More fans

Better (air) cooling

Hello, I have been waiting fro the NB fan to die on my I-c7 max3 and at 10 months it has .So it is time to get a new NB heatsink,CPU heatsink and some more case fans and of course clean out the dust. My qustions are how many watts worth of fans would be safe on an antec 480W psu fan only line? The other qustion is how many watts can the motherboards cpu fan power handle I would like to use the fan EQ (Motherboard fan controller)and a big 120 mm fan but I do not want to overload the board with too big of a fan. Oh yea I know it I could just use a fan controller but I do not want to spend the $$$ for it yet. I will do that if I have to but I am trying to avoid going that route for now. O.K. I have been looking a little closer at heatsinks for the NB and the CPU and with some of the bigger CPU heatsinks the NB gets too close. What are some of the IC-7 max3 users using in there rigs for cooling .I do not mind modding to make it work as long as the results are good.

I have been doing searchs but with no luck .

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

You should have max power data in instruction for mobo and PSU.
PSU fan-only connectors can usually handle bigger fans, but mobo - not. An exception are ASUS mobos, which have high power rating for fan-only connectors (around 4W), what is still not enough for many fans. Eventually if your mobo fan controller is PWM, check fan controller guide (sticky here), how to plug high power fan to it.

For CPU heatsink I'd recommend the biggest Thermalright that fits your mobo. For NB - Zalman aren't bad, but for higher OC they may require some fan. Eventually think about Thermalkright / Swiftech / Microcool NB coolerers - these are more powerful.