Quick Power Supply/Case Fan Question

[Kramer0526]

Hi all,

I'm about to wrap up another build here, but I have a lot of fans..and not a lot of places to plug them in on the motherboard. I've got a Corsair HX850W (see more specs below) that has some additional outlets on it, as pictured here. The fans themselves have those 3 pin fan connectors, and most have adapters to go to molex. This works out rather conveniently because the power supply came with 3 daisy chains, 4 molex outlets on each, that connect to one of the outlets on the power supply.

So...all that being said...how many of the fans can I safely plug into one of the daisy chains? Right now I have 5x120mm and 3x140mm, probably eventually adding another 120mm and also 2x80mm. It's a humongous case.

Intel i7 930
ASUS p6x58d
GTX 470 (upgrade to 480 likely soon)
3x2gb ddr3 1600mhz
100gb OCZ ssd
500gb samsung hd

Thanks

Kramer

 

[Lmeow]

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but molex connectors can deliver quite a lot of power. Normally you can get dual molex to single 6-pin PCI-e connectors, which provides up to 75W of power IIRC, more than enough for all your fans if you use one/two chains. AFAIK if the fans aren't supplied enough power they just won't turn on.

 

[hunter315]

You can daisy chain all of those fans together without having a problem, they wont draw enough current to cause a problem. I would suggest splitting it into getting fed off of two separate lines coming from the PSU just to make cable managing a little easier.

 

[shovenose]

you can stick as many fans as u like on a molex chain.

 

[Kramer0526]

Ok, great! For me, it did not seem quite right plugging in 1 fan per outlet directly on the PSU since you would normally require a good deal of juice to actually need to plug something directly into it..but some people were talking about drawing too much current if you daisy chain your fans. (Correct me if wrong) I think that applied mostly to your motherboard and frying transistors there..

Thanks Guys

Kramer

 

[shovenose]

yeah if u daisy chain off the mobo thats bad but the psu wouldnt mind minf the daisychaining/ im not sure about the transisotrs though, i would think it would just overload one of the traces o the mobo...

 

[jsc]

Because 3 or 4 fans together will pull about an amp, you can daisy chain for days off a PSU.

I think running two fans from a single motherboard connector would be safe, but I'd never do it.