Will adding more fans really break my case?

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Joined
29 Mar 2015
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97
Location
Norwich, Norfolk
Hi everyone,

I currently have a Define R4 case, with 2 Silent Series R2 intake fans in the front and 1 exhaust R2 in the rear. In the top I have a H100i with 2 Noctua NF-F12. The 3 x R2 fans are connected to the Define R4's built-in fan controller which can connect up to 3 fans and as far as I can tell supports up to 15W.

I have been toying with the idea of adding more fans to the case just to help with airflow and came across 3 Noctua A14 FLX fans for a reasonable price so ordered them and they should be with me this week.

I had planned on replacing the R2 fans with the Noctuas using the R4 fan controller. Then I planned on using 2 of the R2 fans as well; one in the bottom intake and one in the side intake. BUT I wouldn't be able to hook these extra fans up to the R4 fan controller because the Noctuas would be using all 3 fan controller inputs!

With me so far?

So, I wanted to find some 3-pin fan Y-splitters so that I could put the 2 intake Noctuas on 1 fan controller cable, 1 exhaust Noctua on 1 fan controller cable and finally the 2 R2 fans on the remaining fan controller cable.

However, I cannot get a definitive answer on whether this is a safe thing to try. I have googled and some people say yes it will be fine, but I have also seen a reply from Fractal Design themselves that says to not connect more than 3 fans as this will cause the fan controller to break.

Does anyone have any real-world experience of this? Anyone with a Define R4 using more than 3 fans on the built-in fan controller?

If anyone has any advice / hints & tips etc that they could share I would be really grateful (and so would my fan controller, I'm sure!).

Many thanks in advance.

All the best,

Moley
 
Noctua A14 FLX fans are rated at 0.96W so theoretically you could fit 15 of them. I wouldn't fit quite so many though. Expect Max speed of the fans to drop slightly per extra fan installed.
 
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