How to Install 6 Case Fans and a Radiator, Do I Need a Spliter?

[Amaro]

Hi everyone,
I am about to buy all the parts of my first self built computer, so I'm really not all that experienced with building those things. The system will be sitting in a black Lian-Li PC-A79 (It's too expensive, I know that, I simply fell in love with the case).
My Motherboard will be a Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD3H and my PSU will be a Corsair TX750M.

So my Case comes with 6 pre-installed 120mm fans (3x front, 2x side and 1x rear) and space for two more 120mm fans on the top of the case, which I will be using for a Corsair H100i. I hope those were all the parts relevant to the questions I'm about to ask.

My motherboard only has 5x fan connectors, so it seems to me that there is not even enough connectors for the fans that come pre-installed. How should I go about setting this up? Do I need a spliter? What spliter should I buy? What should I plug in where?
I tried to understand it all myself, but as I started reading about different voltages, 3pin or 5pin connectors and that kind of stuff, it sort of all was too much. I don't get that. Could somebody explain the thought process involved when buying fans and working out the exact way to set them up in the case? What is a fan controller? Do I have one? Do I need one? Can I get one? Heck, I'm not even sure if the fans get connected to the motherboard or the PSU! Or both... or some here and some there... or somewhere entirely different... you get the idea.

I also read that the fans that come pre-installed with the PC-A79 are pretty low quality, especially considering the noise level. I don't care all that much about noise, but I would like to play my games on speakers without having to crank them up until my neighbors are standing on my doorstep, just so I don't hear my case fizzling around like crazy. Also, I thought some red LED fans would look pretty rad shining through the black mesh of the case (don't lough at me please, I am weird like that). Can I just buy any sort of 120mm fan and replace the stock ones? Are they even replaceable? What red LED fans could you recommend (I don't want to spend too much on them)?

Thanks in advance for any help I might get ! I'm really looking forward to building this thing!

 

[mr.doom]

Ok. So your case is great.

Now to answer the question. You do connect fans to the motherboard. Corsair H100 will have a splitter to which you will connect 2 fans. That leaves you with 4 more fans, if I understood right. Unless you meant 6 fans + 2 for the cooler. If so, get a fan controller. It is a simple piece of elecronics that you will connect all of your fans to. Upsides are that you will only have to connect one molex to your psu and that the cable routing will be easy, not to mention you will get to control how fast the fans will spin (low for quiet or higher for performance).

let me know if any of this needs explaining

 

[tylerjrb]

Hi everyone,
I am about to buy all the parts of my first self built computer, so I'm really not all that experienced with building those things. The system will be sitting in a black Lian-Li PC-A79 (It's too expensive, I know that, I simply fell in love with the case).
My Motherboard will be a Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD3H and my PSU will be a Corsair TX750M.

So my Case comes with 6 pre-installed 120mm fans (3x front, 2x side and 1x rear) and space for two more 120mm fans on the top of the case, which I will be using for a Corsair H100i. I hope those were all the parts relevant to the questions I'm about to ask.

My motherboard only has 5x fan connectors, so it seems to me that there is not even enough connectors for the fans that come pre-installed. How should I go about setting this up? Do I need a spliter? What spliter should I buy? What should I plug in where?
I tried to understand it all myself, but as I started reading about different voltages, 3pin or 5pin connectors and that kind of stuff, it sort of all was too much. I don't get that. Could somebody explain the thought process involved when buying fans and working out the exact way to set them up in the case? What is a fan controller? Do I have one? Do I need one? Can I get one? Heck, I'm not even sure if the fans get connected to the motherboard or the PSU! Or both... or some here and some there... or somewhere entirely different... you get the idea.

I also read that the fans that come pre-installed with the PC-A79 are pretty low quality, especially considering the noise level. I don't care all that much about noise, but I would like to play my games on speakers without having to crank them up until my neighbors are standing on my doorstep, just so I don't hear my case fizzling around like crazy. Also, I thought some red LED fans would look pretty rad shining through the black mesh of the case (don't lough at me please, I am weird like that). Can I just buy any sort of 120mm fan and replace the stock ones? Are they even replaceable? What red LED fans could you recommend (I don't want to spend too much on them)?

Thanks in advance for any help I might get ! I'm really looking forward to building this thing!

as explained above the h100i comes with two cables for 4 fans which connect to the pump housing itself, if you need to you can push/pull for fans on the rad. i have the h100i and its a very awesome piece of kit. upgrade the stock fans to the performance edition sp120 fan dual set for around £25, well worth it from personal experience. dropped my temps about 10c on full load and about the same on idle, im overclocked to 4.5ghz and i dont get no more than 60c on prime 95 and about 15-20c on idle (i get about 45c on battlefield 4 ultra lol). look great too. if you can push/pull it with 4 fans, this will drop them even further. im unable due to ram and power cables in the way.

also the performance edition fans are quieter than the stock ones ive found. much much quieter and better cooling performance.

with regards to motherboard fans, you can buy y splitters to basically allow you to connect two fans to one 3 or 4 pin slot. or as mentioned above a fan controller.

my pc was my first build and i loved it. just to do it myself was awesome. that first power button push is like marmite, you love it or hate it. I loved it just too see something like that run knowing i had assembled it myself.

edit, very nice case too. i have a corsair carbide 500r a little smaller than that one but looks a little similar to yours .

ohh and good luck!

 

[Amaro]

Thanks very much for the replies !

Corsair H100 will have a splitter to which you will connect 2 fans. That leaves you with 4 more fans, if I understood right. Unless you meant 6 fans + 2 for the cooler.

I'm not quite sure I understood right. On one hand I do think what you said first was correct, plugging four fans into the H100i, two of which are the fans on the radiator itself and the other two would be two of the six fans that come with the case, if I understood right (I read this article after you pointed out that the H100i comes with a spliter to get some more information and it states: "The H100i has an integrated 4-fan hub which is where you will want to plug in your H100i fans" and it actually seems like it comes with two spliters) , would leave me with four fans; but on the other hand it's also true that two fans go on the radiator (assuming I wouldn't put two additional ones there for a push and pull setup) and six in the rest of the case.
I think I got something wrong somewhere. Just to make sure we're on the same page here: The case has eight places to put fans in that would push/pull air into/out of the case, six of which (2x side, 1x rear and 3x front) are occupied by fans that are already shipped by the case and the remaining two (2x top) will be occupied by the H100i fans.
The H100i will need to be connected in three places, if I got that right: A SATA cable that goes to the PSU, a 3 pin that goes into the mainboard and a USB cable that also goes to the mainboard, right?

So as I understand it, I could setup the fans as fallows:
Having a total of eight fans (the two of the H100i and the six that come with the case), four would be plugged into the H100i, which itself only takes up one of the five fan connectors of the motherboard. The remaining four fans could easily be connected to the remaining four fan connectors on the motherboard, thanks to the H100i being able to run four fans of of one connector. Did I get that right?

I did some reading regarding the configuration where the radiator is surrounded by four fans in a push and pull setup and decided that it's probably not worth it as my CPU will be cool enough as is, I think . I don't want to go too crazy with overclocking. I would also rather not go with a fan controller, seen as most of them actually seem to operate over a front panel and I wouldn't like the looks of that (yeah I know... priorities xD) on my otherwise very plain case. I even won't install an optical drive for just that reason !
I was wondering how I should set up my fans for the H100i. Push or pull? Intake or exhaust?

I'm glad to hear you guys like the case too! I think the Carbide 500r is really nice too, I actually was thinking about getting it before I stumbled over Lian-Li.
I did some changes after reading some more... I'll have to stop now, the more time I spend reading the more expensive my build becomes somehow xD!
The specs that relate to the questions I asked here didn't change, I think. Everything is red now ! Even though I don't even have a window in my case! I'm crazy...
Here is my build, in case someone wonders:

Motherboard: ASUS R.O.G. Maximus VI Hero
CPU: Intel Core i5 4670K
GPU: Gainward GeForce GTX 570 (I got this one for free from a friend and will be upgrading to at least a GTX 770 as soon as the 800 Maxwell series comes out in early 2014 and the prices drop)
RAM: Corsair Vengeance Pro Red 2x 8GB (16GB because I'll be using Photoshop quite often, I know it's not much of a use for gaming)
PSU: Corsair Professional Series AX760 (760W)
SSD: Samsung 120GB 840 EVO
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB/64MB - 7200rpm
CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H100i
Case: Lian Li PC-A79 Black
(Any tips for improvements while we're at it ?)
Again, I'm looking for some good red LED fans for a decent price. Where should I use static pressure optimized and where airflow optimized fans? Which ones? I'd like to replace all the eight fans that are currently in my system.

Thanks again for the nice replies!

 

[tylerjrb]

Thanks very much for the replies !

I'm not quite sure I understood right. On one hand I do think what you said first was correct, plugging four fans into the H100i, two of which are the fans on the radiator itself and the other two would be two of the six fans that come with the case, if I understood right (I read this article after you pointed out that the H100i comes with a spliter to get some more information and it states: "The H100i has an integrated 4-fan hub which is where you will want to plug in your H100i fans" and it actually seems like it comes with two spliters) , would leave me with four fans; but on the other hand it's also true that two fans go on the radiator (assuming I wouldn't put two additional ones there for a push and pull setup) and six in the rest of the case.
I think I got something wrong somewhere. Just to make sure we're on the same page here: The case has eight places to put fans in that would push/pull air into/out of the case, six of which (2x side, 1x rear and 3x front) are occupied by fans that are already shipped by the case and the remaining two (2x top) will be occupied by the H100i fans.
The H100i will need to be connected in three places, if I got that right: A SATA cable that goes to the PSU, a 3 pin that goes into the mainboard and a USB cable that also goes to the mainboard, right?

So as I understand it, I could setup the fans as fallows:
Having a total of eight fans (the two of the H100i and the six that come with the case), four would be plugged into the H100i, which itself only takes up one of the five fan connectors of the motherboard. The remaining four fans could easily be connected to the remaining four fan connectors on the motherboard, thanks to the H100i being able to run four fans of of one connector. Did I get that right?

I did some reading regarding the configuration where the radiator is surrounded by four fans in a push and pull setup and decided that it's probably not worth it as my CPU will be cool enough as is, I think . I don't want to go too crazy with overclocking. I would also rather not go with a fan controller, seen as most of them actually seem to operate over a front panel and I wouldn't like the looks of that (yeah I know... priorities xD) on my otherwise very plain case. I even won't install an optical drive for just that reason !
I was wondering how I should set up my fans for the H100i. Push or pull? Intake or exhaust?

I'm glad to hear you guys like the case too! I think the Carbide 500r is really nice too, I actually was thinking about getting it before I stumbled over Lian-Li.
I did some changes after reading some more... I'll have to stop now, the more time I spend reading the more expensive my build becomes somehow xD!
The specs that relate to the questions I asked here didn't change, I think. Everything is red now ! Even though I don't even have a window in my case! I'm crazy...
Here is my build, in case someone wonders:

Motherboard: ASUS R.O.G. Maximus VI Hero
CPU: Intel Core i5 4670K
GPU: Gainward GeForce GTX 570 (I got this one for free from a friend and will be upgrading to at least a GTX 770 as soon as the 800 Maxwell series comes out in early 2014 and the prices drop)
RAM: Corsair Vengeance Pro Red 2x 8GB (16GB because I'll be using Photoshop quite often, I know it's not much of a use for gaming)
PSU: Corsair Professional Series AX760 (760W)
SSD: Samsung 120GB 840 EVO
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB/64MB - 7200rpm
CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H100i
Case: Lian Li PC-A79 Black
(Any tips for improvements while we're at it ?)
Again, I'm looking for some good red LED fans for a decent price. Where should I use static pressure optimized and where airflow optimized fans? Which ones? I'd like to replace all the eight fans that are currently in my system.

Thanks again for the nice replies!

good led fans, ive always used nzxt 120, 140, 200 high airflow series very good airflow on my exhaust and for general air intake and exhausts.

and you can get them in red too .

http://www.nzxt.com/product/detail/115-fz-140mm-led-case-fan

corsair AF series would be better but are more expensive and non-led. up to you.

if you can do, set up your h100i in push/pull, outside to inside configuration. depending on where about it mounts too. you can put 4 fans two pushing above and two pulling below.

like i said in my previous post, make sure when doing this there's enough room to do so. my cpu power cable and ram is in the way not allowing me to push pull mine so id say get the h100i with a set of corsair sp120's, high performance edition built for best performance on radiators and heatsinks. then set the h100i where you want it and if you can push/pull it with 4 corsair sp120 fans for the best performance possible.

ohh and they have interchangeable coloured rings too, meaning you can change it to red and it will certainly make your case stand out!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CO-...&qid=1384372506&sr=8-4&keywords=corsair+sp120

only use sp120 fans for this also, they are built for high static pressure. meaning they can push the most air possible through a radiator as it has many small restrictive openings. a normal high airflow fan would be no use on this. up to you wether you go for high performance or quiet edition. i have high performance and they are not loud at all.

looks like a very nice solid build to me, good luck and enjoy .



EDIT: forgot to say, once you have the h100i download corsair link software to control it. by doing this you can control the fan speeds yourself. and you can also make the led corsair logo in the middle, what ever colour you want. mines dark blue but you could make yours red to match.

but this means the motherboard will give a standard cpu fan error as there wont be one plugged in. either plug the fan power from the h100i into the cpu fan header or a normal case fan into it. or disable in the bios.