Fan Connection Questions

PhysicsMan94

PhysicsMan94

PhysicsMan94

Associate
Joined
28 Feb 2013
Posts
2,468
Location
Birmingham
Hi, I just have a few questions regarding fan connections.

At the moment all of my fans (4 case fans, 3 radiator fans) are connected to fan headers on my motherboard - 2 of the radiator ones are connected to CPU fan connections, whereas the other one is connected to a chassis/opt fan header.

Is it better to have all of these fans connected straight to the PSU via a fan connection adapter cable? As I assume at the moment that the 2 radiator fans connected to the CPU fan connections will have variant RPMs based on the temperature of the CPU, but it is probably better to have them going at full whack is it not?

Also, the molex connector for the pump I have connected to an opt/chassis fan header on the motherboard, is this also an efficient way of doing it or should I have that connected direct to the PSU via an aforementioned cable?

My system is working fine at the moment as my CPU is around 25°C idle and 40-45°C when gaming/benchmarking and my GPUs are around 35°C idle and 65-70°C at heavy load, I'm just curious as to the best way to do things.

Cheers for any help :)
 
If your happy with the noise levels i would leave it be, or if you feel you want more control buy a fan controller.
 
I have to admit i can't live without a fan controler.
It's so much better choice than leaving motherboard to control it.
Sometime you can make very small changes, tune it and it will make big difference in overall noise coming from PC, without loosing any cooling performance.
And some fan controllers look good in every case.
Have a look at Lamptron FC6. It looks great and have a lot of options, also multiple colors for the display. And it's cheap :D
 
Unfortunately I don't think I can fit another "component" (or whatever it's called) in a bay as I already have 3 taken up and the top one is kind of blocked by my radiator. However I suppose I could take out my Blu-Ray drive as I don't really use it that much, I'll have a think about that.

Thanks for the advice :)
 
Do you have a 3.5" hdd slot left inside? :-)
There are small fan controllers that fit in the hdd teay, I think akasa or lian-li makes them. I think they may be in stock :-)
 
Bart_Hunt said:
Do you have a 3.5" hdd slot left inside? :-)
There are small fan controllers that fit in the hdd teay, I think akasa or lian-li makes them. I think they may be in stock :-)
Click to expand...

I have plenty of hard drive bays left - only using 2 at the moment so I have 7 left lol :D

I guess I could use one of them but then isn't the point of a fan controller to have it in one of the optical drive bays so you can easily change settings?
 
Nope, I meant a normal hdd tray.
I know that this 3.5" fan controller usually fits the floppy slot, but its the same size as hdd.
So you can ( probably ) fit it in the hdd slot. Then take off the side panel whenever you need to change the fan settings. I know, not the perfect solution, but better than having a problem with noisy fans.

Oh, and about your top 5.25", you need around 40-50mm to fit most fans controllers, so take some measurements and try sending an email to manufacturer or to OCuk and hopefully they know the answer.
 
Last edited:
Just jumping on this but any advice on a non-drive bay controller? Are they even possible?

My mini itx mobo only has 1 chassis fan connection but I want to setup an intake and exhaust fan.
 
Hmmm, I don't think I'll take the hard drive tray approach. I'll have a think about replacing my blu ray drive with a fan controller, but I'll leave my system as it is for the moment.

Cheers for the advice
 
Deewon said:
Just jumping on this but any advice on a non-drive bay controller? Are they even possible?

My mini itx mobo only has 1 chassis fan connection but I want to setup an intake and exhaust fan.
Click to expand...

You'd probably be better off getting a cheap £2 y-splitter and using BIOS (if it has it) or Speedfan to control the speeds. They'd both have to be the same speed, but for the cost of a splitter it's a start.
 
hawkhench said:
You'd probably be better off getting a cheap £2 y-splitter and using BIOS (if it has it) or Speedfan to control the speeds. They'd both have to be the same speed, but for the cost of a splitter it's a start.
Click to expand...

Great will do that then and see what happens. Thanks
 
When I was planning the fan setup for my water cooling loop I ended up buying one of those AKASA 5 pin PWM splitters & some Y splitters

I've pretty much got 14 fans hanging off the CPU_FAN (power for the fans is drawn from a SATA connector) header of my motherboard using the above cable all controlled via the BIOS/Asus FanExpert
 
Using a 560 external rad with 4x140mm 900rpm 14db fans powered via molex and 2x120mm case fans are controlled by the mobo 600rpm.

The two main case fans 2x180mm 700/1200rpm set at 700rpm powered via molex and l can just here the pump.

The loudest component is my DVD-RW so on the whole of it pretty quiet.:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom