Building a PC need some Fan Help.....

bbg404

bbg404

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Evening all just about to order all the parts I want for my build.

I'm getting the Corsair Graphite 780T case which has 2 140mm intake fans on the front and 1 140mm exhaust fan on the rear but it can fit an extra 3 120mm fans on the top and 2 120mm in the bottom.

I was wanting to fit the 3 120mm in the top and 2 120 in the bottom before I start building the unit just so its all in there ready.

The fan controller I've chose is the NZXT SENTRY 3 which can control 5 fans I've just read the spec and it says they can control 3 fans per channel

DON'T laugh as this maybe a stupid thing to say but can I run this off the controller

Channel 1 = Front Fans x 2
Channel 2 = Rear Fan x 1
Channel 3 = Top Fans x 3
Channel 4 = Bottom Fans x 2
Channel 5 = Not used for now.

Thanks In advance
 
Why do you need so many?

The only fan controller worth buying is the aquaero, myself and Andy (@arad85 ) have them and they are fantastic (albeit not cheap). There's nothing like having all of your fans held off until needed and then throttled gradually in depending on tempersture .

There's a couple of threads on here, you should find them searching for aquaero.
 
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neil_g said:
Why do you need so many?

The only fan controller worth buying is the aquaero, myself and Andy have them and they are fantastic (albeit not cheap). There's nothing like having all of your fans held off until needed and then throttled gradually in depending on tempersture .

There's a couple of threads on here, you should find them searching for aquaero.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply I don't think I need them all at all .... Just a case of they can be fitted so I am!

All I need to know is can I wire them up like this???

Channel 1 = Front Fans x 2
Channel 2 = Rear Fan x 1
Channel 3 = Top Fans x 3
Channel 4 = Bottom Fans x 2
Channel 5 = Not used for now
 
Depends on the power utilised by the fans, the statement was relevant to 15 Watts of power per output channel, so it depends on the power-drawn by the fans.

If your "Top Fans" are rated 0.4A or below you should be fine to run 3 of them, but that would be your limit for the channel. Most fan's I've seen (Server's excluded) are around 0.18 - 0.25A.

I do agree with Neil though, the temperatures of PC components are dropping due to the manufacturing processes so the need for 8 Fan's simply isn't there unless your doing something wacky! And I don't think I would ever want 8 Fan's in a PC, in fact having spent some considerable time with our blade servers at work, I'll be happy to never hear a fan again!
 
Ok thanks maybe I'll just stick with the standard 2 140mm at the front and the 1 140mm at the rear if I feel the need in the future j may stick to on the top!!

I think the fans I've chose are 0.26A :| does that mean I wouldn't be able to join them together?
 
bbg404 said:
I think the fans I've chose are 0.26A :| does that mean I wouldn't be able to join them together?
Click to expand...

Which equates to 3.12W per Fan, so yes you could run them together, I'm guessing you need a splitter cable to do this though.
 
Isn't the theory that you can use more fans at a lower speed to move the same volume of air through a case, thus reducing overall fan noise?
 
The more air you suck through your case, the more dust gets into it.
 
RichardtheSane said:
The more air you suck through your case, the more dust gets into it.
Click to expand...


Not strictly true. Depends on the balance of power between inlet and exhaust fans.
More inlet power (versus exhaust) equals positive pressure, so air is blown out of the case through every open orifice.
More exhaust power (versus inlet) equals negative pressure so air is sucked into the case.

Positive pressure cuts down the amount of dust drawn into the case. Negative pressure increases it, but it's supposedly more effective from a cooling standpoint.

On Edit: I should say my experience/knowledge is fairly minimal so feel free to correct me :)
 
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I run a positive pressure case with dust filtration, without the dust filtration the amount drawn in is obscene!
The only difference positive/negative makes if you are doing it from a dust standpoint is you can effectively filter a positive pressure case. You can't a negative pressure one.
 
Larger slower rpm fans would also reduce noise. And require fewer.

However I still say get a decent controller that automatically switches the fans off completely until you're actually generating enough heat to worry about.
 
Incidentally, for anyone running Linux you can use fan control software in combination with lm-sensors to optimise your fan speeds. I've had some success reducing the noise from my desktop with this, although it took about an hours tinkering and stress testing. My setup is still a bit too conservative with the fans spinning up too soon, but at some point I'll spend a bit more time on it.
 
I run an overclocked i7-2600K @ 4.7GHz. I have 3 140mm (1 rear, 1 bottom, 1 front) fans plus a massive Noctua cooler (which itself has 2 fans). All fans are controlled off an aquaero as Neil says. Current fan speeds are: rear/bottom 0, front 344RPM, Noctua 306RPM. The front is controlled by the HDD temperatures whilst the bottom/rear and Noctua fans are controlled by the CPU temps. Whilst the fans do come on when the machine is working hard, they are silent 99.8% of the time. CPU temps vary between 40 and 70 deg C. I also run a semi-passive PSU, so the system is inaudible on a day-to-day basis.

Given the case the OP has, I'd open up all vents, get the box off the floor to make sure there is some room for airflow, put a massive heatsink on the CPU and let convection do most of the cooling for you.

BTW: my VM server is completely silent. It's running an i5 with a passive cooler, SSDs and a passive power supply. Quiet/silent computing is possible with today's CPUs.
 
i was watching what my fans were doing over the weekend while gaming and most were at 0 RPM for 90% of the time.

(note - my CPU fans are always running although on the lowest noctua setting)

never did sort my PSU out, thats the loudest thing in there now. even compared to the 7850.
 
I just let mine run warm....I haven't found any satisfactory way to keep case temps down with 2x 280x pouring heat out.

I've seen hardware die in a multitude of interesting ways, but never from over-heating. If I was overclocking I would probably care :)
 
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