Temperature controlled fans.

[Whiffle]

Hi,

I am just rebuilding a new HTPC for my living room with an Antec NSK2480 case.

The stock fans are not great and I came accross some of these that look perfect for the job:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-036-AR

That is, they will only rarely ramp up on the rare occassions when things get a bit hot, meaning that they shall be on the lowest setting nearly all the time.

I am now thinking about doing a similar thing on my desktop PC - the problem is that I have a couple of really nice Sharkoon Golfball fans in that and I do not want to get rid of them.

Is there anything I can buy to modify the existing fans so that they speed up automatically to keep the case at an ambient temperature, just like the Arctic TC's?

Thanks

 

[Bart_Hunt]

I am not sure.
Maybe a 3 pin to 4 pin adapter and attach them to 4 pin PWM header on your motherboard?
I am not sure if this is how it works.

 

[Tealc]

One of these...

...plugged into the motherboard PWM header plus your Sharkoon fans attached, and they'll speed up when the CPU starts to speed up. This isn't quite what you are looking for but if you work on the assumption that increased CPU load results in temperature rises it is pretty close.

I did start designing a temperature sensor based fan circuit that would allow any fans to be attached last year but didn't go much further than breadboarding it. It worked with a thermistor but was a bit of a fiddle to set up the fan curves. I then ordered some temperature sensor ICs so give a more precise control but they took such a long time to come I had sidelined the project by then.