrical tape if you must, just make it sensitive enough (+2.1K works well) to get close. Add 2C to your cold side if you must, but the goal is to get that data. It's important. Your system is important. It's all about the data.
It takes that hot liquid temperature and over the past five minutes, captures the coldest and hottest it's been. It finds the delta and multiplies it against the current hot point. Using the logarithmic function between the filtered current and highest points to estimate where the thermals are going to go next. Yet, like Salt Bae, another adds the delta between your intake to the coolant to the lowest temp for a dash of realism. It adds more for when your system is outside your comfort zone.
More on that in a moment... That's where you need to know the ambient temperature of your room. Preferably, you want a thermal sensor at one of your intakes for the best reading. Case internal is useless, you need to know what the temperature is where your case is. The floor may be cooler or hotter, or your something blocks flow from your air conditioner. Maybe a big honking fan in your hot room isn't circulating air well where your case is.
Using that intake, use the set-point in Celsius to define your personal (
you, not your computer) comfortable temperature in the room. Do you like it at 72F? Do you like it at 69F? Is 74F your highest tolerance before it's too hot? What you set your thermostat to for your comfort should be this number. It should not change after this point. If it must change, add another set point and average their output or somehow come up with an automatic switch to determine the desired point between summer and winter. That part isn't the goal here. The goal is control.
Getting the delta of the intake temperature with this set point, it's added to the now filtered estimate of how cold your coolant can get given the power of your rad(s) and your present load. Using this data as a switch controller, when the ambient room temperature is outside your comfort zone, it adds a fudge factor to boost the fans a bit more than normal. When the temperature is at or below your comfort zone, it uses the lower value to avoid overdriving the fans for no reason. And for 5 minutes, it holds that peak, rounded to the nearest tenth of a C to provide your fan controller(s) a picture of where your rig expects the coolant temperature to go.
Combined, these two regulators will balance and compliment each other. No longer do you need to worry about having to decide between fan or pump noise. You no longer need to decide between high fans or high pump, or both, or neither. Your system will find the optimal combination between pump and fan speeds to
realistically cool your system based on your room and it's location within it. The feedback from the thermal and fan regulators independently determine whether your system needs more turbulent flow or maximum power to lower those temps during the most frenzied of loads. Not so jumpy, but "fluxxy" enough to surprise you with well managed coolant temps to help mitigate thermal throttling at best for you "must be silent" folks to let your system soar through the digital expanse.
How should you set your curves, you ask? That will require some knowledge of your pump's lowest RPM before fluid stall
. You first should have that low point set as the low on the fan settings page. Don't use my values, your milage will vary based on your loop restriction.
Be sure to set your pump(s) minimum power!
Fan curve examples:
Rad(s): -15 Curve, max = < 55C (Never let your coolant get too hot! I chose 40C as my safe ceiling for 100% fans.)
Pump(s): +15 Curve, minimum = the coldest your CPU ever gets and max should be comfortably below the throttling point or maximum temperature of your most sensitive component. I chose 75C because it's a fairly good number for me to have 100% pump.
Download the Virtual Sensor XML files to import into Aquasuite X.57: Thermal and Intercooler Regulators.zip
Updated 10/2022 -- Intercooler Regulator: Redesigned to remove averaging for quicker response, and applied automatic room temperature averaging.
DISCLAIMER: USE YOUR OWN JUDGEMENT WHEN CONFIGURING YOUR CURVES AND LIMITS! You are responsible for yourself and what you do with this information. The Thermal Regulator and Intercooler Regulator are rock solid. I've used them for over a year of tweaking and experimentation. They work if used and configured properly. Any modifications you make are your own. Don't use my curves or configurations or temperatures as your rig's needs will vary based on your setup. Your system will have different restrictions and different needs than mine. I recommend an emergency profile that kicks everything to maximum. Use alarms to auto-shutdown in the event of an emergency. Above all else, this is provided without warranty or support, but I'm happy to accept input and will provide advise where I can.
My Loop: Hardware Labs Black Ice rads, Lian-Li Uni Fans and a handful of Vardar for an extra boost on my fatty -- Two 480 slims with 4x 120mm fans each on pull, one 360 slim with 3x 120mm fans on push for exhaust, one 360 fat boy with 3x 120mm Lian-Li on pull and 3x 120mm Vardar on push. One Lian-Li Uni 140mm exhaust case fan. Dual EK DDC 3.2 pumps. 360mm Heatkiller res. All EK fittings. Aquaero 6 Pro. MPS Flow 400. Several temperature sensors.
My Rig: AMD Threadripper 3960x (OC'd), Zotac NVidia RTX 2080 Super (OC'd), A-DATA XPG Strix 64GB Quad DDR4-3200 w/t-t-t-tight-Tight-TIGHT tRFC ultra low latency timings (16-19-19-36 on not-so-great Samsung M-die chips: Don't ask how, it was a harrowing experience I don't want to relive...).