PSU fan swap and too many fans?

[nrlightfoot]

I just finished building a computer in a P182 case, and it's much quieter than my last one, which had a YS tech TMD fan as the main noise source. I'm thinking about replacing the fan in the PSU, a Corsair CX400, and was thinking maybe a 1600 rpm Scythe S-flex running on the PSU fan controller (since it starts at 4V), or else perhaps a 1200rpm running on a different fan controller. Would that work out alright, or should I use something different? I assume that the PSU is similar to the VX450, and since it has the same fan it probably idles at 4.05V which is what I read the VX450 does for it's lowest speed. Also, if I put a very quiet fan in every possible mounting position is that going to add up to more noise than if I run the fans at the same speed and leave a couple of the fans out?

My system has the following:

Corsair CX400 PSU
Intel E8500 with a Xigmatek HDT-S1283
His Hightech HD4670 turbo with an Accelero S2
2 Samsung Spinpoint 1TB drives
64GB G.Skill SSD for my OS and programs

I'm currently running 2 of the original fans on low, I disabled the top mounted fan because it had a buzzing sound, and was much louder than anything else in the system. I'm not sure if that was due to the orientation or maybe some shipping damage. I have the stock fan on the Xigmatek which runs 950RPM at idle when controlled by the motherboard, and 1 Scythe S-flex 1600 rpm running at about 750 rpm.

[Aris]

Are you sure the fan in the PSU is your issue? Have you stopped it while the system is running to verify?

Opening your PSU will void the warrenty. It also has the possibility of killing you even when its unplugged from the wall if you dont know what your doing.

More fans running slower is less noise than less fans running faster. I believe theres a review by MikeC where he proves this, cant remember what it is though. Ideally though you want to use less fans without having to increase their speed. But if you do have to subsequently increase fan speed to compensate for the lack of a fan removed, your going to end up with more noise overall.

[nrlightfoot]

I haven't stopped the fan on the psu yet, I wasn't sure how to without hurting the fan, but I read that you can use a straw to do it, so I'll try that tonight.

If I put my ear at the back of the case, the sound coming out of the top compartment is as loud as the stuff coming out of the bottom compartment, but now that I think about it that sound could just be the Antec tri-cool fans. I have one running as an exhaust in the rear, and then I have the one running in the middle of the bottom compartment.

I'll have to poke around and figure things out some more. It seemed like the PSU was quieter than the noise I hear now when I tested it outside of the case.

[Aris]

Just stick a straight object, like a screwdriver or your finger, into the fan blades BEFORE you turn the system on. It wont have enough momentum to hurt you if you stop it before it begins spinning in the first place.

Either that or you can place your finger on the hub of the fan while its spinning.

[JamieG]

My $0.02 (as a P182 owner):

I have a Scythe S-Flex 1600rpm fan swapped into my Zalman PSU (bought before reading the SPCR review ) and it works well.

Your system probably won't need the fan running in the lower chamber at all, even with a hard drive in that chamber, so you could get away with removing it and just using the PSU fan as an exhaust if you seal up all the air vents around the PSU.

You should consider undervolting the stock fan on your CPU heatsink or replacing it with a quieter alternative from the SPCR recommended fan list.

Swap a Nexus or Scythe Slipstream 800rpm for the rear exhaust fan and block off the hole used for the top exhaust fan with some cardboard or something.

Finally a Nexus or Scythe Slipstream 800rpm mounted on the middle hard drive cage will help cool your graphics card.

These should be all the fans that you need to keep your system cool. I have a hotter-running system built into a P182 with a similar fan set-up and it is reasonably cool.

See posts of P182 owners in the General Gallery section or the SPCR article relating to the EndPCNoise 22Db gaming system for more ideas.

Hope this helps!

[nrlightfoot]

After stopping the fan in the middle of the PSU chamber, I can say for sure that the noise I was hearing was primarily the Antec fan, not the one in the power supply. Also the Xigmatek fan on the cooler is a bit buzzy running at 950 rpm, so I think I will replace it and the tricool fans with scythe s-flex fans.

I haven't decided how many fans I want for sure yet, but the front middle one that blows on the graphics card seems like a good idea, and I think then one on the cpu heatskink and one as an exhaust should be good, with the PSU cooling the hard drives.

I will probably replace the other fans and see how that sounds for a couple days before I decide on replacing the PSU fan. I think it is pretty quiet already. My primary goal was to make the computer quiet enough that I could sleep with it on, and I can already do that pretty well, although a little quieter might be nice.

[catkin]

Hello nrlightfoot

The fans supplied with the P182 aren't the best but may be quiet enough if you control them with software according to temperature rather than the P182's simple 3 position switches -- and it would be cheaper than changing the fans, maybe faster and easier too.

Maybe easier for the CPU cooling fan; the BIOS may be able to control it according to the CPU case temperature without even having to install and configure any software.

Best

Charles

[JamieG]

The fans supplied with the P182 aren't the best but may be quiet enough if you control them with software according to temperature rather than the P182's simple 3 position switches -- and it would be cheaper than changing the fans, maybe faster and easier too.

The TriCools that come with the P182 are run off a 4-pin molex connector (red and black wires leading to the molex only to the 12v positions) with no 3-pin connector. The yellow rpm fan wire goes to the 3 position switch, along with additional power connectors.

From memory, the 'low' setting gives the fan 5v anyway, so the TriCool won't get that much quieter even if you bypass the 3-speed selector somehow (presumably with a bit of re-wiring?).

I don't think this would be worth the effort and it may not be all that effective anyway. (Not meaning to attack you or anything Catkin...)

[catkin]

The TriCools that come with the P182 are run off a 4-pin molex connector (red and black wires leading to the molex only to the 12v positions) with no 3-pin connector. The yellow rpm fan wire goes to the 3 position switch, along with additional power connectors.

[snip]

I don't think this would be worth the effort and it may not be all that effective anyway. (Not meaning to attack you or anything Catkin...)

Hello Jamie

No attack felt; it's nice to pool knowledge and understanding [brings up heavy field artillery ].

I've just checked the fans that came with my P182 and confirm what you wrote (except I was not able to test the yellow as an RPM signal).

Edit: I now recall the "adapter wiring" came not with the P182 but with three Zalman FanMates. Sorry.
==== BEGIN DELETION ====
but there's more; Antec also supply adapter wiring with four connectors:

• There are two back-to-back 4 pin Molex connectors, male and female with all 4 wires connected through. These allow tapping into the power supply without reducing the number of female 4 pin Molexes available.
• Red and black wires are taken from one of the Molexes to a 3 pin male fan type connector, similar to the fan headers on motherboards.
• A yellow wire is taken from the 3 pin male fan type connector to a three pin female fan type connector, similar to the ones fitted to fan wires.

Here's what Antec say about these adapters in the TriCool fan installation note (the P182 User's Manual is similar).

This fan has a three-speed switch that lets you choose between quiet, performance, or maximum cooling.

1. 1. The TriCool Series Fan comes equipped with a 3-pin power connector. It also includes a 4-pin power connector adapter (installed) with power pass-through feature. To connect to a motherboard header, remove the adapter and use the 3-pin connector. To connect to your power supply, leave the adapter attached and plug the 4-pin connector into an available connector. You may plug another device into the other side of the adapter connector and power it, so you don't lose a power plug with the Pro Series Fan.
2. 2. The TriCool Series Fan supports fan speed monitoring through the 3-pin connector. If you choose to connect the Pro Series Fan to your power supply but your motherboard supports fan speed monitoring, you may connect the signal wire adapter (3-pin connector with only one wire) to your motherboard header. The fan speed signal wire does not need to be connected for the Pro Series Fan to function properly.

Note: The minimum voltage to start the fan is 5V. We recommend our users to set the fan speed to High if you choose to connect the fan to a fan control device or to the Fan-Only connector found on some of Antec’s power supplies. A fan-controlled-device regulates the fan speed by varying the voltage to it. The voltage may start as low as 4.5 V to 5V. Connecting a TriCool set on Medium or Low to a fan-control device may result in the fan not being able to start. The already lowered voltage from the fan control device will be further reduced by the TriCool circuitry below 5V.

I tried the only possible connection to the motherboard (the 3 pin female with only the yellow wire connected), to a controlled header that was running a fan at ~500 RPM. The TriCool continued at full speed. ??? [Edit: of course it did; the only thing connected to the motherboard was the yellow wire and that was not connected to anything else! Duh! .]
==== END DELETION ====

From memory, the 'low' setting gives the fan 5v anyway, so the TriCool won't get that much quieter even if you bypass the 3-speed selector somehow (presumably with a bit of re-wiring?).

That's right -- the low speed gives 5 V as it must to ensure starting the fan. Antec list the speed at 5 V as 1,200 RPM. Software can be cleverer than the 3-position switch, starting the fan at the minimum start voltage then continuing to run it at a lower voltage. In this way it should (subject to testing!) be possible to run a TriCool at ~500 RPM; this would be significantly quieter than 1,200 RPM.

Best

Charles

[JamieG]

Software can be cleverer than the 3-position switch, starting the fan at the minimum start voltage then continuing to run it at a lower voltage. In this way it should (subject to testing!) be possible to run a TriCool at ~500 RPM; this would be significantly quieter than 1,200 RPM.

Now this might be my lack of understanding of the options for controlling case fan speed via software (I do my speed controlling via a hardware fan controller) but I thought you needed the yellow RPM wire going to the motherboard to be able to do software fan speed control via Speedfan or something similar.

Does software control work purely on voltage control with no need for rpm monitoring? Getting slightly back towards helping the OP, if he buys a 3-pin to 4-pin molex connector allowing him to plug the OEM Antec TriCools (with a molex connector only, no 3-pin fan connector) that come with Antec's cases into a motherboard header, would he be able to control that speed via software? Doesn't sound right to me but I would be happy to be told I'm wrong...

[OT] *places tank shock divisions on high alert* [/OT]

Apologies to the OP for the thread hijack.

[catkin]

Now this might be my lack of understanding of the options for controlling case fan speed via software (I do my speed controlling via a hardware fan controller) but I thought you needed the yellow RPM wire going to the motherboard to be able to do software fan speed control via Speedfan or something similar.

Does software control work purely on voltage control with no need for rpm monitoring? Getting slightly back towards helping the OP, if he buys a 3-pin to 4-pin molex connector allowing him to plug the OEM Antec TriCools (with a molex connector only, no 3-pin fan connector) that come with Antec's cases into a motherboard header, would he be able to control that speed via software? Doesn't sound right to me but I would be happy to be told I'm wrong...

Hello Jamie

There wasn't any way to figure out a prori how it would work -- it would depend on how the software was designed -- so I experimented using fancontrol 1.1 (based on fancontrol 0.67) and lmsensors 3.0.0 on ubuntu 8.04.2 (with the usual 2.6.24-19-generic kernel) on a Gigabyte GA-MA770-DS3 Rev 1.0 motherboard (which has a IT8718F revision 4 for fan control).

One of the motherboard's fan headers was driving a S-Flex SFF21E fan at ~500 RPM. When the S-Flex fan was unplugged and a TriCool that came with the P182 was connected, the TriCool ran at ~400 RPM.

YMMV with Speedfan etc.

The fancontrol script drives the fan according to a temperature measurement. A time-consuming part of setting up (any?) fan control software is calibrating the fans -- minimum start voltage, minimum running voltage, what temp you want the fan to start and at what temp you want it to run at full speed. AFAIK fan RPM is not used but it is very nice to be able to display it while setting up and experimenting.

[OT]Briefs assault troops on terrain, deployment and weaponry[/OT]

Best

Charles