Fan Control

I'd love to explain but I have to leave for work in 25 minutes and I want to eat dinner. I suggest using Google. There are lots of good web sites that show how to make variable speed fan controls for pc's.

<font color=red><i>Doctor Hooter</i></font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.page3.com/" target="_new"><b>(·Y·)</b></A>

U can make a fast fan spin slower, but making a slower fan spin faster may burn it out. Your call- if it dies there may be heating issues.

Sig of the week.

Another question (hopefully this will be my last), what fan control unit should I get for all these fans (will have 7 in all I think). I have found plenty that support four fans, but none that support all I am getting. Is it better to get one that controls four fans, say the 120mm one, the two 92mm ones, and just make the two intakes on the front and the two exhausts on the back low speed? Or how should I configure this? I will be overclocking BTW, so cooling is something I will need when doing intensive programs, etc. Which will be the most important fans to control, or do I need to control them all? Thanks. (That was actually more than one question, sorry, hehe)

Look out for #1. Don't step in #2 either.

If you're worried about temperature, then I would suggest you get a great case before worrying about fans. A crappy case will never cool off no matter what special tricks you try with fans. Also make sure you use arctic silver II and that the fans you do have are setup correctly.

So, what case do you have?

Seven fans, including 120mm fans, is just going to make your system noisy and unbearable. It's time to start thinking about water cooling or a better case imop.

I recommend the Antex SX10x0 or something similar.

<font color=red>God</font color=red> <font color=blue>Bless</font color=blue> <font color=red>America!</font color=red>

The front 2 intake fans on the Lian Li has a low-med-high setting so you won't need
a control for them.


<b><font color=green> I took an I.Q. test today...It came back negative.</font color=green></b>

Follow up question....is it better to have more air going in or more going out, and how much of a difference. This might turn into a long thread, sheesh.

Look out for #1. Don't step in #2 either.

Ok, well the mod will have the front bottom panels to the fans taken off and replace with grills, so the switch will hopefully be accessible. But I might not even need it as I am considering getting the DigiDoc5. Not sure how good it is, but I have heard a lot of good things about it.

http://www.macpower.com.tw/digitaldoc5.shtml

Look out for #1. Don't step in #2 either.

Just one thing about the article. Doesn't the voltage, rather the current, get divided by adding the potentiometer in series with the fan?

<font color=red><b>A man is only as old as the woman he feels</b></font color=red>

Well, I finally figured out what I am going to do. Since the DigitalDoc5 cannot control the speed of the fans, which is really what I want to do, I am going to get a RheoBus from PC Mods (the version 2 one). Each switch can support 17 watts, so that means I can hook up multiple fans to each switch and probably will still have room left over for other fans such as on my CPU, GPU, etc. I'm getting it no doubt, but was just curious if anyone else has used this device. Can get it at PC Mods for a pretty good price.

Look out for #1. Don't step in #2 either.

Well, the main reason is because I will be overclocking. Plus the fans won't cost me much anyway and I have been doing extensive research on how to get cold air into the case and the hot air out with the quickest and most efficient way (the way I have it set up, it kind of creates a windtunnel so to speak inside the case). I could have watercooled, but I am not an advanced enough user for that yet. Maybe my next comp I will try that, but this one I'm gonna keep it simple (if you call this simple). Now all I have to do is get heatsinks for my GPU and CPU which hopefully is all I overclock. Back to researching...

Look out for #1. Don't step in #2 either.

Double post, my bad.

Look out for #1. Don't step in #2 either.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by buddwm on 04/14/02 04:06 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

I'm just saying that you should be around a loud system and a system comparable to the one you're working on to make sure you're prepared for the noise. I don't really know how 7 panaflo's will stack up, but it might be more than you're really willing to live with. It's probably more than you need. I'll bet you can get a great overclock with less fans.

<font color=red>God</font color=red> <font color=blue>Bless</font color=blue> <font color=red>America!</font color=red>

Let me post some more specifics for you to look at. Here are two links to what the case will pretty much resemble (at least fan-wise, and the same case).

http://www.designcomp.com/Cases/Li [...] r4b_03.htm

http://www.designcomp.com/Cases/Li [...] r4b_01.htm

That's kinda how it will look. Now, if you notice the two 92mm on the window (intakes), my reasons for me wanting to include them there is because I figure my PCI slots and devices in that area would need some extra cool air to be blowing directly on them. The two exhausts at the back and the top one I no doubt need, and the two front ones come standard with the case. The only thing that is questionable are the two 92mm's on the side. Now remember, I can turn down the fan speeds at will as I will have ALL of the fans hooked up to the control unit. So what do you all think?

Look out for #1. Don't step in #2 either.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by buddwm on 04/14/02 04:32 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Well, I will have a dual HD system, two Western Digital 120GB's (7200rpm) w/8MB of cache in a RAID-0 config, and for each of them will be getting the thin hard disk coolers (mount underneath the HD). I will have an overclocked AMD CPU (hopefully Clawhammer or Sledgehammer, we will see, but you know how much AMD's can generate heat, esp overclocked), and will probably add a heatsink onto it, though not sure which one yet. I will also have the next AIW ATI card (R300), that or have an R300 with a seperate TV-Tuner card. I heard that either config (seperate or AIW) generates a lot of heat, hence my concern with blowing fresh air to the PCI slots. Plus I want to overclock whatever video card I get, so probably will add a heatsink onto that. Dunno what else to add to this...so what do you think?

Look out for #1. Don't step in #2 either.

I'm pretty sure those JB's run cool enough to avoid the hard drive coolers. You could ask in the HD section. There might be better hard drives out by the time you buy your system also.

I dont' know how ATI's cards overclock, but I have a Gainward GeForce2 Pro and I have it overclocked to 240/505 with stock cooling. I suppose I could go a lot higher with better cooling, but I haven't run into a game yet that doesn't look great. If anything, my monitor is the bottleneck now.

For the HSF, here's a <A HREF="http://www.dansdata.com/coolercomp.htm" target="_new">good link</A> for reviews, although you'll probably have to wait until the last minute to decide which one is best. You don't want to pick a HSF today for a CPU tommorrow.

As far as PCI cards, you're looking at how many total? Are you going to get an integrated motherboard for sound or NIC?

Realistically, since you're planning for something that's a while away, it might be too soon to finalize your cooling, but I would keep asking around and find out everything that you could possibly want to know. Even if you don't use any of it at least you'll have learned something.

<font color=red>God</font color=red> <font color=blue>Bless</font color=blue> <font color=red>America!</font color=red>

When I had my K6-2 450 running at 500Mhz, My computer used to be right next to an old fire place, well the construction is there because it looks good and its some sort of solid stone, but the actual fireplace is sealed off. So, I ducted air directly from there and passed it to the computer. I had to put in a sponge filter with two large fans on either side and lots of sponge lining in the duct to take care of the condensation. But during the winter months my case temperature was around 5-10degrees C and the processor hovered around 20. But that all changed in the summer so that was a waste of time.

When I got my athlon, the same measuring devices (some sort of tape thing that connects to this block showing the temperature in the front of the case), would read above 50. So I decided to have a [-peep-] load of fans.

One large intake fan in the front of the case & two small intake fans in front of the hard drive. The sides of the case are perforated, so I put two fans on top of the AGP and PCI cards. One intake fan on top of the case, which was ducted directly to the cpu fan. The PSU has an intake fan on the inside and a extractor fan on the outside/back. The back of the case has two fans, one of which is directly ducted from the CPU heatsink. I did a lot of ducting with smoke testing to see that the air actually passes through with ease, and fair enough it does.

Thats 10 fans (+ the CPU fan and the fan on the GeForce). 4 of them had rocker switches with off/5v/12v settings. Since I made all of that, I was forcing my self to think the computer is actually benifiting from all of this hoohaa. As time passed, I found my self more and more reluctant to turn the stupid fans on. Then I ended up getting rid of the case and I just have a normal case with 1 intake fan. 1 extractor fan + 2 two on the PSU. I don't have any decibel testing equipment, but my current setup is quieter than the other in whisper mode (5v), and it runs just fine. And oh yeah, in the midst of all of that I destroyed my tempereture panel, and I'm not bothered about getting one.

If you overclock and the temperature bothers you, just make sure the inside of your computer is tidy as possible. That, imo, is the biggest problem for airflow. It contributes towards noise aswell. Those IDE cables are just always in the way. Try to box them out. Ofcourse you have a large multiplatter 7200rpm hdd, you'll probably want it to get some moving air.

If you have intake fans, make sure you have a grill rather than just a perforated part of the case. The fan pulling air through a perforated panel can be very noisy. I think thats all I can say right now. oh yeah, incense sticks are good for smoke testing. See where the smoke gets stuck.

<font color=red><b>A man is only as old as the woman he feels</b></font color=red>