Fan circuit/wiring

Hi all!
Im new to the forum and Ild like to throw an idea your way about fan wiring. Ive got heat problems and the solution Ive settled on is to replace my itty bitty 5v/40mm my video card fan with a 12v/60mm fan, add another 12v/60mm for hard drive cooling and maybe more for the ram and larger ones for intake/outtake etc. Thing is so many fans are gonna take a heck of a wiring job. Has anyone thought of making a PCB circuit to handle all these fans. Simplest desing would be just to connect all 4 wires from the P/S to the circuit and have a setup like the part of the m/b has for the power button,leds,reset sw etc.

Btw my rig is an:
EPOX 8KTA2
1.1 gb Athlon TB
10gb SG HDD 5400rpm
128MB PC133 SDRAM
250W P/S

Hope to hear from anybody soon.
Thanks in advance.

Do what I do, get a load of 5ins to 3.5inc floppy power connector Y cables and stuff bits of paper clips in the end, to plug the two sockets together.

Hi, and welcome to the forums.

The cooling that you are proposing seems ... a bit excessive for a 1.1 GHz chip and a 5400 PRM hdd. Are you overclocked? What are you temperatures? What is your current cooling scheme? Ditto on your 60mm fans on the vid card.

Regarding your question, yes, people often make these PCB's and call it a fanbus. You'll often see them used for controlling fan speeds to obtain a balance between cooling performance and noisy irritation. For example, I have a design here.

Please do write us back and let us know what your current cooling situation is. I'm sure that we can help you attain a better performance without adding too many fans or starting a massive soldering project for you.

Good luck, and once again, welcome!

-- Paul

Your RAM generally won't require any cooling, and almost certainly not active cooling. (My PC-150 SDRAM doesn't requrie heatsinks or active cooling, FWIW.) Hard drive cooling is nice (I'm working on a design as we speak), but with proper case cooling, is not really necessary.

I would suggest you see what happens with better intake and exhaust ebfore you bother with all the toher fans..

Airflow can cure alot.

Speaking of which.. Do you guys think I will have positive or negative flow with the following setup...


3 80mm intakes (1 front, 2 side/front corner)
1 60mm intake (rear blowing over HSF intake)

1 PCi slot fan above videocard but slightly offline fo the HSF exhaust (HSF basicly blows down into fan and then out PCI slot)

1 PCU fan exhaust

1 80mm exhaust on top side between PSU and top drive cage

Agreed as regards improving the airflow first. This is what I was getting at ...

Hmm, it sounds to me like you have more inflow than outflow. I'm also concerned that you're recirculating warm air to your HSF from that rear intake. -- Paul

I got a peice of cardboard taped to the back between the rear intake and the PSU exhaust.. its only 60mm wide but it prevents the PSU air from getting sucked straight down into the inlet.

Unfortunatly i am at the limits of AIR cooling for this case.. I made the mistake of ordering the case ebfore I found this place.. I sooo wish I knew all my options for cases ebfore I got it.

But other then the 2 bottom side fans which i still need to mount.. I don't have any place to moutn another fan.. everything is filled already.. this thing dosen't come with extra fan moutns so I got to cut new ones but if this dosen't help then I will have to go water cooling

Good approach on preventing the recirculation of exhaust air. Just how bad are your temps?

And BTW, dont' be afraid to cut holes in your case. My only recommendation would be to do the experiment on cardboard first (and use that as your case door, etc.) to find the best placement for the fans, etc. -- Paul

just one comment on hdd cooling: i have 2 7200 hdd's and they run at 28-29C. thats just with them behind the front intake fan.

Thanks for all the suggestions ppl. I've rethought my plans for the major fan additions and just settled for replacing the vidcard fan and getting some proper airflow around the drives. All that took was 2 60mm fans I got from the local surplus store. I'll try to get the hang of getting proper heat readings first before I post them. Again thanks.
Chepocks