Need advice on choosing and installing case fans

Goose

Goose

Goose

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Location
Kent
I've never really bothered much organizing my case fans before (old 80mm ones in my ancient lian li) but i'm going to be getting a CM 690II case soon as well as 2 or three 3 fans.

My first problem is choosing which fans to get as i dont want to spend a ton (like 6 or 7 quid a fan) and the choice is mind boggling. According to the CM website the included fans run at less than 20db so i'd like my extra fans to be around that too. Every thread i've read regarding case fans seems to end up with about 5 different recommendations so it's hard to know which to get.

My second issue is how to power them. Currently i have my case fans attached directly to my PSU but I want to make an attempt at good cable management when i get my 690II. If i buy an additional 3 fans i'll have 6 in total and i'm wondering how best to power them all. According to my motherboard manual I have one 3 pin system fan socket, one 3 pin power fan (pwr_fan) and one 4 pin system power fan socket.

Is it possible to use these for all 6 fans or will i still need to connect some directly to my PSU?


Thanks
 
Buy a fan controller then you can fine offset cooling ability against acoustics as/when required?
 
You could get some xilence red wings or find some yate loons.

Your motherboard may be able to power more fans but it's generally wise to only use 1 fan per header unless they are slower fans where you could double up.

A fan controller on the other hand, even a cheap one, can allow multiple fan control and allow you to set quiet for idle use but allow dialling up cooling for gaming or heavy CPU/GPU usage times.
 
+1 for a fan controller, the Zalman zm-mfc 1 plus is a decent well priced 6 channel fan controller. As for cheap but good fans, you cant really go wrong with Yate loons, cost about a fiver or so and ive found them to be pretty good.
 
Thanks for the replies. I've seen a lot of recommendations for yate loons but i read on the XtremeSystems forum that a lot of yate loons are not genuine but re-branded crap. Also, the rated noise levels seem a smidge high which would mean needing a fan controller.
 
I have a yate loon D12SL-12 1250 rpm but it doesn't push enough air for my taste so I don't use it, but it would be fine as exhaust.
Personally I'd get something with a little more oomph for front intakes but as rears and top exhausts they would be fine even 800rpm fans are fine for exhausts.

I'd keep an eye on the members market if I were you just buy some second hand fans far better value and 120mm fans are always coming up in the mm.

I'd probably use all the fans that the case comes supplied with as exhausts and concentrate on some decent faster fans for front intakes as said you can adjust the speed down when it suits you.

maybe even look at some 140mm fans that have 120mm mounting holes.
 
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Take noise levels of all fans with a pinch of salt. Yate loons are generally very cheap but give decent results.

Top performing fans such as Noctua and Scythe do make less noise per rpm than cheap fans but you gave to pay large sums of cash for them.

You can buy very cheap fan controllers if you know where to look. Had my 4 dial one for less than £5. You don't need one with a colourful LCD display that costs 40 notes really.
 
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