Oh, that. Meh, it's not new either. I mean, consider how incredibly small the computer cooling business is in the great scope of things with industrial cooling et c, only a small trickle finds its way to computers, since most aren't considered worthwile in the computer systems.
What does unsynchronised fans do that regular even fans do not? Off the top of my head, I'd say it causes an uneven noiselevel being more pleasant to the ear.
The problem with that, I should think, is that it'd only work with radial fans, which themselves are already loud, and not really something one would want in their computer build.
I'm looking forward to Noctua's active noise cancellation fan technique.
It is extremely silly, but it works.
^This. I've at least not seen them before, so again tetris, no need for condescending tone. =/
---------- Post added 2012-08-09 at 10:02 PM ----------
hmm, surely they could apply the same technique to the non-radial fans we have in our cases?
Forgive me for not knowing the scientific terms. ;p
You mean like having non-straight blades? Twisted, indents, polished ends? They are.
Having every other blade differently angled? It would reduce airflow potential and change the static pressure in an undesirable (inconsistent) way. Without reducing noise levels.
Either way, this is post your gaming setup-thread, and not Jeopardy! Special Fan edition. Let's move this venue to the chat thread?
I swapped out all nine AP-14s in my PC for Kama Flow 2s because Gentle Typhoons just aren't any good for pure airflow. I don't even use them on my low-FPI radiators because they hum noticeably at 500-1300RPM, especially when there's several of them. Kama Flow 2s have a starting voltage of 3V, are very quiet at low RPM, and a little louder than GTs at max RPM. I did have to replace one after it developed a tick...seems like an isolated incident.
For video cards, you could use MSI Afterburner's fan controller to keep those fans around 20% until the GPU core hits 50C or so. I used the curve below.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/22649165/afterburner-fan.png
A fan controller which uses voltage control isn't to blame for a ticking fan. A lot of fans tick at specific RPM, especially sleeve bearing fans like the new Corsairs. When I buy new fans I purchase several different types, figure out which one works best for me and return the rest to Micro Center / Fry's / etc.
This is also why I continue to suggest Asus motherboards regardless of how much cheaper ASRock's options are. Asus's Fan XPert 2 utility is better than most external fan controllers for the vast majority of users. It's better than just about anything other than an mCubed BigNG T-Balancer.
Last edited by kidsafe; 2012-08-10 at 03:47 PM.
While absolutely true, this doesn't change the fact that the Cosmos II's fan controller is in fact the culprit. Cyanotical experienced the exact same issue with his GT fans, as have others across the internet, where they've tested the exact same fans with other fan controllers or such afterwards and found the noise to vanish.
And this review does actually go ahead and strip away the fancy buttons to see what's actually underneath.
The rectangular chip is the brains of the operation, unfortunately it has absolutely no markings, so I have no idea what sort of brain it is. The control setup is quite interesting in that it is neither straight PWM nor a buck controller type voltage regulator (note the lack of inductors; no inductor, no buck regulator). In the interest of figuring out what method it does use I hooked my oscilloscope up to the output with a fan hooked up as a load, the following picture is a graph of the voltage delivered to the fan, each line vertically is two volts and each line horizontally is 10 milliseconds.
For starters we see that this is pulsing the voltage at a very low frequency, around 14 Hz or so. Beyond that it looks like the control chip feeds some voltage to a transistor that fills a capacitor and that capacitor in turn feeds voltage and current to a second transistor that controls the fan itself, as the capacitor drains out the second transistor lets less current/voltage through and the fan doesn’t get as much. It’s a rather interesting method and much cheaper to design and build than a buck regulator, while still capable of delivering the full 12 V when set to full, unlike a linear regulator setup.
The only real issue with this setup is that some fans will make a noise every time the voltage pulses. When set to full speed the controller doesn’t pulse the output voltage, so of course the noise goes away entirely. Both medium and low speeds require the voltage to be pulsed and hence can cause fans to make noise. Of the included fans only the rear fan makes noise; the top fan, the front fan and the two lower HDD bay fans make no noise on medium or low speed settings beyond airflow noise.
Other than that noise from the rear fans, all the fans are very quiet on low, and still quite quiet on medium. On high they ramp up and make more noise, but nothing offensive and no mechanical noises. Unfortunately one of the two SMD chips that are paired up for each channel is marked only with A79T, which I cannot find any data on at all. The other chip’s markings decode to a fairly standard NPN transistor with 0.2 A maximum capacity. Because I don’t know what the other chip is exactly, the above description of the fan controller is my best guess, rather than known fact.
The fan controller is rated for a maximum of one Amp per channel, not one Amp per connector! Each channel has at least two connectors, and one of them has three connectors. Be sure to add up the power draw of the fans on each channel to avoid letting the magic smoke out of one or more parts of the fan controller; unlike the controller that comes with the Cooler Master Silent Pro Hybrid 1300w PSU there does not appear to be any over-current-protection on this controller.
So here is my update on my rig with better pics! Also added my home server and peripherals.
Here some pics:
Now with quad channel RAM and I love my Sapphire GPU! :P
As you may notice Day9 isn't a fan of my mess! *g*
Case: Fractal Design Define XL Black Pearl
Power Supply: Enermax Platimax 850W
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 PRO
RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 32 GB DDR3-RAM @ 1600 MHz CL9
CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K @ 4.2 GHz
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 Dual-X OC-Edition 3GB GDDR5 running Bios 2
HDD: 1 TB Seagate Barracuda, 320 GB WD Scorpio Black
SSD: 128 GB Samsung 830
Cooling: Corsair H80 with 2 NOCTUA NF-P14 FLX in push-pull config
Case Fans: NOCTUA NF-P14 FLX (have to change the fan in the bottom front to a NOCTUA NF-P14 FLX)
Fan Controller: NZXT SENTRY 2
Need to upgrade my peripherals.
My old rig = Homeserver: AMD Phenom II X4 965 @ 3,6 GHz CPU – Gigabyte GA-880GMA-UD2H Mainboard Socket AMD AM3 DDR3 Memory Micro ATX – [ATI Radeon HD5750 Graphics Card] not used – Kingston 4GB Value Ram @ 1333 MHz CL9 RAM – one 320 GB WD Scorpio Black HDD
Peripherals: LOGITECH Cordless Desktop MK250 Keyboard – Logitech G500 Mouse – Roccat Kave Gaming Headset – Rode NT1-A Studiomicrophone – PreSonus Audiobox USB Recording Interface – one Xbox 360 PC Controller- one TFT 22″ LG Flatron E2240T White-LED Backlight and one TFT 23″ LG Flatron E2351 – one Western Digital 1,5 TB 7200 RPM external HDD
Hmm maybe I'll try them out for the GPU panel and keep the GT's for the CPU radiator but yea, they have that distinct hm which is normal for the fan. Plus I do have a fan curve but it's set a little higher than normal since the main video card idles at 65C using eyefinity
Last edited by kidsafe; 2012-08-10 at 05:07 PM.
I will Post pics after I get it all set up and running. But here are my specs.
Intel i5-3570k
Asus P8z77-LK
Corsair Vengence 8gb ram
Cooler Master 212 evo
Crucial M4 64gb ssd
Gigabyte Windforce 7950 3gb gpu
Ocz Mod Xtreme Pro 600 psu
Cooler Master HAF 912
Samsung 23.6 inch 1080p monitor
Scored all that with windows 7 for $1198 today. And I have $75 in rebates I may or may not use.
Pics coming soon.
Does anyone know of multi-fan controller that can take a cue from a PWM header (as in, you connect the controller to a molex and motherboard header, which sets the speed of the fans, and have 6 or more fans plugged into the controller)?
I'd really love to be able to control a group of fans via software. As far as I know, the controllers like Corsair's Link system only offer single/profile control, and are not able to connect 6 fans to a single controller.
Trying to set mine up now for a pic
So last week I posted that once I was home I'd do some pictures of my new set up - I know I'm a little late in doing them but still; here they are:
http://imgur.com/8xirC,mTUNg,eKbMF,0Vrvh#0
http://imgur.com/8xirC,mTUNg,eKbMF,0Vrvh#1
http://imgur.com/8xirC,mTUNg,eKbMF,0Vrvh#2
http://imgur.com/8xirC,mTUNg,eKbMF,0Vrvh#3
The specs are:
CPU: Intel i7 3770 @3.4-3.9ghz (Yes, the locked version. I don't know anything about overclocking and I'm not particularly interested in doing it in future.)
GPU: XFX Radeon HD 7850 2gb
RAM: 16gb (4x4) Corsair 1333mhz
PSU: Corsair 600CX
MOBO: Gigabyte Z77-D3H
HDD: 1TB SATA III
SSD: 240gb Corsair GT Force Series.
CPU Cooler: Be Quiet! BK014
Case: NXZT Phantom 410
Last edited by Tommy2er; 2012-08-11 at 01:32 PM.
Everything will be in (hopefully) by Thursday for my new rig. I will post when I get it together, along with the custom desk I am building.
The components are as follows:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($189.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($83.74 @ Mwave)
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($185.99 @ NCIX US)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper Low Voltage Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($103.82 @ Adorama)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card ($399.98 @ NCIX US)
Case: Silverstone RV02B-EW ATX Full Tower Case ($168.00 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 860W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($170.00 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Sony AD-7280S-0B DVD/CD Writer ($17.99 @ Amazon)
Monitor: Dell U2312HM 23.0" Monitor ($245.41 @ Mac Connection)
Keyboard: Corsair Vengeance K90 Wired Gaming Keyboard ($94.99 @ Newegg)
Mouse: Corsair CH-9000001-NA Wired Laser Mouse ($51.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $1861.87
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-08-11 09:44 EDT-0400)
I know I know, 860W PSU. Platinum. I was going to get the X760 (possible SLi in the future) but, the 860W Platinum was only $2 more.
Edit: I should mention I did get the CPU and MB at Microcenter... Quite a nice bargain as I will have to run with WiFi temporarily. I will be wiring the house for a hardwire connection to my room.
And will thus suffer in efficiency. Oh well, I'm pretty the drawbacks are nothing you will notice, but instead have a great time with the build anyway!
And I always thought your username was Idrinkwithrussians
Last edited by Xuvial; 2012-08-11 at 02:06 PM.
WoW Character: Wintel - Frostmourne (OCE)
Gaming rig: i7 7700K, GTX 1080 Ti, 16GB DDR4, BenQ 144hz 1440p
Signature art courtesy of Blitzkatze