Will this hurt the case fan if I leave it plugged in?

[jpsulisz]

Hi Tom's Hardware,

I've built this computer last year with the intent of being dead silent when doing simple stuff, which I have done. However, using silent mode and standard mode keeps the exhaust fan not spinning, it needs a push start to get it rolling (When it spins, it only spins @ 500 rpm which is what I want). I know it wont start because I have one of those "Low Noise Adapters" plugged into the CPU Fan 2 headers. I unfortunately dont have the time to take apart the whole computer to fix this, Im just wondering. If I leave this the way it is, will it hurt the fan? (I.E. If the fan is receiving power (Which it does because the LED ring lights up), but isn't spinning will it shorten the life of the fan?)

The fan in question is a Thermaltake Quiet Fan, it can be seen by clicking this link.

 

[greens]

It will last longer, if anything. Must be one heck of a resistor in the low noise adapters. Does the adapter get really hot? sometimes i swear they put in resistors that aren't enough to handle the load safely.

 

[jpsulisz]

It will last longer, if anything. Must be one heck of a resistor in the low noise adapters. Does the adapter get really hot? sometimes i swear they put in resistors that aren't enough to handle the load safely.

Couldnt tell you if it gets hot, I cant get my fingers far enough in to touch it 😛 .

 

[JamesSneed]

If you have time since the build is pretty new you likely can hook the fan up to a motherboard header and go into the bios to set the fans profile. I do this on quite builds now instead of the fixed resistors aka "low noise adapters". Should be able to set the profile right so the fan spins up but is almost silent. Usually in the bios you can set some automatic settings like temperature targets if you set that up high enough like say 55-60c it usually will keep the fan low speed.

Nice build in that link by the way. I just finished a similar build in a LIAN LI PC-Q21B Black. It was a PC for my parents so no GPU just on-board graphics. Those small builds are pretty fun and challenging.

 

[jpsulisz]

If you have time since the build is pretty new you likely can hook the fan up to a motherboard header and go into the bios to set the fans profile. I do this on quite builds now instead of the fixed resistors aka "low noise adapters". Should be able to set the profile right so the fan spins up but is almost silent. Usually in the bios you can set some automatic settings like temperature targets if you set that up high enough like say 55-60c it usually will keep the fan low speed.

Nice build in that link by the way. I just finished a similar build in a LIAN LI PC-Q21B Black. It was a PC for my parents so no GPU just on-board graphics. Those small builds are pretty fun and challenging.

Thanks, gotta love these aluminum cases! The issue is that the AsRock motherboard sets it as CPU 1 + 2, so if the exhaust fan is set to 50% so does the Be Quiet cooler, which is no longer "quiet". The build is at 8 months at this point.

 

[JamesSneed]

If you have time since the build is pretty new you likely can hook the fan up to a motherboard header and go into the bios to set the fans profile. I do this on quite builds now instead of the fixed resistors aka "low noise adapters". Should be able to set the profile right so the fan spins up but is almost silent. Usually in the bios you can set some automatic settings like temperature targets if you set that up high enough like say 55-60c it usually will keep the fan low speed.

Nice build in that link by the way. I just finished a similar build in a LIAN LI PC-Q21B Black. It was a PC for my parents so no GPU just on-board graphics. Those small builds are pretty fun and challenging.

Thanks, gotta love these aluminum cases! The issue is that the AsRock motherboard sets it as CPU 1 + 2, so if the exhaust fan is set to 50% so does the Be Quiet cooler, which is no longer "quiet". The build is at 8 months at this point.

The H97M motherboard will have two chassis fan headers as well. I would plug it into one of those so you can control the profiles of the CPU fan and the case fan separatly. The nice thing is your motherboard has thermal profiles you can setup for both the CPU and chassis fan headers. A little tweaking and I bet you can have the fan spin on boot and keep it nice and quiet.