Adding a fan controller - help

[Donny84]

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Hi guys, I've made some recent upgrades which I'm extremely happy with, however, my system is a bit loud.
The fans seem to be constantly on max.
I have 5 case fans in total: 2x 140mm LED corsair at top, 2x 140mm corsair fans in the front (came with case)and a zalman 120mm.
Was looking to get a fan controller, to control the case fans and maybe turn them down to lower the noise levels.

Was wondering if this would work:

[*] 1 x NZXT Sentry Mix 2 Fan Controller - Black= £29.99

It says it dishes out 30W per channel... 180W in total. Is that a constant output? Would my PSU cope with this addition?

 

[daveyb]

that board looks to have 3 pwm fan headers so if you wanted to be cheap you could get two splitters and run 2 fans off one header, 2 off another and one off the last one and then set up a custom fan curve for them in speedfan so they only spin up under load. i had a physical fan controller and while it felt nice to be able to turn them down within arms reach a few times i did forget to turn them up and ended up thermal throttling, plus it's just nice to have it happen automatically

 

[Donny84]

I've already got them all plugged in to the mobo using splitters... what is this speedfan thingy you speak of? I must learn!

 

[Smffy]

That sentry is OLD isn't it? The small hubs are a bit hit and miss - would defo recommend the basic Aquaero (no display) and it's £45 so not a massive amount more for something more useful in future.

That or just get the Phateks hub £15, avoid the NZXT Grid as it has all kinds of issues with different fans and voltages.

 

[Donny84]

That sentry is OLD isn't it? The small hubs are a bit hit and miss - would defo recommend the basic Aquaero (no display) and it's £45 so not a massive amount more for something more useful in future.

That or just get the Phateks hub £15, avoid the NZXT Grid as it has all kinds of issues with different fans and voltages.

With the Phanteks one, how does it control the speed of my fans? What do I plug it in to on the mobo? The cpu fan slot?

 

[Donny84]

I've tried using Speedfan. No success in controlling the speeds.
I've done some research and apparently only 1 fan header on my mobo that can control the speed of a 3pin fan, the other headers can only control the speeds of 4pin fans and will just make 3pin fans run at max. But I only have 3 pins.
Will this do the job for automatic fan controlling?

• 1 x Phanteks PWM Fan Hub= £15.95

I'm wondering how it controls the speed?

 

[Smffy]

Software mate, then it's either USB header or plug in to a fan header (not CPU)

So fans in to hub, powered by SATA, hub plugged in to motherboard and controlled by software.

 

[Donny84]

Ohh, so this will do what im wanting? It can control my 3pin fans?

 

[Smffy]

Ohh, so this will do what im wanting? It can control my 3pin fans?

Never used that particular one but yes that's what they are for - do some Googling to check what is compatible if I were you! The NZXT Grid is the same but has some issue with certain fan voltages... link it to the GPU temperature and increase when things get warmer (linking to CPU is often a little bit erratic and spikes in temp are much less common on a GPU).

 

[Donny84]

Ok cool, I've ordered it. Thanks for the help

 

[Smffy]

Ok cool, I've ordered it. Thanks for the help

Cool, be sure to open it carefully and test in case you need to return it but pretty sure its fine for the job in hand. Good luck!