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Corsair: 650D

MeanBruce said:
I want one!;) Maybe it will arrive this week. If so I will install that baby, and let everyone know how it checks out! Guru3d.com has a great review on the chassis, the 650D garnered the "Best Hardware Award" and the linear controller seems to have worked fine for the reviewer, a non-issue, so hope is right around the corner! Thanks Mr. Redbeard!
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I read that review and felt like they didn't address the fan controller/fan performance/noise AT ALL.

And there was not a single mention of anything in the comments.

MeanBruce said:
Joe is probably the most laid back guy here, so if he is unhappy, you know that poop really has hit the fan!;) OK bad joke. Hope I am not fined for that one. Joe the only reason I used the mobo fan port was that when using Noctua resistors and the Corsair 200mm fan together the resistor gets extremely hot, not a good situation. Plugged into the mobo just use software to adjust the fan speed to a sound level that works out for you. The grommets that came with the fan kit work extremely well. I have the Corsair 200mmx40mm twin prop fan working great as a top exhaust[making one is simple, just use a little silicone] no buzzing whining, 470rpm, actually have a little noise in the black CM megaflow mounted up front, but not much. I think there exists a sort of gravity effect; any fan mounted up top with soft rubber grommets is going to be more silent since the weight of the fan alone pulls on the grommet, allowing less contact with the metal surface and isolates the transmitted vibration more effectively. All conditions equal in the front position you just don’t get that same gravity effect, I am sure the difference is minimal, but I can hear it, no matter what fans I use. It’s just a hypothesis, but I think a good one. Joe, I am using some Noctua resistors and gromms, but have all 6 of my Noctua fans in a box, trying to keep that Obsidian Black look going on! What I am trying to say is dropping $200bucks on fans, easy to do with Noctua, isn’t gonna solve the issue for you, hang tight man, Mr. Redbeard will send you a new controller! Crossing fingers!;)
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I guess I need to know how to control the fans better from the motherboard. Need a Y Splitter for my CPU fans, and then I need to figure out which connectors to plug the Corsair 200mm fans into. I have a Gigabyte P55A-UD4P motherboard, so I have PCH, SYS, and one or two others to plug the Corsairs into but I'm not sure what sort of control options I have with those. I also have no resistors.

I put the 4 rubber screws on the front fan, and 2 on the top fan. Not sure why I got 6 instead of 8, so the top fan only has 2 grommets, but the top fan isn't in operation right now so that doesn't matter. TEACH ME THE WAY.
 
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You only got 6?
That's odd, I received a total of 8 grommets in the fan fix kit.

Maybe you should order another kit to at least get the right number of grommets?
 
Linear fan controller swap out, arriving UPS tomorrow 1pm, I gave Kelvin a call and got a tracking number, he’s a pretty cool guy, he should find himself a really great looking hippie chick up in San Fran named umm Celsius, yuk yuk. Thank you George!;)
 
No problem MeanBruce. You should see Kelvin's rig. He had a fully watercooled 800D with like hundreds of dollars in fittings alone. The dude is serious.
 
Is the linear fan controller different than the fix kit? I would really want to get rid of all the extra wires and just have it all integrated.
 
Redbeard said:
No problem MeanBruce. You should see Kelvin's rig. He had a fully watercooled 800D with like hundreds of dollars in fittings alone. The dude is serious.
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for some reason i dont picture too many Corsair employees with like HP or Dell rigs :cool:

wowcro said:
Is the linear fan controller different than the fix kit? I would really want to get rid of all the extra wires and just have it all integrated.
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i still dont completely understand it, but from what i gather the original controller is pwm and the linear one actually adjusts the output voltage to the fans.

What i dont get is that all the pwm fans i have seen are 4 pin and the corsair fans are all 3 pin. Why is that redbeard?
 
faulkton said:
for some reason i dont picture too many Corsair employees with like HP or Dell rigs :cool:



i still dont completely understand it, but from what i gather the original controller is pwm and the linear one actually adjusts the output voltage to the fans.

What i dont get is that all the pwm fans i have seen are 4 pin and the corsair fans are all 3 pin. Why is that redbeard?
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Maybe they axed the RPM sensor header?
 
I just removed the old controller, took all of 12minutes. You have to take out the two shiny Phillips head screws holding on the controller base housing, then the green controller PCB, and switch just fall into your hands, pretty simple! Darn nobody liked my Celsius joke, tough crowd!;)
 
Did you have to take anything out of the case to swap the controller?
I'm going to assume the opticals had to go, but did you need to get anything else out to make this an easy swap?

Did it actually make a difference in the fan speeds?

Thanks.
 
A PWM fan controller doesn't require a 4-pin PWM fan, it just works more appropriately with the duty cycle of a 4-pin fan.

For example, the CPU_FAN header on your motherboard is usually PWM controlled. What this means is that the 4th wire (sense) can give feedback as to the duty cycle (percentage of maximum RPM) that the fan is using.

So if you go into your BIOS and set your CPU_FAN header to 70% duty cycle, and you have a PWM fan plugged in, the fan spins at 70% of its maximum RPM. The entire time, the voltage is a constant +12V.

If you have a 3-pin fan plugged into that same CPU_FAN header and it's set to 70% duty cycle, the PWM fan controller attempts to "space out" the peaks of its normal +12V signal to approximate a linear voltage fan controller.

Here's a bad example NOTE: this is not to scale, it's merely illustrative

QjLA3.jpg


This works flawlessly most of the time, but in the 200mm fans we use, the motors are large and powerful (compared to the smaller 120mm and 140mm fan motors) and the fans have a lot more mass to them. When they were getting the start-stop signals from the PWM controller, the motors were being stopped, then forced to turn on again in a fraction of a second. This, combined with the mass of the fan blades, caused a "buzz" noise (in reality, the motor was starting and stopping at a very high frequency and the fan was vibrating, which was then being fed through the chassis and amplified due to the harder rubber fan mounts used).

Hope this helps.
 
that, and reading some wiki helped a lot... answered some questions and created some more.. back to wiki.

thanks for taking the time.
 
Eluder79 said:
Did you have to take anything out of the case to swap the controller?
I'm going to assume the opticals had to go, but did you need to get anything else out to make this an easy swap?

Did it actually make a difference in the fan speeds?

Thanks.
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Front panel and any ODDs that's it! It's the two chrome screws you want to remove everything in that area of the case is black so they are shiny and easy to spot. New controller doesn't arrive till tomorrow 1pm.
 
faulkton said:
it's 1pm someplace.. did you get your linear controller?
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The linear controller arrived; here are two photos right out of the box. It looks like it mounts up right in place of the old one. Please scratch the chrome plated screw removal I talked about yesterday, it looks like you COULD do it that way [Can we George?] just taking the bottom off and replacing the PCB and switch, but I don’t want to mess the installation up for anyone, so let me get it into place and I’ll let you know how it goes!

IMG_0525-1.jpg


IMG_0532.jpg
 
yeah either method will work. The important part is the PCB and switch.
 
Redbeard said:
yeah either method will work. The important part is the PCB and switch.
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All I hear is smooth airflow at every speed, and the three speeds are distinctly different! I have a feeling everyone is going to be very happy! I did not mount it yet, just did the wiring to the three fans and powered it up and I really like it! When you step up the switch L/M/H it takes 4 or 5 seconds for the fans to reach their new higher rpm which I would guess is normal, when you step down the switch H/M/L the rpms decrease in 1 to 2 seconds, again I think that’s normal for large diameter fans.

As far as mounting I am just going to slip the PCB/Switch/Wiring up into the existing housing, it’s just easier to get to the chrome plated screws on the housing bottom, but if anyone does not feel comfortable handling the PCB, then use the other method of mounting the entire black box. Thanks again George, you should book that flight to Barbados now, you have a real winner on your hands with this chassis!;)
 
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MeanBruce, if you can, I'd appreciate photos of the installation process just so I know what to expect!

Much appreciated.
 
Xephian said:
Redbeard said:
If anybody wants the 650D linear fan controller, email me: redbeard@corsair.com
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Just emailed you a request.
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Do you always send back a confirmation email? Just wondering if you got my email for the linear fan controller on the 1st.

Would be nice to have a more distinct difference in fan speeds and to not have to have all the fan wires meet at a single point. My front 200mm fan seems to be significantly noisier than the top, not sure if that's normal.
 
Xephian said:
Do you always send back a confirmation email? Just wondering if you got my email for the linear fan controller on the 1st.

Would be nice to have a more distinct difference in fan speeds and to not have to have all the fan wires meet at a single point. My front 200mm fan seems to be significantly noisier than the top, not sure if that's normal.
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Yeah, I got it. Forwarded to our guy in customer service who will send you the replacement.
 
faulkton said:
did some work on my wires and got new GPUs in :)
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Looks good! How are your temps? I'm considering using this case for SLI 570 GTXs but was concerned that the airflow in the case wouldn't be good enough to cool both those cards.
 
Faulkton, nice job on the wires! I am still waiting for Amazon to ship my order. 2 more weeks I suspect. I will likely end up coring a hole in the window, or replacing it with painted sheet metal, and installing a supply fan located over the video cards. I hope their next case features multiple fan mounts on the front, drilled for 120 and 140's.

Does the silver arrow block the first PCI slot? Can a video card be placed on the bottom slot without hitting the PSU?

Is there space to fit a 25mm fan between the video cards and left panel?

Anybody know if an AX1200 will interfere with a drive cage mounted on the bottom?

Anybody tested the front audio connectors for static?
 
orangeblue said:
Looks good! How are your temps? I'm considering using this case for SLI 570 GTXs but was concerned that the airflow in the case wouldn't be good enough to cool both those cards.
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+1 I'm curious too, the 650d came up as a recommendation in a thread I had started (undecided on case for sli sb build). I'm going GTX 580sli as well and am very curious on the temps you get.
 
Nostrovia said:
+1 I'm curious too, the 650d came up as a recommendation in a thread I had started (undecided on case for sli sb build). I'm going GTX 580sli as well and am very curious on the temps you get.
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My 2 GTX 460s are around 33/31 degrees w/ fan @ 50.
 
orangeblue said:
Looks good! How are your temps? I'm considering using this case for SLI 570 GTXs but was concerned that the airflow in the case wouldn't be good enough to cool both those cards.
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Nostrovia said:
+1 I'm curious too, the 650d came up as a recommendation in a thread I had started (undecided on case for sli sb build). I'm going GTX 580sli as well and am very curious on the temps you get.
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metroh.png


800/1600/2000 and 1.013 on the 580s.

They idle idle in the mid 30's.

It's 77f in here right now.


The silver arrow doesnt block any pci slot, but limits your ram choice.

You could fit a fan on the window if you wanted. I dont think i'll need one.
 
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Faulkton’s photos are so outrageously good, that AX850 has to be the sexiest PSU on the market right now, if only the PSU design group could add a small white LED on the upper left front corner of the next series showing fan activity that could be monitored thru the 650D window, OFF when no spin, ON in silent mode. The next great lineup I hope will be titled Corsair Professional Series Platinum PX850 “Corsair Link” approved, if they continue to use the Periodic Table for the naming.

In one review about the AX850, I think it was from Newegg, the customer had a lengthy list of PROS about the unit, and his only CON was, “I can’t sleep with it”! I thought it was funny! Guess you have to have a sense of humor though!;)
 
Hey MeanBruce, not sure if you saw my request, but did you happen to take photos of how you replaced the old fan controller with the new linear fan controller?

Thanks!
 
Sorry man I really didn’t take any step by step photos, but I would be happy to write up a quick how-to if you want it. It’s such a simple install I didn’t think to take a bunch of pics. But there are some important points to be aware of that I am sure you will see when you get the new controller. But if you want, sure I will let you know what I found out and the simplest way to mount it up.
 
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MeanBruce said:
This is the review that I have been waiting for:

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1168/pg1/corsair-obsidian-650d-case-review-introduction.html

As expected the Corsair 650D garners both the Gold Award and the Performance Award.

And this is where we will be seeing George this summer. Congratulations George!

http://www.stregisborabora.com/1743/gallery
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Hahaha, I wish.

Got too many new cases, coolers, and PSUs to work on. If I go on vacation for a week it feels like when I come back I don't know what's going on anymore. Plus I have a 4 month old daughter so most of my paychecks go to day care now. Heh.
 
oh George... i want a new 1200 watt PSU with the smaller form factor like the ax850 .... AND it should use the same cables as the ax850 so i can just swap it out and drop in another 580 :)

Also for those wondering about temps.. here is almost an hour and a half of folding with CPU/GPU. You can see my idle temps on the GPU in yellow:

tempsj.jpg
 
MeanBruce said:
Sorry man I really didn’t take any step by step photos, but I would be happy to write up a quick how-to if you want it. It’s such a simple install I didn’t think to take a bunch of pics. But there are some important points to be aware of that I am sure you will see when you get the new controller. But if you want, sure I will let you know what I found out and the simplest way to mount it up.
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Hi MeanBruce, that would be greatly appreciated if you could write up the quick how to.

Thanks!
 
From what I saw at the Corsair Forum vasvas has some really tremendous insight, I followed some of his cabling. Why doesn't someone contact him and invite him to post here, he can easily improve the quality of this 650D thread for us.
 
Mr. Faulkton’s photograph really hit hard. This is the type of photograph enthusiasts want to see at the Corsair website, how components appear together, how they work together, how to plan a system, not just how they appear alone under brilliant lights. More of these simple human photos please George!

faulkton1.jpg
 
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