Fan control

[johnnyfive]

Hey guys,
Im back with another question. Yall helped me figure out what to put in (or not put in!) my water cooling loop. The loop I ended up with has a xspc rx360 rad with three scythe sflex g 1900 RPM fans. The loop only cools the CPU My primary purpose for going WC is to lower system noise, thus I do not want the fans running full tilt all the time. This of course lead me to search out a fan controller. I had nearly purchased a sunbeam rheobus when I had another thought. During the day my computer is scheduled to run many processes that tend to spike the cpu load (and thus cpu temp). If I leave my apartment with the fans set to low, then the cpu heat might not be appropriately removed. I see a few fan controllers that offer "automatic" monitoring of temperature and adjust the fan speed accordingly. As I am not likely to be the first one to ever have this kind of thought path, I thought I would ask the question here:

Are any of you using fan controllers, and if so how do you have it set up?

Thanks for any help.
johnnyfive

 

[E.E.L. Ambiense]

With that rad, you could technically turn off the fans and your CPU will probably be okay! You're just fine. With that loop you can cut the fans in half on the speed and the temps will barely move. I personally tend to rheobus my fans on rads, but others use resistors in-line. Or you could get some cheap fan-mates to control the fans. A Sunbeam rheobus can run all three fans off one header at once easily if you splice them.

Good luck!

 

[echn111]

The T-Balancer bigNG is one of the best on the market, and it worked well for my watercooling build. I set it up with temperature sensors tracking the radiator temps, the NB/SB heatsink, external HDD, case ambient; and controlling three different sets of fan channels : radiator fans (mapped to rad temp), front and rear airflow fan (mapped to both the front HDD and the case ambient sensors) and the top fans (mapped to the NB/SB sensors - but these almost never turn on). Also added different rules for various conditions.

It has a good set of features - can handle both digital and analogue temperature sensors and allows you to set create customised fan rpm to temperature mapping profiles, not just linear mappings. Can set it to activate different sets of fans at different rpm depending on different sensor conditions. It's got 4 channels to power different fan groups (extendable) and provides 40 watts per channel if using PWM or 20 normal.. Also allows integration of flowmeters. And you can integrate certain types of water pumps. It's extendable to add more digital or analogue sensors as well as fan channels. Has alarm/safety systems to turn all fans 100%, and sound an audible alarm under circumstances you set (e.g. dead pump)... The software suite to control the device is also extendable and people have written their own mods.

Loads of features. But not recommended for people who just want to adjust fans manually.

 

[johnnyfive]

Thanks for the responses. I feel a little more comfortable with things now. Seems like I am worrying more than necessary.

That is one major fan controller! Can it do laundry?

 

[alildevil]

If your leaving the house what difference does it make if the fans are loud and on high?

I also have (2) of the rheobus (30w each channel) 6 fan rad controllers in my rig. My PC has 18 fans altogether so I needed the controllers. (14) 120mm and (4) 80mm fans and works great. I did split some of them as needed.

And I have had no problems at alol with temps, I just turn them to midway and leave it there, its fine, when gaming or more intense cooling times are needed I do switch to high.

 

[johnnyfive]

The fan noise matters while I am gone because my girl studies in the same room as my computer is in. If it was just me, id run the fans full tilt all the time.