Really interested in trying water cooling

TheCenturion · 4 Jan 2011 at 20:26

I think that it's 3 pin

liamcrane · 4 Jan 2011 at 20:34

Cool thanks for that mate, i would have to buy 3 new front fans if i decide to go ahead and get this as the 3 fans on the front of my antec 1200 are all molex connecters wit there own speed control

TheCenturion · 4 Jan 2011 at 20:37

Hmmm, the molex on my case fans was detachable so that I could use them as 3 pins, are you sure you can't?

twist3d0n3 · 4 Jan 2011 at 20:40

mike gunnz said:
Tbh I don't know, but if you want to run multiple fans off a single header I'm assuming you'll need more juice per header than this FC to offer. My Rheobus for example is 20w per channel.

i've got a couple of yate loons running off 1 header, and it's fine. if anything, it just stops them from going full pelt, and as all the fans connected to my controller are case fans (and a ram cooler) i don't need them going too fast, but they will ramp up a bit if hard disk temperature or the top of my gpu's gets a bit toasty

still, they're nice and quiet and keep things at respectable temperatures.

liamcrane said:
Thanks for making me aware of the issues you have had with the controller mate its made me think twice about it.

don't let one persons experience put you off completely, i'm just saying thats the experience i've had with it.

i know others have had issues with the battery life being pap, but that could just be rubbish batteries provided with it (i'm yet to change mine out as i really cba with it anymore

)

have a look around on the net and see if you can get a general feel for how it performs overall - i'm sure there are plenty of people out there that hold a fond view of it

liamcrane · 4 Jan 2011 at 20:50

cheers twist i have red a lot of reviews on it and one of the things that a lot of people pick up on is the screen is only "readable" when you look straight at it so to speak. Any slight angle and it becomes abit "obscure". I just really liked the look of it but if im paying nearly £50 for a component i want it to do its job if you see what i mean.

I was thinking of getting some yate loons fans for my case heard good things about them, what do you think of them mate? cant seem to find them on the OCUK site tho.

Centurion- I dont think the molex plugs are detachable from what i can remember but i will have a look.

Thanks again everyone for your help really appreciate it

John24 · 4 Jan 2011 at 20:52

twist3d0n3 said:
i know others have had issues with the battery life being pap, but that could just be rubbish batteries provided with it (i'm yet to change mine out as i really cba with it anymore )

That'll be it, someone had a dead battery with theirs out the box. Pay a few more pennys for a silver oxide one and it'll last much longer than an alkaline, it'll hold up better to extreme temperature swings aswell which is probably what helped kill the cheap bundled alkaline one.

If you've got a volt meter you can get a rough indication of the state of charge. The voltage should be about 3.6v out the box, sit at around 3.3v for the majority of it's life and be near enough dead once it's below 3v.

twist3d0n3 · 4 Jan 2011 at 21:36

liamcrane said:
cheers twist i have red a lot of reviews on it and one of the things that a lot of people pick up on is the screen is only "readable" when you look straight at it so to speak. Any slight angle and it becomes abit "obscure". I just really liked the look of it but if im paying nearly £50 for a component i want it to do its job if you see what i mean.

I was thinking of getting some yate loons fans for my case heard good things about them, what do you think of them mate? cant seem to find them on the OCUK site tho.

Centurion- I dont think the molex plugs are detachable from what i can remember but i will have a look.

Thanks again everyone for your help really appreciate it

the viewing angle is a bit rubbish tbh, with my pc on my desk (so the controller is at eye level) it's just readable, but not really from the side. the brightest it ever looks is from above. looks awesome there

yate loons are good fans, i got 3 LED ones in the front of my case which cost about a 5er each (this was a few years ago when i bought them). can't link unfortunately, but google is your friend

John24 said:
That'll be it, someone had a dead battery with theirs out the box. Pay a few more pennys for a silver oxide one and it'll last much longer than an alkaline, it'll hold up better to extreme temperature swings aswell which is probably what helped kill the cheap bundled alkaline one.

If you've got a volt meter you can get a rough indication of the state of charge. The voltage should be about 3.6v out the box, sit at around 3.3v for the majority of it's life and be near enough dead once it's below 3v.

thanks for the hint. i might just look into getting a new silver oxide battery in that case and give it one last chance

i've got a dmm, but the problem is getting to the battery as i have a radiator sat right behind the controller... might be a case of when i strip down my loop i take it out and do the swap/some testing.

liamcrane · 4 Jan 2011 at 22:03

Just had a look at the NZXT fan range and they look really neat and classy

they move a good amount of air 47CFM with a noise DB of 25. The yate loons are about the same a little bit quiter at 23DB. The best fans i have come across are the Akasa Apache fans the give an airflow of 57CFM and a wopping noise DB of only 16 which is fab! Currently got 2 of these of my cpu cooler

mountaincow · 5 Jan 2011 at 14:27

twist3d0n3 said:
do 'standard' fans even use 4w?

4W per channel really is nothing if you want to run a 2000rpm fan full whack, search the manufacturers site for specifications of the fans you want and they usually tell you current usage at different rpm.

Easy to work out from there, although I doubt you would want to run any 2000rpm fan at max unless you are deaf

, however if you did, you will most likely exceed that 4W.

twist3d0n3 · 5 Jan 2011 at 14:32

liamcrane said:
Just had a look at the NZXT fan range and they look really neat and classy they move a good amount of air 47CFM with a noise DB of 25. The yate loons are about the same a little bit quiter at 23DB. The best fans i have come across are the Akasa Apache fans the give an airflow of 57CFM and a wopping noise DB of only 16 which is fab! Currently got 2 of these of my cpu cooler

i've got 9 apaches on 2 radiators

gets loud when they spin up, but i've set them to only spin up if my cpu temp gets to 80, which it never will.

great fans i must say, but even at 16dB, it's loud when you've got as many as i have

Jazzerman said:
4W per channel really is nothing if you want to run a 2000rpm fan full whack, search the manufacturers site for specifications of the fans you want and they usually tell you current usage at different rpm.

Easy to work out from there, although I doubt you would want to run any 2000rpm fan at max unless you are deaf , however if you did, you will most likely exceed that 4W.

yeah i've had a look at the ratings for my fans, none of them get above 3.6W

not too bothered really, if it maxes out a channel with 2 fans on one header, they're just a bit slower - i never want them up full whack anyway as i'm getting techy about noise

liamcrane · 5 Jan 2011 at 15:14

Sweet shame they dont do LED ones cos the colour of em is a bit bland but cant fault there performance.

How have you setup your fans to increase with tempreture? is it a setting via a fan controller or are the plugged into the board headers and done thru the bios? I have never really understood how to get PWM fans to work all be it i have a PWM 5 cable fan splitter but never used it

twist3d0n3 · 5 Jan 2011 at 15:36

i've got a few of those pwm -> 3 pwm fan connectors, which then takes the power needed for them directly from the psu, only the pwm signal is sent to all fans from the motherboard header.

i've soldered them together, so that then causes all 9 to spin up together.

as i've got a gigabyte board, i use the easytune software to set fan/temp thresholds and it does the rest