Quote Originally Posted by JKad View Post
I posted the same question on the Asus support site and got a reply with the following link>

http://estore.asus.com/shop/item.asp...3718&catid=553

The listing is for the striker extreme but looking at that manual, it appears to be the same as for the Maximus Formula. I think this is for a package of three sensors. Cost is $3.00 and shipping cheapest I think $5.00.
Still haven't heard if anyone has any experience with using these so it's a crap shoot. With New Years around the corner, there's no rush to order.
I'm using them. We've got a metric asston of them at work, IT was giving them away. I'm assuming they're from Strikers or some other Asus board, they came in a 3 pack along with one chipset heatsink fan (same one that ships with the Maximus).

I use Opt 1 external for ambient, Opt 2 floating in the case center, and Opt 3 between the fins of my Accelero coolers.

They're pretty accurate, but they're only marginally useful for controlling fan speeds because the temp steppings in BIOS are so large...24, 32, 40, etc.

If you have QFan tied to a sensor, when it get within 2c of the target temp, it goes full 12v power...~2c below the threshold and it drops to 5v.

For instance, I have a Scythe SFF-F under my case, blowing up on the video cards. It's connected to Opt 3, along with a thermistor. Where I've placed my thermistor is usually about 25c.

If left in Qfan mode and 32c, it runs at 540 RPM, too slow to do much of anything. Set it to 24 and it's 1600 RPM, and therefore too loud. So, all my Opt fans are now set to 70% Ratio instead of QFan.

If Asus let you enter your own exact temp, and then had more granularity over the PWM scale (like they've done on boards in the past, or like Abit does so much better) then they'd be useful for fan control.

I suppose you could use SpeedFan to get finer control, if you can make it work properly with the Maximus sensors. Mine all go crazy and requires a reboot when I try to actually adjust something.

That said, I still like having the thermistors, I use Everest in both my Vista Sidebar and my G15 LCD to keep an eye on temps, even if they don't drive my fans. If nothing else, the Ambient is damned handy.