Earlier this year I built myself a server cabinet. It is about 4 and a 1/2 feet tall and close to 2 feet wide and deep. The upper half of the cabinet houses a 19" flat screen monitor, a power strip, a network switch, a KVM switch as well as a lot of the wiring and what not. The top also has a mini control panel where the power on, reset and KVM switch buttons are located. The lower half of the cabinet houses two bench style motherboard trays (flat down) and two 6 core PCs attached to them.
The motherboard trays are attached to drawer slides that allow me to slide the entire board, power supply and hard drive caddy almost completely out of the case. All the components for each PC are attached entirely to the motherboard tray itself and they move in and out independent of eachother for easy access.
Now, here is my question. The lower case has 6-120mm fans pulling air in to the front of the case and 5-120mm fans attached to the rear door pulling air out. I am trying to think of a way that I could power on all 11 fans no matter which of the two PCs I turn on.
Right now I am using 2 NZXT Grid Ten Port Fan Hubs to connect all of the fans to two 4 pin molex power connectors on the bottom PC's power supply. One for the front fans and one for the rear fans. Problem is, if I want to just power on the top PC, the fans don't run. This rig was built for a media and storage server as well as a small scale rendering farm so there are times I want to only run one of the PCs instead of both.
Running all the fans off of either of the power supplies exclusively is of no concern at all because they both have more then adequate wattage to run the fans or even more if I wanted to.
It may be that I am overlooking a very simple solution but I would rather not use a whole other power supply and rig up a power switch just for it to run the fans. So far though, that is all I have come up with that would allow for running either one or the other PC or running both at the same time.
I am curious if it would be too much trouble to wire up something small that would allow either of the two power supplies to power the 4 pin molex connections regardless of which PC was on. Both PSUs have plenty of additional connections to hook into both wires for the fans.
Does anyone know of an adapter that has 2 molex in and 1 out? If I rigged up my own 2 molex in 1 out adapters and connected a 4 pin molex power wire to it from both power supplies, would there be any issue if both power supplies were supplying power to it at the same time? I would also like to add a few LED light strips to the lower case that come on when the fans are running. They also use 4 pin molex for power.
I guess the bottom line here is, does anyone here know of a simple solution that doesn't require a third power supply just for fans and a few lights? Also, would there be any issue with running power from both power supplies to the same wire if both power supplies were turned on?
Forgive me if these are all completely obvious and silly questions. I fear I am over complicating things but I want to be sure before I splice any wires together and wrap them in tape beside a couple thousand dollars worth of equipment.
Thanks in advance for your time.
The motherboard trays are attached to drawer slides that allow me to slide the entire board, power supply and hard drive caddy almost completely out of the case. All the components for each PC are attached entirely to the motherboard tray itself and they move in and out independent of eachother for easy access.
Now, here is my question. The lower case has 6-120mm fans pulling air in to the front of the case and 5-120mm fans attached to the rear door pulling air out. I am trying to think of a way that I could power on all 11 fans no matter which of the two PCs I turn on.
Right now I am using 2 NZXT Grid Ten Port Fan Hubs to connect all of the fans to two 4 pin molex power connectors on the bottom PC's power supply. One for the front fans and one for the rear fans. Problem is, if I want to just power on the top PC, the fans don't run. This rig was built for a media and storage server as well as a small scale rendering farm so there are times I want to only run one of the PCs instead of both.
Running all the fans off of either of the power supplies exclusively is of no concern at all because they both have more then adequate wattage to run the fans or even more if I wanted to.
It may be that I am overlooking a very simple solution but I would rather not use a whole other power supply and rig up a power switch just for it to run the fans. So far though, that is all I have come up with that would allow for running either one or the other PC or running both at the same time.
I am curious if it would be too much trouble to wire up something small that would allow either of the two power supplies to power the 4 pin molex connections regardless of which PC was on. Both PSUs have plenty of additional connections to hook into both wires for the fans.
Does anyone know of an adapter that has 2 molex in and 1 out? If I rigged up my own 2 molex in 1 out adapters and connected a 4 pin molex power wire to it from both power supplies, would there be any issue if both power supplies were supplying power to it at the same time? I would also like to add a few LED light strips to the lower case that come on when the fans are running. They also use 4 pin molex for power.
I guess the bottom line here is, does anyone here know of a simple solution that doesn't require a third power supply just for fans and a few lights? Also, would there be any issue with running power from both power supplies to the same wire if both power supplies were turned on?
Forgive me if these are all completely obvious and silly questions. I fear I am over complicating things but I want to be sure before I splice any wires together and wrap them in tape beside a couple thousand dollars worth of equipment.
Thanks in advance for your time.
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