LED Lights for Case and CPU Coolers

[DukiNuki]

Hey guys had few questions

1.How can i add LED lights to my NZXT S340 ? what are my options ? where to buy one ( cant find any kit compatible with NZXT on sites ) or donno what to search for

2.Assume i Have H5 Universal CPU Cooler or something like that . is it safe to change the fan and get one that has LED on it just to make cooler appearance ? ill be sure to buy one that has high CFM and is fast enough . but is it wise thing to do ? its hard to find good cpu coolers with purple or blue leds on them ,. just thought id get the cooler i like and just change the fan

 

[synphul]

It depends on the cooler. The h5 uses a larger heatsink and a slim profile fan so it doesn't interfere with the ram slots. If you switch to an led fan it will likely be thicker and defeat the design purpose of the h5. The h7 uses a slightly smaller heatsink shifted to the side and a normal profile fan which would be ok. Changing fans can affect the performance of the cooler if the fan has lower airflow/static pressure.

I'm not sure how it will work using an led fan on a cpu cooler if it's speed controlled. The lights will be brightest on full speed but if the bios slows the cooler fan down to reduce noise when it doesn't need high amounts of cooling the led light will dim.

There are led light strips that plug into the power supply and use a remote to control them. Some have a single light strip, some have two.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811994051
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811980001
http://www.amazon.com/Satechi%C2%AE-Computer-Light-Remote-control/dp/B00QAX8YPY

There are also led light strips which have a big roll of leds, you can cut to length every so many led's (there's a defined place where to cut) and uses a remote but has a power supply that plugs into the wall. Since it doesn't plug into the pc power supply you'll need to find a way to route the power cable into the pc case from outside of it.
http://www.amazon.com/SUPERNIGHT-Flexible-Waterproof-Controller-Adapter/dp/B00KILUXCQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1440888769&sr=8-1&keywords=supernight+rgb%2Bw&pebp=1440888795382&perid=1WB5FEBDKHYYG1XZD1AP

For most of these light strips (they're all very similar) they use a thin strip of 3m sticky tape on the back to stick to the case but it doesn't usually work all that great. May have to pick up some additional double sided tape or in mine I used dabs of hotglue.

 

[DukiNuki]

thanks alot man . do you know any cpu coolers that come with nice orange or purple leds on them and will fit in my case ? ( NZXT S340 )

 

[synphul]

I don't know of any coolers that come with led fans or purple ones anyway. You might try the corsair sp120 if the cooler takes a 120mm fan, they have purple ones.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181069

 

[Vic 40]

You could,for instance buy a cooler master 212 evo or a corsair H60/cooler master seidon and put one of the following on it,
http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/compare/bitfenix-case-fan-bffblfp12025orp%2Cbitfenix-case-fan-bffblfp12025rrp%2Ccooler-master-case-fan-r4jfdp20prr1%2Cenermax-case-fan-uctvs12pr/
Or that corsiar would work,but at a fixed speed.Maybe with some bios/eufi option you could adjust that.
Any cooler that uses a 120mm fan would these work with and most of the coolers using a 140mm fan too,they mostly use 120mm attach points.

One decent cooler with leds,but blue,
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/deepcool-cpu-cooler-neptwinv20
probably not what you want.

 

[DukiNuki]

am i stuck with static RPM if i go with anything but Stock Air Cooler fan ? i mean ... i buy a aftermarket air cooler and i wanna change the fan on it with a static pressure one , are my options limited to static rpm ones ? if that s true then it will suck and it will perform way worse than the stock cooler

 

[synphul]

Static fans refers to what type of airflow. Static pressure is the amount of force the air has a fan produces. Even if you have 2 fans both blowing 80cfm of air volume, they may have different static pressure. Place the higher static pressure fan in front of an obstruction in the case like the fins of an air cooler and it will push more air through the cooler (needed to cool the cpu) than the lower static pressure fan which will bog down as if suffocated.

The difference in fans with led and without when it comes to rpm, the non led fan spins faster and slower (usually controlled by the bios or some other method) and you don't notice it as much. An led fan uses part of the power supplied to the fan to power the lights so when the fan is slowed down (by lower power) the lights dim. When they speed up there's more power so they get brighter. There are some pwm fans like the bitfenix spectre that separate the led power from the fan power/speed to avoid the problem. If they used pwm (pulse width modulation, controls fan speed by increase power signal pulses or reducing them rather than voltage increase/decrease) to power the led lights, they would flicker since they work by how rapidly full 12v power is applied on/off to the fan.

Most coolers use pwm fans or control the fan's speed via voltage from the cpu fan header on the motherboard through the bios. Replacing it with a fan that didn't come with the cooler, it depends on the fan you choose. If you buy an aftermarket led fan with worse performance than the stock fan then yes, cooler performance will go down. If you pair it with a better fan (higher airflow, more static air pressure) then cooling performance will increase some.

As an example, the cryorig h7 (since changing the fan doesn't mean changing the thickness and overall cooler design dimensions like the h5). It uses a 120mm fan and according to cryorig it moves 49 cfm. The bitfenix spectre led pwm fans are 120mm fans and move 51.3 cfm and with a static pressure of 1.83 mm/h2o it's got good static pressure. In this case the spectre led would be a suitable replacement fan for that cooler and wouldn't decrease performance. Cryorig doesn't mention how much static pressure in mm/h2o the qf120 fan produces. Normally 1.6 mm/h2o and up, the higher the better, is decent pressure for a 120mm fan. Some produce as high as 2.8 or 3.6 but at the expense of loud noise from forceful high speed fans. The spectre led has similar db ratings as the original cryorig cooler fan.

http://www.bitfenix.com/global/en/products/accessories/spectre-led-pwm#specs

 

[DukiNuki]

thanks alot for info . few questions :

1.NZXT S340 comes with no front fan . should i put AirFlow fans or static pressure fans for the front and rear and top ? ( should i use airflow fans for case and static pressure for cpu ? or static pressure is better in any case ? )

2.which one is better ?

Corsair Air Series AF140 CO-9050017-PLED OR NZXT Air Flow Series RF-FZ140-U1 ? they both are air flow fans i wanna buy for NZXT S340 but cant decide which one is better ? which one has brighter LED and more and stronger purple pink color ?

 

[DukiNuki]

can you also suggest me few Static Pressure fans for H5 or H7 with higher than 60 CFM ? and also led on em which doesnt have that diming problem ?

 

[synphul]

Airflow fans are usually for places that don't have airflow restrictions. Rear exhaust, top exhaust. For blowing through a cooler like an air cooler or radiator with liquid cooling, static pressure works better. Usually static pressure optimized fans work better as front intake because of pulling air through dust filters and pushing air front to back past hard drive cages. Obstructions in the airflow.

I'm not sure which one has the brighter color, without seeing them in person. Unless you can find a side by side video comparison maybe. There are a number of fan reviews and comparisons on youtube.

There aren't many led fans that are purple and pwm to choose from. Also once you start getting higher than 60cfm you're likely going to get loud fans. Jetflo's have the capability of moving 95cfm with high static pressure but they dim when the speed drops. To see what I mean, here's a vid on youtube of the white, red and blue (no purple but blue may be close enough?) fans. The host of the video drops the voltage/speed of the fans and you can see the effect on the brightness around 5:20 of the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GbFGp1YtrM

 

[DukiNuki]

i read that its better to use air flow fans for case as there are no hard matters to block them like radiator so they can increase the overal air flow in the case blowing more air faster into case and out of it and Static pressure for HeatSink to push the air hard into it . Static pressure is for pushing the air hard and air flow is for bringing cold air faster and taking out the hot air also faster . am i right ?

i wont be suing radiators so front top and rear should have nothing blocking them . so why would air flow fan perform worse than static pressure for intake and exhaust . im new at this and just wanna be sure about what i'm doing .

and those fans i told you to compare . just tell me which one performs better . NZXT has higher CFM but does that realy matter ? corsair has higher RPM but lower CFM . im so confused 😀 but wanna choose between those two because they both look so cool .

 

[synphul]

Again I can't say about those two fans as to which is brighter than the other. I've never used either one or seen them in person. Most case fans are usually fine being airflow (corsair's af series for example or other fans with decent cfm even if they lack high static pressure). Most cases have a hard drive cage in the front. Some still have cross supports that remain when removing detachable hard drive cages.

In your particular case, the s340 does lack typical hard drive cages in the front. However it uses a fine mesh filter on the intake side and the front cover of the case is solid forcing fresh air to be pulled in from the top and bottom of the front cover. That's an airflow obstacle, vs a case with a mesh ventilated grille in the front allowing air to be drawn straight into the front. Even then a metal honeycomb grille plus a fine mesh dust filter can slow down airflow quite a bit. That's why I was suggesting higher static pressure fans in the front.

All fans have some form of static pressure, those that get called 'static pressure' or 'sp' fans are just ones that tend to have higher pressure than others. Imagine two fans, one with a static pressure of 1.0 mm/h2o and one with a static pressure of 2.0 mm/h2o. Held by the edges and turned on, they both move 50cfm of airflow. That's open air, nothing in the way. Now put something in the way of that airflow, keeping in mind there are 2 sides to airflow - intake and exhaust. That 'something' could be the fins of a radiator, an air cooler tower, hard drive cages or even a filter up near it where it's taking in fresh air. Imagine holding a mesh screen dust filter in front of them.

The fan with weaker static pressure may drop the cfm from 50 to 25cfm because the filter is restricting airflow, choking it. The fan with the higher static pressure may only drop to 40cfm with the same filter in front of it because even though the filter is slowing airflow the higher static pressure doesn't bog down the fan and it keeps right on blowing.

To give an example my case also uses fine mesh dust filters. I was blowing the dust out using a datavac with a small tip on it creating pinpoint air pressure. The air pressure from the vac blower was noticeably less blowing through the filter as it was blowing dust out than it was blowing directly on my hand. They can be pretty restrictive and when they begin to collect dust the air restriction just becomes worse.

Between the nzxt and corsair airflow fans you listed, the nzxt seem to have a higher airflow rating. Both are rated at .80 mm/h2o pressure which is really low pressure. More likely to be suffocated by the intake dust filter than the sp140 purple led corsair fan with a pressure rating of 1.17 mm/h2o. Flow of air coming off the 'airflow' fans will be far less than the sp140 fan as it tries to draw air through the front filter.

You'll get airflow either way no matter which fan you use but my experience with the soft screen mesh used on most air filters they're pretty restrictive despite companies saying 'low restriction' filters. My case had a fine screen dust filter on the top and it really killed airflow from 2 140mm noctua's with 78cfm and static pressure of 1.91 mm/h2o. More air was hitting the dust filter and blowing back into the case than it was blowing through it. That was exhausting out the top with no radiator or anything so should have been a typical 'airflow' fan location. Because of the filter restriction it cut my airflow down to about 2/3 if that.

 

[DukiNuki]

wow thanks for detailed info . so i guess SP140 is the way to go on both case front/top/rear and for CPU if i ever touch the stock fan ( stock fan of after market cooler )

i wonder what is the point of AF series if they really cant perform as well as SP series and regardless of their high CFM rating it drops due to low air pressure even by a tiny slim dust filter .

 

[synphul]

The rear exhaust fan would be fine using an airflow series fan. Your case already has an exhaust fan though. Typically an airflow fan would do well as a top exhaust too. Generally front intakes, radiator and air cooler fans benefit from higher static pressure.

With dust filters it's about trying to find balance. No filter means dust gets sucked inside but air moves freely. As the squares of the filter mesh get smaller and smaller, they do a better job of filtering more and more dust. At the same time, it means fresh air has to be pulled through all those little holes. It's not really problematic because of the thickness, but the size of the holes in the filter. Also as the filter does a better and better job, the more dust it traps the more clogged the filter becomes and the faster it fills up with dust. That's what it's supposed to do, stop the dust from entering but as dust builds up and clogs the filter it's now also blocking airflow. It's more about finding a balance between the two.

One user who was using a popular aftermarket filter made by demciflex tried removing their filter and noticed gpu temps dropped 5c.
http://hardforum.com/archive/index.php/t-1652856.html

Your case is a bit different since it has just the mesh dust filter but many cases with an 'open' air design front use a small honeycomb type mesh airflow panel. Here's a test done on various fan vent designs. Note that it's not regarding filters which are finer, but just the grilles. Using the figures they provide if a case has that 'airflow' type front metal mesh cover for air to flow directly into the pc case, it restricted their intake fan's airflow into the case by 10% alone. Factor a fine mesh air filter on top of that or in your situation, instead of that. Airflow is liable to be 15% less than what the fan is actually rated for.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Effects-of-Grill-Patterns-on-Fan-Performance-Noise-107/

Stated fan ratings for cfm airflow values are in a completely open air environment with nothing in the way of it. Real world performance from fans will vary as they have to push or pull air through different grilles, filters etc. A bicycle can cruise along just fine on flat ground at 10-15mph same as a motorcycle with more power. Come up to a hill (an obstruction) and the bicycle will slow down a lot where the motorcycle will keep going. The difference in power is sort of like static pressure, the higher the pressure the more 'power' to keep going under load.

 

[DukiNuki]

man i love how detailed your answers are . so hard to find people like you that take their time to answer as detailed as possible . thanks 😀

so ill go with Corsair 140 mm AF fans for top and rear and replace stock ones for nicer look and better performance and two Static Pressure 120 mm fans for front as they do better than 140 mm fan . ill go with Corsair AF and SP fans because they seem to be good enough and look amazing with those purple LEDs on em . thanks again man . helped me a lot .

by the way . i googled NZXT S340 images and i found a picture with nice Corsair CPU Cooler with red LED on it and apparently a corsair AF 140 fan on rear with purple LED . but i couldn't figure out what kind of CPU Cooler that was . its heat sink was unique and it had bright red LED on it . H5 universal has cool looking heatSink . just wish i could find a nice working cooler with LED for it. enermax has nice CPU coolers too but so bad their all out of stock and old just like tuniq tower cpu coolers .

 

[synphul]

I'm not sure which one you saw, possibly the coolermaster v8 gts? It's one of the coolers I know of with red led's and a unique design.
http://techgage.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Cooler-Master-V8-GTS-02.jpg

This is why a lot of people get into modding their cases and components. In your situation you want purple and it's not available on a lot of products. If the cm v8gts fits your cpu socket (compatible), you could always research on how to swap out led lights and carefully remove the red ones and replace with purple. A lot of people do led color swaps to get custom looking hardware but it's not something I've done. Different leds have different power requirements for various colors and part of the trick to modding is trial/error and figuring out ways to change things by getting creative. It does void warranties but it's part of the 'adventures' of modding.