I’ve obviously rubbed people up the wrong way - no idea how - am I doing something wrong culture-wise on this site?

Question

Have used StackExchange quite a lot, first time user on the electronics site though. Posted a question where I am after a value:

Length of Signal When Simulating a Computer Fan Speed Sensor

Seemed to have annoyed Elliot here and can’t see why they’re acting hostile.

Ready to eat humble pie if I’m being antagonistic, however this is the only place where this question received this kind of response. Elsewhere we’ve been going through motherboard’s supported maximums and are trying to find a standard.

Am I doing something wrong culture-wise on this site?

Answer 1

Dunno, looks OK to me. The extra code is just in the way because I'm not going to read a wall full of untested code, and as long as it's in the question it makes me think I have to read it just to answer it.

Elliot should go look for the standards or check a few fans so he can answer the question instead of spending time complaining. It's an answerable question that is:

• a specific electronics design problem
• the writing of firmware for bare-metal or RTOS applications
• practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face
• reasonably scoped
• invite sharing experiences over opinions

(from on-topic and dont-ask)

Answer 2

The SE network overall likes specific questions, rather than open-ended or hypothetical ones.

So generally, a question will be much more well-received if you can post your research efforts. Such as links to the datasheets on fans or hall sensors that you have looked at, a specific partnumber of the motherboard etc. Even if you are interested by the general case, it helps if you can give a specific part for the sake of discussion.

And if you can go as far as providing a simple example schematic, the grumpy old men will just melt, like a backwards-mounted TVS diode.

Posting code is great too, but only if relevant to the question. Generally, code should be in the form of a Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable example.

(PC questions in general are more suited for https://superuser.com/, but as long as you ask about how to do something specifically related to EE, like creating a replacement for a Hall sensor, it should be fine here.)

As for why someone got grumpy, it is probably because your ideas of how to write a timer function with hardware timer interrupts seems quite naive :) You wouldn't use "delays", doing so inside an ISR is a big no-no. You would rather set up an output compare timer counter, or alternatively use a PWM output. Since this is beginner level stuff when it comes to embedded programming, some people who've been writing timer drivers for 20 years might get a bit impatient :)

Notably, just because someone gets grumpy, it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the question.

Answer 3

I don't want to wade through the edit trail, which is extensive, but it really looks to me like you're slowly adding the info needed to provide an answer, and it's frustrating a user. The user seems a bit grumpy, but certainly not over the top.

My bent is to simply ignore such questions, or close vote as "unclear what you're asking"

The first frustration, for me, is the long edit trail. It makes it difficult to understand the history of the question. There is no formal policy on this, but if you've gone through three edits and still need to change something, you might consider deleting and starting fresh (or ask a mod to help with deleting). The long edit trail is a pretty clear sign that there is a problem.

As near as I can figure out, your main question is "How fast a signal can a motherboard handle?" without even providing information on which motherboard. The user's issue with this is pretty valid. That makes the question underspecced. For all I know, you're talking about a PDP/8. Do you mean "all computers a person is likely to be able to buy today?" Do phones count? Chromebooks? How fast is the motherboard clock?? I suspect that will make a difference.

Then, it looks like orbiting around the main question is "how can I program this"? When the whole question has an anchor that's floating around, that can get pretty frustrating to answer.

You also really never get around to saying what "combining four fans" means. Are you trying to drive them all with one PWM signal? Are you trying to just AND their Hall Effect outputs together? Are you building a fan control board? Without details like this, this is an XY problem.

The best approach for this particular question, for a start at least, would be a question on SU to the effect of "is there a standard for a motherboard fan interface, and where can I find it?" I think that question would float on this stack, too.

FWIW, a quick google for 4 wire fan control standard yielded https://folk.uio.no/kyrrens/diverse/viftekontroller/developer-specs-REV1_2_Public.pdf as a first hit.