Seperate fan power supply?

Is there any advantage to using a seperate power supply to power case fans? Would it be benificial to decrease the 12v load on the system power supply if, for instance, three 120mm fans were used?

Depends on what psu your using.

only if your 12v rail is low or something.

I , personally, would not waste the money and time. You cannot be drawing more and 30watts and maybe 6amps max. Get a decient power supply and you'll be fine. Personally, I am using an Antec TP 550 and according to my math, I am only using about 60% of it on a BAD day. If you want, contact Antec tech support and they can lead you to the correct one.

squirtle632 said:

I , personally, would not waste the money and time. You cannot be drawing more and 30watts and maybe 6amps max. Get a decient power supply and you'll be fine. Personally, I am using an Antec TP 550 and according to my math, I am only using about 60% of it on a BAD day. If you want, contact Antec tech support and they can lead you to the correct one.

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30 watts on the 12v is 2.5 amps. 6 amps on the 12v is 72 watts. huge difference.

if you have alot of fans then i could see maybe running another psu. it also depends on the fans. if they're high speed 120's then i could maybe see you running into some issues with a low 12v but if it comes down to not being able to run 3 120mm fans than it's prolly best to just get a higher quality psu to run on it's own.

if you really want to see how much drain you're experiencing you could read the label on the fan and see how many amps the fan takes then subtract that from what the sticker says on the side of the power supply.

emericanchaos said:

30 watts on the 12v is 2.5 amps. 6 amps on the 12v is 72 watts. huge difference.

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I stand corrected..... sometimes math is NOT one of my high points

i have many psus and its cheaper to have 2 or more than buy a new one.
being that i only paid for one of these:
2 ATX psus 255w and 300w
and 4 AT psus 150w - 250w
and the almighty PS2 94w
but it looks alot better with just one mega-psu running it all