Quiet fans and power supplies

[schmeggin]

Some Antec (and other) power supplies have connectors for fans to keep them quiet when the PSU is not hot.

Also some new motherboards have 3 pins for 3 fans.

Do the motherboards control the fan speed when the processor gets hot - or should you stick with the PSU connectors to regulate the fan speed?

 

[Alphatronix]

stick with pcu... or just get a fan regulator. lol...

 

[schmeggin]

stick with pcu... or just get a fan regulator. lol...

Do you mean, stick with the PSU? I couldn't be bothered getting a fan regulator that is manually controlled. Can you imagine constantly turning the thing up and down. That's what computers were designed for... doing the work for you.

Does the mobo control the speed of case fans? As far as I know, new mobos have a 4-pin controller for the CPU heatsink which controlls the speed based on temp, but the pins for case fans are 3-pin - which I believe means that they are ineffecient at controlling speed - of they can do this at all.

 

[Praetor]

Some Antec (and other) power supplies have connectors for fans to keep them quiet when the PSU is not hot.

If im not mistaken those "fan" leads are there to provide independent power for fans (kinda like minirails) or if you're talking about the other conectors, to provide RPM data

Also some new motherboards have 3 pins for 3 fans

And some have four... five etc

Do the motherboards control the fan speed when the processor gets hot - or should you stick with the PSU connectors to regulate the fan speed?

1. AGain im not so sure about what you mean by those PSU connectors (which antec are you talking about)
2 Most modern mobos do support fan speed controls

Do you mean, stick with the PSU? I couldn't be bothered getting a fan regulator that is manually controlled.

Then get an automatic one

Can you imagine constantly turning the thing up and down.

1. Why would you constantly?
2. Leave it at max

Does the mobo control the speed of case fans?

It can

As far as I know, new mobos have a 4-pin controller for the CPU heatsink which controlls the speed based on temp

They do? (are you sure you're not mixing this up with the P4 12V ATX?)

which I believe means that they are ineffecient at controlling speed

That extra pin is for rpm telemetry not control. Contorl is done via the other two pins

 

[schmeggin]

Quiet and cool - case fans

Apparently the Antec True 550 has fan connectors which provide power and control the rpms.

This review at Tom's Hardware http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20040615/fan-controller-01.html doesn't speak very highly of the automated fan rpm regulators.

I am looking for a solution that keeps the system cool, but also keeps the fans quiet. I know ASUS has QFan. And Antec has rpm regulators from the PSU. Thing is, the PSU heat and the CPU/mobo heat are not neccessarily related.

Any other clues on regulating case fan speed to keep the system quiet and cool?

 

[Praetor]

doesn't speak very highly of the automated fan rpm regulators.

Agreed and neither do I like them much (with the exception of maybe the silverstones but id rather have manual control anyways)

I am looking for a solution that keeps the system cool, but also keeps the fans quiet.

Can you define quiet? I.e., how many dB

Any other clues on regulating case fan speed to keep the system quiet and cool?

A bunch of Stealth 120s