Too many fans

[BeakerChem]

I am going to be using the Aspire X-plorer mid-size case. This case natively has five fan positions (2 front, 1 side, 1 rear, 1 blow-hole - all 80 mm). In addition to this I was going to add a set of drive fans, and a duel pci-car fan system that extends into the case and allows you to direct in or out flow. Overall this would give me 9 case fans not including the powersupply, CPU or Vid card fans.

I am not too worried about noise. The case has a 4-fan group controller standard and I am getting an Aerocool Gatewatch II to control 4 more. This will also give me a total of 5 temperature sensor probe positions. And to top it all off, I intend to use headphones for sound.

I have a couple of questions that people can feel free to flame me on.

(Not going to overclock anything, I just like the idea of fan cooling...)

1) What problems will I run into with this many fans? Does too much airflow cause issues I may not be realizing?

2) Am I going to have power supply problems? (Besides the number of plugs)

3) At what point will the case hover off the ground?

4) At what point should I give up the pretense of having a case and just take off the side panels and replace them with box-fans?

Thanks for everyones input in advance!

System specs:

AMD FX-55
Asus SLI deluxe MB
Duel Leadtek 6800 Ultras
OCZ 2x1024MB Ultra low lat mem (2-3-2-5-T1)
72 GB Raptor
300 GB WD Storage drive

 

[Aenslead]

You actually DON'T need that many fans. 3 should be plenty: intake, exhaust, and side-exhaust. Try to get them 120mm, and preferably (sp?) those which connnect to the motherboard, so they can be regulated according to the temps inside the case.

 

[BeakerChem]

But say I was sick and wanted that many fans...

 

[Aenslead]

*slaps BeakerChem with a smelly trout*

You sick fan-boy!! (geddit?!)

I've seen cases with more than 12 fans. Sick shit.

 

[ShadowBlade]

the aspire psu included will never be able to power all that
my personal reccomendation (if you really want all those fans) would be OCZ modstream 450W

 

[BeakerChem]

I was going with the a Thermaltake Noisetaker 600W. (I need to power the 2x6800Ultras as well.)

The version of the X-Plorer case I am getting doesn't come with a power supply and is priced at $54 at newegg.

And FanBoy!!! Hahahahaha.

 

[frx218]

Get a OCZ Powerstream 520W!

 

[BeakerChem]

Why is that better than the one I just posted?



Thanks for the input everyone!

 

[Chode Messiah]

the OCZ has more amperage on its rails, and OCZ makes better psus. Also, I don't think that many fans will make a difference. Are u changing the heatsinks? BTW, I hope those headphones are noise-canceling ones, or you'll go deaf!:disgust:

 

[hippotautamus]

Get one of every colour imaginable. Should be a hell of a light show

 

[IEC]

Originally posted by: Chode Messiah
the OCZ has more amperage on its rails, and OCZ makes better psus. Also, I don't think that many fans will make a difference. Are u changing the heatsinks? BTW, I hope those headphones are noise-canceling ones, or you'll go deaf!:disgust:

Stop thread crapping. Didn't you read the OP? He has fan controllers, he won't go deaf.

BeakerChem, if you want to run all the fans at low RPMs that'd probably work better than having less fans. It is a bit overkill, but if you're going to have that many high-end heat-generating components, no amount of cooling is too much. (Unless you use a freezer...)

 

[BeakerChem]

Originally posted by: hippotautamus
Get one of every colour imaginable. Should be a hell of a light show

Funny you should say that. The main set of 4 will be on the individual Aerotech Gatewatch II tuner, so I can tune them individually and they will be Blue LED with the 1 red LED for HD access. The remaining fans are on the case controller which is 1 rheostat control. Those are going to be 4 color fans. If the rheostat won't kill power to them I am going to hook up a simple toggle button or throw switch. The effect I am going for is that under load I can kick in 5 extra fans with lotsa color.

Should look pretty cool.

Someone has already joked that the fans themselves will be the heat generation in the system, but with two 6800Ultras I think it may be the GPUs.

On that topic, anyone know how much voltage dividing I can do on the HD controller signal wire before I can't see the LED light up anymore? I may have to wire it so that it trips a relay instead so that I can subdivide off of a different powersource. Of course then I am stuck with all of that blasted clicking...

Originally posted by: ariafrost

Originally posted by: Chode Messiah
the OCZ has more amperage on its rails, and OCZ makes better psus. Also, I don't think that many fans will make a difference. Are u changing the heatsinks? BTW, I hope those headphones are noise-canceling ones, or you'll go deaf!:disgust:

Stop thread crapping. Didn't you read the OP? He has fan controllers, he won't go deaf.

BeakerChem, if you want to run all the fans at low RPMs that'd probably work better than having less fans. It is a bit overkill, but if you're going to have that many high-end heat-generating components, no amount of cooling is too much. (Unless you use a freezer...)

I think he is refering to the ASUS MB fan? I am looking for viable ways to change that out. I may go to a heatsink with all of the other fans in the system, but I think the ULTRAs will block too much flow over the bridge. There are whole threads on replacing that thing already though, so I won't go into that here.

 

[CrispyFried]

Originally posted by: BeakerChem
[
Funny you should say that. The main set of 4 will be on the individual Aerotech Gatewatch II tuner, so I can tune them individually and they will be Blue LED with the 1 red LED for HD access. The remaining fans are on the case controller which is 1 rheostat control. Those are going to be 4 color fans. If the rheostat won't kill power to them I am going to hook up a simple toggle button or throw switch. The effect I am going for is that under load I can kick in 5 extra fans with lotsa color.


On that topic, anyone know how much voltage dividing I can do on the HD controller signal wire before I can't see the LED light up anymore? I may have to wire it so that it trips a relay instead so that I can subdivide off of a different powersource. Of course then I am stuck with all of that blasted clicking...

Ive got 5 case fans on a thermaltake fanbus/temp monitor, Im with you id rather have lots of slow fans I can turn up rather than a few fans that run flat out all the time. My controller wont turn them off though, you may need a switch.

Im not sure what you mean about the HD signal wire? You mean the jumper on the mobo or card that goes to the front case HD led? I wouldnt splice much into that, use an optoisolator instead if you were planning to control something with it. As a bonus, an optoisolator will be silent.

BTW the case wont hover but you may find the odd stray kitten stuck to an intake grill occasionally.

 

[BeakerChem]

Hmm, from how I understand it, an optoisolator is just a signal transduction device. What I would be looking for is something to use the single HD wire from the motherboard to the front panel HD activity light for 4 fan leds in different areas of the case. What I am worried about is that splicing into that wire will divide the voltage up too much and result in low light LEDs. So instead I was thinking I might need a small relay, where the power sent from the MD to the front panel LED HD activity light instead trips the relay to complete a second circuit giving power to 5 other LEDs.

Does that make sense? I could make out a diagram. Do optoisolator's have that kind of switch ability?

 

[CrispyFried]

Yes, the optoisolator is basically an optical relay. Isolates the input signal from the output. And I dont think the HD activity line willpower 4 fans, youll need something like teh optoisolator.

Im in a hurry but Ill try to explain better later.

 

[shira]

I you judiciously place several hundred fans, you might be able to achieve lift-off.

And if you use millions, you'll be famous. Because then you'll have millions of fans.

 

[CrispyFried]

BeakerChem, the optoisoloator will isolate the hd led circut from the power needed for the fan leds, some optoisolators can directly run the added leds without any added components (besides the limiting resister for the leds).

I like optoisolators because there is no way to screw up the input circut. You may be able to just use a switching transister directly on the hd line but I like having a safety factor.

You might also be able to just splice 5 leds into the hd line but if the current draw is to much you might fry something (rare but possible but why take the chance).

But to be clear, is this what youre trying to do.. take the led fans, separate the leds circut from it and run the fan on 12v through the fanbus, and run the leds from the hd activity line? So the leds pulse with hd activity?

If so, I like it

This circut does exactly what you want.. seems someone also thought of this

many hd lights

That one is limited to 60 ma output, but this one has a 150 ma load rating, enough for seven 20 ma leds. Just add another one for more.

Here are some specs on hd activity signals, if you have multiple drives you can have leds for each drive channel via tapping into the ide cable. Some hds also have a led connector on the drive itself.

My Antec Plusview 1080 case has 4 leds in front panel, and my sata card has a led header on it so my on board hd lights up one front panel led, the sata drive lights up another. The 4th front led I use for network activity via a connector on the mobo. Nice light show when they do their stuff. So mine are power, on board hd, sata hd and network activity.

 

[0roo0roo]

its better to get cases with 120mm fans. 80mm is very little airflow for the noise. 120mm with fan controller is quieter then 2 80mm with fan controller...or even one.
as long as the fan intake/exhaust is reasonably balanced it doesn't matter. side intake, rear exhaust. have more coming in than going out...you don't want to suck dust through your drives. and no thats not a lot. many older antec server type cases have 2 front 2 rear and atleast 1 side. all 80mm

 

[CrispyFried]

The better cases have front grill filters My older antec does. The side fan has no filter but is very low speed. Ill add a filter to it at some point but the case stays very clean considering.
I clean the filter about once a month and it is pretty gross, so it does its job well.

Youre right the 120s are quieter for the same air flow and I do wish it had 120s instead of 80s but with them all on low I can hardy hear them.