Good fan power supply idea-but need one detail

[jonathan7007_95]

In the recent thread here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/281081-30-x58a-ud3r-sys_fan2-speed-control

board participant jaquith suggested (as I understood his post) running all fans except the CPU unit off a header attached directly to the power supply and provided with a molex connector capable of attaching the right number of fans with their little four-pin female connectors. I imagined a block header with a series of sockets offering the pin sets for power.

The motherboard in question was a Gigabyte X58A-ud3r and I have that same board. With my case I have 4 fans to power in addition to the CPU unit,, so I want to know if I came up with the right picture in my mind, and get members' suggestions about sourcing. I like Cyberguys for odd connectors and would like other names.

It has to be mail order -- living as I do on a rural Hawaii neighbor island.

jonathan7007

 

[geofelt]

In the recent thread here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/281081-30-x58a-ud3r-sys_fan2-speed-control

board participant jaquith suggested (as I understood his post) running all fans except the CPU unit off a header attached directly to the power supply and provided with a molex connector capable of attaching the right number of fans with their little four-pin female connectors. I imagined a block header with a series of sockets offering the pin sets for power.

The motherboard in question was a Gigabyte X58A-ud3r and I have that same board. With my case I have 4 fans to power in addition to the CPU unit,, so I want to know if I came up with the right picture in my mind, and get members' suggestions about sourcing. I like Cyberguys for odd connectors and would like other names.

It has to be mail order -- living as I do on a rural Hawaii neighbor island.

jonathan7007

I don't see your problem.

Most psu's will have a couple of leads with two or three 4 pin molex connectors each. You can attach as many fans as you want directly to the psu, since it will have plenty of amperage for all. Also, most fans that have 4 pin molex connectors will have the open ended type that lets you connect another fan to it. You can chain as many of these as you want to. The only negative of direct attach to the psu is that the fan must run at a constant maximum speed.
There are cheap fan manual fan controllers, like the zalman fanmate, and other solutions.

What case do you have?

 

[jonathan7007_95]

I don't see your problem.

Most psu's will have a couple of leads with two or three 4 pin molex connectors each. You can attach as many fans as you want directly to the psu, since it will have plenty of amperage for all. Also, most fans that have 4 pin molex connectors will have the open ended type that lets you connect another fan to it. You can chain as many of these as you want to. The only negative of direct attach to the psu is that the fan must run at a constant maximum speed.
There are cheap fan manual fan controllers, like the zalman fanmate, and other solutions.

What case do you have?

I double-checked this with a Wikipedia picture of molex connectors as found hanging off power supplies. My problem is that the Corsair 750 unit in my CoolerMaster HAF932 was sent with
only the standard molex - four large female sockets - and all my fans want the very small connector. No need to tell me I have no problem. I have to find a place to buy a adapter/connector. I have a drawer full of odd connectors. I never throw any of these parts out. But I don't have this. I don't mind learning in this forum and Tom's in general. If you know a lot, good for you. If you have lots of nearby places to look at this stuff to buy, good for you. Radio Shack here gave up on all these little fittings.

Jaquith offered some good advice I cited by name and thread and I was glad to discover I had pushed the power limits on my particular board. Good! I like finding out these things about my motherboard.

jonathan7007

 

[geofelt]

I looked at the haf932 pics on newegg. Nice looking case. It looked to me like each of the supplied fans had a male and female connector, along with a three pin connector. If so, you could use any of the three connections.

If you use the three pin connector to the motherboard, you will get speed sensing info that can tell a program like speedfan how fast they are going, and can control the fan speeds. There will be an amperage limit to each of the motherboard fan headers. I don't know what that is, but it usually takes a very high powered fan or two to exceed the limits. I see no harm in trying. If your mobo headers are limited in numbers, you can get a three pin "Y" splitter that will run two fans. I know that works.

Go to newegg, and look under cables to see all of the options. There are many.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007533+600020235+600020259&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&IsNodeId=1&Subcategory=1&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=
None are very expensive, and I think they ship to Hawaii.

 

[JDFan]

What you need if you want to be able to control the speed the fans run is something like this fan controller - uses 1 molex connection for power and has connections for up to 4 fans each with its own speed controller

Or since you say you have a bunch of connectors just splice the current fan wiring into a molex connector to plug into the PSU Molex connections if want a cheap method with no need to buy anything (only that way the fans will run at full speed only if you connect them to the +12V lines)

 

[jonathan7007_95]

Such a controller looks like a good device to have if the fans running full speed makes too much noise. I have lots of empty 5.25-inch bays. It's fun to use them!

When I put in the Megahalems cooler and clipped a good fan on it (Excaliber model I think...lots of CFM and quiet) the temps went down into the 30's even as processing ramped up a bit so I stopped worrying about it. I have a i7-920, not yet overclocked. The stock cooler from Intel didn't cut it, even with the good case airflow. (amazing case, BTW) I have heard that the Gigabyte temp measurements are not as good as other tools but I saw the strong downward change with that cooler-fan combo and knew it was in a good range.

For the record, the NewEgg shipping prices to Hawaii for even small items is often over $25 so I have been unable to use them where alternatives exist. Too bad. I search around for people with more flexible shipping departments, that's all.

It's possible Corsair will mail out the adapter, now that I think of it as one of their customer support personnel was understanding about the long distances from power supply to the upper drives in this case and mailed a longer power cable to me. I mention that because companies that will do this are the ones worth supporting.

Thanks for the responses.

jonathan7007