Case Fan Layout

[Jake Oliver]

I currently have a Cooler Master CM 690 III case and I am wondering if I have too many fans or they are not in the right layout/setup. At present I have:

Front (intake) - 2x 140mm Corsair SP140 fans
Top (exhaust) - 2x 140mm Corsair SP140 fans
Side (intake) - 2x 120mm Corsair SP120 fans
Rear (exhaust) - 1x 140mm Corsair SP140 fan
Bottom (intake) - 1x 120mm Corsair SP120 fan

They are connected through an NZXT Sentry 2 fan controller so it doesn't sound like a helicopter taking off! I'm not getting high temperature readings, but I just wondered whether this was a bit overkill? My system specs are:

CPU - Intel Core i7 4790k Quad Core 4.0GHz
CPU Cooler - Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
RAM - 32GB (4x8GB) Kingston HyperX FURY 1600MHz
GPU - 1x Palit Nvidia GTX 980 4GB
SSD - 1x Kingston HyperX FURY 240GB & 1x Samsung 850 EVO 500GB
HDD - 1x WD Black 2TB

Thank you in advance!

 

[JackNaylorPE]

That is the recommended usage as far as intake / exhaust for those locations. 8 fans at low speed is better than 4 fans at high speed. The one thing I would do is get way from manual fan control via the Sentry and use MoBo based automatic control.

What rpm fans are we talking about ? SP's come in 1450 and 2350.

1250 is ideal as fans start to get audible about 900 rpm and you should be able to control 1250 rpm fans down to about 325 rpm (25% or so)

 

[Jake Oliver]

The SP140s are 1450 RPM and the SP120s are 1550 RPM. I have the controller set to auto anyway but do you not think there's any point having it then? I put it in to monitor the temperature inside the case and alert me if it got too hot but it never has gotten high enough to set off an alarm. Speeds tend to run at 40%-60% depending on time of year (I live in Britain so it's never that warm here!).