[Imgur](
http://i.imgur.com/0DhYlpI)
Yea, you'll need to cool them if you want to use more than 1 fan. Maybe 2x120s would be okay, I'm not sure. With the way it's circuitry works, it actually gets hotter the slower you put your fan, as the electricity is bottling up instead of going to the fans. I'm not too savvy about how that works, but yea, the lower the speed, the hotter it'll get.
I tried to use like mosfet heatsinks at first, even high quality copper ones (large for use on mosfets) and they just didn't work. I even fandangled THREE of them onto it, and that didn't come close to being enough cooling. I also put an 80mm fan on it after that, still no good. Melted the hot glue right off.
What I did was took a stock heatsink, the amd am2 one is the easiest i think but you can use any, sawed a strip off, and then used thermal glue to attach it to 3 of them (the 3 channels that were using 2x140mm fans each). After I did that, I didn't even need to put a fan on them, they only hit ~60C max (warm, but not hot) when at low speed.
You can probably actually replace the... the drivers? i'm not sure what those chips are called, but they just have 3 legs. I'm sure you could order 3 higher quality ones and swap them out with a very simple solder job. That'd really be the easiest thing I'm sure, I just didn't think it would require such an insanely big heatsink to keep them cool when I first started modding them, and I'm not too savvy with that stuff (yet, doing a lot of arduino stuff currently).
They are 3 pin voltage regulators. I'm not sure what model they are using, but just buy higher quality ones online for like, I dont know 50cents each off ebay or a retailer. ezpz. Just do it with one channel before doing the rest.
Going back, yea, that would really be the way smarter thing to do. And way easier. It might sound daunting, but the solder work isn't SMD so it'd be super easy (solder iron is like $10, probably can find them free on craigslist).
It is not PWM, but voltage regulated. PWM works by sending the same X voltage (12v in this case) slower or faster, whereas voltage regulated work by reducing/raising voltage. Now you can make PWM fans work as their first 3 pins are the same as any 2 or 3 pin fan. If you want to use a PWM fan with a fan controller, you can just plug it in and it'll work fine, as the 4th pin simply won't be used.
I've actually got a PWM + Non PWM fan running on the same channel, I simply removed the speed sense and PWM pin on the PWM fan, spliced (mixed, attached, w/e you want to call it) to same pins on the 3 pin fan, and plugged it in. I could've just used a fan y-splitter but that'd be like, smart or something. Which I'm not
The lighting is done by 3528 LEDs. I have an SPST switch hooked up so I can turn it on off. I'm still modding this computer so I haven't taken many pictures yet, but there's about 3 meters of LED there (a long or tall side of a mid-atx case is ~.5m). On the bottom, all 4 edges have LED stripping along it (on the front edge, I modded it a bit so the edge would be more forward, as you cant attach to the front panel).
I used wax paper between the wire strips on the fenix to diffuse the light so you dont see just a line of ugly dots. I also used wax paper behind the logo (removed the original steel logo) to achieve that blue logo. I didn't even have to put blue LEDs on it, the glow from the 4x140mm blue led fans behind it were enough (so it doesn't turn off when I turn off the LEDs, but with the fans instead).
Here's some other stuff of my build at the moment:
CMOS Reset switch (just simply attach an spst switch, in this case just a re-used computer case power/reset button with the actual huge power button piece removed, to your CMOS jumpers)
Better view of window
The h100 was installed simply by removing CD and HDD bays (drill out rivets, pop them out. the shinobi has a crossbar for support at the top, I used nut/bolt to simply put it back on) and attaching to drilled holes on the front. Also used a 5.5inch (roughly 140mm) hole saw to make larger holes for the 140mm fans, but that wasn't really necessary.
The h60 attaches to 7950 with dwood bracket.
Custom sleeving thanks to ensourced@ebay. I did the case cables and fan cables though. Most of my cable wiring goes underneath the mobo. Got the rubber grommets from microcenter, they have so many laying around case section and manager okay'd it.
NZXT white 1m led, though honestly I might remove it in favor of 3528 led stripping, which is just godsend stuff. like $8 for 5m of 60LED per 1m, it's just awesome and way better than any other led stuff. The most similar thing is the 6inch bitfenix LED alchemy strips, which are 3528 of 30LED per 1m for like $20 each... rip off.
I've currently got the computer case on hinges:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE1ucislSxU
Also delidded the haswell, you can see the video on my channel too.
I'm currently working on:
* Using an LCD RGB Negative character display ($20) to show my CPU and GPU Temps
from software (ie not those crappy thermistors, like those come with fan controllers)
* Using an LCD to display a voltmeter's reading of my CPU's VCore and VRIN (NOT the terribly inaccurate software reported voltage readings)
* Using a servo to automate the opening/closing of my computer side panel that runs off a UPS
Quite difficult, but hopefully rewarding stuff that will be super easy to do 2nd time around.
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