General advice about cooling

[toomanyairmiles]

Hi everyone, thanks in advance for your help!

I have a cooler master HAF-932 running with the standard fans, having clocked the CPU about 19% it's running a little hot in the warmer weather so I'm about to add a Noctua NH-D14 (once it gets here) but moving beyond that I need to add a fan controller as the motherboard is running at 46c and I'm wondering if it's worth replacing the 120mm fan blowing air at the motherboard with four smaller fans...

- What's the best bang for my buck for a fan controller?
- Are four smaller fans better that one large one?
- Generally I'm told Noctua or Scythe fans are the best one's, is this true?

Cheers

 

[davcon]

Scythe makes the nicest fan contollers imo.
They don't look cheesy.
Smaller fans typically=more noise.
Yes Noctua,Scythe, and Nexus(Yate Loon) make quiet fans.
Also the CM R4's are pretty good and affordable.

 

[geofelt]

The best bang for your buck is to not get a hardware fan controller.
1) A steady drone of fan noise is, to me less obtrusive than a constant increase/decrease in speed and consequently noise.
2) A software program like speedfan should be able to control your fans that are attached to the motherboard.
3) As a guess, 4 small fans like 80mm will push less air than a single 120mm fan at equal noise levels.
4) For good info on quiet fans, go to www.silentpcreview.com They have good reviews on the quiet front.
5) Pay some attention to your wiring to keep a clear path for air. The key is to reduce the average temperature within your case. Blowing heated air across components does no good. Look first at your graphics card cooling. Get a two slot type card or cooler that expels the hot vga air directly out of the case instead of letting it recirculate. Sometimes a simple slot cooler can help.

 

[blackhawk1928]

Unless there is a modified case, an HAF 932 doesn't have any 120mm fans. There are 3 230mm fans and 1 140mm in the back. The fan blowing at the motherboard is a 230mm fan. And smaller fans means spinning at higher rpms to push the same amount of air which means more noise.