Eight case fans, how to power/control them all?

[jason41987]

i was looking to build a newer, better airflowing case for my computer for better cooling, less noise, etc... my goal is to get a case with a total of eight 120mm fans.... seems counter-intuitive to think this would be quieter... but more fans means each one runs less

so... i was wondering how to go about powering these... i could go with a molex adapter which would power four, and get two of these.. but what about controlling and varying the speed of these fans as necessary?... how would i get automatic speed control?

 

[darth pravus]

Buy a big fan controller. That would both power all the fans and give you speed control over them.

 

[alexoiu]

By installing a fan controller: http://www.newegg.com/Controller-Panels/SubCategory/ID-11
EDIT: Already answered.

 

[jason41987]

ok... so i should get a fan controller with a PWM input to receive the signal from the motherboard that controls fan speed... most these controllers control four channels, so i could double up the two in the front, the two on top, two on the side, plus the one on the bottom and one in the rear... into four 2-into-1 channels and that should work

 

[jason41987]

would this work?.. max is 20 watts, fans i looked at were about 2 watts each... so i could splice each of the two sets together, and get a molex power adapter to connect the four channels into one molex on that controller, with the PWM connected to it too.... then i could let the PWM control everything

or is there some kind of advantage or usefulness to having a front 5.25" fan controller besides looks?

 

[suteck]

If you would like the motherboard to control all the fans all you will need is a splitter. Something like this StarTech Model TX3SPLIT12 12" TX3 Fan Power Splitter Cable
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812200455&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-NA-_-NA -
Buy 4 of course and plug 2 fans into each one and plug the other end into the motherboard fan connector. As long as you have 4 fan connectors on the motherboard you're good to go. You can include the cpu fan connector as one of them if you need to. That fan will just run congruent with the cpu heatsink fan. Now you don't need to worry about molex connectors AND you won't have to do any wire splicing.