Fan controller or Y cables?

H

Hungrypilot

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Oct 11, 2011
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Hey all,

Needless to say, the Coolermaster CM 690 II has way more fan slots than my motherboard has plugs for. I keep reading negative reviews about fan controllers, so I'd ask what you guys think.

Right now I've got these plugged in:
120mm on my Corsair H60 radiator (using chassis fan mobo connector)
Corsair H60 Pump (using CPU fan mobo connector)
120mm on side blowing onto GPU (using chassis fan mobo connector)
140mm on top for exhaust (using MOLEX)
140mm on front for HDD cooling (using MOLEX)

My plans are:
Move 120mm on side to a push/pull on the H60
Swap out OEM 140mm on top for 2 new Aerocool Shark 140mm fans
Install 2 new Aerocool Shark 140mm fans on the side

What do you guys think of:
Y Cable for the 2 radiator fans
MOLEX for all 4 140mm fans (top and side).

The only issue I see is being unable to control speeds using MOLEX... what is your experience with fan controllers?

Curious as to what you guys think.
 
don't put more than one fan on one connector on your mobo you could burn it out. I would say get a fan controller or put the power pin on the 5v on the molex connectors.
 
y cable is a bad idea with higher performance fans as often people overlook the fact that the final lead wire cannot carry enough current for all of the fans
 
If I stick 3 ap-15's per channel, using y adapters, should the main lead be able to handle it? I think they are only 1 or 2 watts each.
 
striker456 said:
If I stick 3 ap-15's per channel, using y adapters, should the main lead be able to handle it? I think they are only 1 or 2 watts each.
Click to expand...

yes, GTs are insane they're like 1 watt and amazing fans
 
The thing you need to consider more than "how many fans" is what kind of fans. Specifically, you want to know what their watt/amp draw is at full tilt. If your fans use less power combined than a normal fan then you should be perfectly fine.

If this is your mobo, then ASUS recommends you stay under 2A for the fan headers.

If this is the fan you are looking at, then you are talking .36A (rated) per fan.

If you take the two numbers together, then you can hook up [2.00 / .36 = 5.55] 5 of these fans to the same header without too much worry. You could actually hook up all 6 of the fans you have proposed to 2 motherboard headers and be ok. I would say you should look at it more from a wire-management standpoint than for spending extra money on a fan controller.

Unless you want control over your fans manually, in which case you will need to either use a molex so you can 12/7/5v your fans or a fan controller of some type.

I will say from experience that I replaced the stock AMD HSF unit on my 550 BE with a pair of Thermalright 140mm fans and used a digital multi-meter to test the power draw to be sure I was safe. I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head but both of the 140mm fans combined pulled less power than the stock AMD unit, so I wasn't worried at all about overloading the mobo header. If you are looking for software-based control over your cooling, the motherboard headers are the way to go IMO.

*Extra - when I replaced my GPU cooler it also came with a 140mm Thermalright fan. This drew less power than the stock GPU cooler so I hooked it directly to the fan header on my video card to control the speed. Been working like a charm this way for months now.
 
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