Can I slow down my fans without buying anything?

[YMAN]

I just got a blower, The only problem is annoyingly LOUD! Is there any way to slow it down? I don't want to buy anything. I tried 5 volts but it doesn't blow much! Is there a way I can make 7 volts out of the 4 pin connector?

[Oright]

To the best of my knowledge, no, if you dont want to buy anything.
However if you are willing to spend a little cash you could always get a resistor (I know hardly anything about electronics so I cant explain any furthur :-( )
Again, not sure, so dont take my word for it.

[Oright]

Oh yeah, when I said a litte money, I meant from 1-5 bux........

[Paul -The Mad Hatter]

YMAN (Aug 02, 2001 04:49 p.m.):
I just got a blower, The only problem is annoyingly LOUD! Is there any way to slow it down? I don't want to buy anything. I tried 5 volts but it doesn't blow much! Is there a way I can make 7 volts out of the 4 pin connector?

hook the gorund to the 5v line and voila 7v.

[hooziewhatsit]

you can either buy a cheap rheostat, or you can try running the wire between the 5v line and the 12v line. that way you should end up with 7v. You might want to research this a little more before you try it. I did something on mine today hooking up a fan and made my comp shut down, scared the crap out of me...

good luck

[Mord-Sith]

either get a rheo or stick your finger in it ..... I would build a voltage regualtor if I were you
http://casemods.pointofnoreturn.org/vregtut/tutorial-1.html

[Monaco]

I've never personally gotten the 7 volt trick to work. Out of 3 power supplies, 1 200watt AT and 2 350watt ATX all just see a short and shut off. Oh well, I guess.

Radio Shack carries rheostats and resistor by the ton, those can eat some voltage and slow a fan if you get the right one. Just make sure you read this first
http://forums.overclockers.ws/forums/UltraBoard.cgi?action=Read&BID=13&TID=1008&SID=164213 (http://)

heh.

-the monster

[maha_x]

I once read article about this, and yes, some power supplies work when you connect something between 12 and 5 wolts. But the writer of that article had got mail from some PSU manuf. telling him that some PSUs could even get damaged. Older PSUs are more likely to work with this hack. And also more likely to burn instead of shut down :)

Oh, and connecting ground to 5v wont work. Your PSU will shut down or burn.

Resistor would be your cheapest way. Size depends on your fan amps.

Calculate like this <desired voltage> / <fan amps> = ohm

So to get 7V for 0.2A fan you get 7 / 0.2 = 35ohm resistor. Also at 7V you are cutting 40% of the wattage from the fan to the resistor so with 10W fan youd need 4W resistor. Their likely to sell you .25W resistors if you dont ask specificly. You can calculate the fan wattage by <fan amps> * 12V. So you likely dont have a 10W fan :)

More advanced would be to connect a large (>=4700uF) condensator (or is it conductor in english? Well just say "something with 4700uF" where uF is "microfarade" :) ) in parallel with the resistor to make sure that the fan gets 12V at startup to get spinning. Specially if you use low voltage.

[groovy]

Go here: http://www.fanbus.com for an explanation of possibilities as well as excellent schematics. The 7volt trick quieted my 120mm fan to a tolerable level with only a minor difference in temps.

[MortalWombat]

The 7v trick works fine for me, I've got 2 80 mm Pabst and 1 92 mm Sunon running @ 7v no problem ....

Just connect fan ground to 5v and fan + to 12v, and bobs your 7v uncle ...

[The Coolest]

Instead of trying to quiet my extra 2 80mm fans I just connected them to a switch, so I can turn them off & on when I want to.