Case Fans - Intake/Exhaust, Electrical, Ventilation

[sgs]

Planning to add 2 front (intake) and 2 rear (exhaust) 80 mm fans to ATX case.
Case optionally allows these extra fans and standardly includes 1 side fan. PC
will potentially house 1 CD-Rom drive, 1 DVD drive, 3 Sata 150 drives, and
(approximately) 500 watt power supply (at rear of case). Based on comments, am
leaning towards Panaflo L1A case fans.

1. Are intake fans typically distinct from exhaust fans, or do the case fans
typically have a switch for configuring for intake or exhaust?

2. How are case fans typically connected electrically: to the mobo; to the
power supply; to the case (somehow)? When would it be appropriate to
connect a case fan to the mobo? How do you determine if the mobo can
connect to the 4 fans?

3. What extra connections (fan regulators) are needed so that fan(s) speed will
automatically react to interior temperature (i.e. fans not loud if interior
not that hot).

4. Based on the electrical connections, what type of connectors are needed?

5. Should I disable/remove the side fan and just go with the (regulated ?) 2
front and 2 rear fans (+ power supply fans and CPU heat sink fan)? Would
the side fan be accomplishing anything?

 

[jhurst]

1.) The direction of the air (intake/exhaust) depends on the direction you face the fan. There are no specific intake/exhaust fans.

2.) Fans typically are powered by molex connectors to the PSU. Normally most of your MB fan connectors are taken by CPU/NB fan/PSU fan. The bonus of connecting fans to your MB is for RPM monitoring. For that many fans, you probably will want to consider a fan controller (Vantec, etc.).

3.) Fan controllers are good, because basically you can run your fans at low speed all the time, except when gaming or other CPU intensive application (video encoding, etc.), in which you want to turn the fans all the way up. Maybe someone else can chime in on how to have an automatically adjusting fan speed setup.

4.) The fans include male and female molex connections, so you can link them together if needed. I have linked up to 7 fans together with no problems, although I wouldn't suggest that, but you can do it if you don't have enough PSU connectors.

5.) The side fan is good because it blows directly onto your MB/CPU HS. My temps drop significantly in my XaserV case when I have the 2 side fans blowing compared to not having them on.

 

[hifisoftware]

1. You just flip fan around. All fans have an arrow indicating air flow (and direction of rotation).

2. My mobo has 3 fan connectors (3 pin). One for CPU, one for power supply, one for case. I ony run one fan from each connector. Other fans are using 4 pin (IDE HD) connectors to run. You can get adapters from 4 pin to 3 pin connectors.

3. Don't not for sure, but I think you would have to get a fan with temp speed control like this: http://www.svc.com/80vanthertem.html

4. Depends on fans, different fans have diferent connectors. Some come with 4 pin to 3 pin adapters.

5. I found that the best combination is to put one side fan to pull cool air in and to have as many as possible rear fans blowing air out. This will create a negative pressure inside, but I do not care about it. Try different combinations yourself and see which one is best (takes a bit of time). Sometimes I get better temps by removing a fan (such as front intake fan).

 

[nimo]

1.no it?s the same fan, most show the air flow with an arrow on the side of the fan
just rotate accordingly

2.most are 12V and if you are buying fans specifically for PC they come with 4pin connectors like the HD or CD (2 wires out of 4)
PS: if they use 3pins and you don't have the room on the mobo there are adapters for 4pin connector

3. Vantec thermoflow have build in thermo regulation otherwise you?d need a
fan control of some kind

4. see 2

5.side fan doesn?t hurt (unless you can?t stand the noise )

 

[0roo0roo]

get a manual fan speed controller. auto fan speed control only works for systems fully engineered with that in mind, like apple g5's. otherwise u get fans that have cheesy fan speed control that only trips at several temperature points, thyey don't ramp up gradually as temp changes, if u don't pass threshold u dont change speed. trying to find a place in the case that can trip that ussually insane threshold for change is basically impossible. use manual fan speed control. with atlesat 4 fans u only need to turn up the fans when its dead heat of summer or if ur really really working the pc out and feel like some extra insurance. just check the temp with speedfan or whatever at the lowest speed at which is reasonable noise wise.