How do you set up your fans?

[Chadwokie]

Hey guys just thought id see how every one sets up there fans.

Case orientation?
how you cable them?
how you power them?
do you run a fan controller?
do you run them of the motherboard?
do you only use molex?
where do you balance performance to noise?
what other things do you consider?

In my past rig i knew i wasnt going to overclock and knew temps wouldnt be a issue so i was uber lazy i just hooked the 120s i had on my 360 rad on a fan controller and the remaining on molex, i would change the rad speeds depending on the room temp preferring to run them quite.

Now i have all new singing dancing rig i want to be a little more intelligent and informed about well as much as i can

 

[Remmy]

Generally, the best way is to try have airflow going from front to back and bottom to top of the case so the heat flows back, up, and out. It's preferable to have more air intake than exhaust, which helps prevent dust build up; dust filters on intakes also help, but just hinder on exhaust generally.

Try orientate the fans so that you can't see the cable coming out of them.

Lots of people wire them to a 12V molex with a fan speed reduced to run them at about 7V which tends to be a nice balance of performance and quietness at fixed speed. You can also change the molex connector to give your fans 5V, but not all fans will even spin at 5V.

I use a 6 channel fan controller so I can change it manually.

Some use software to control them through motherboard headers, but that's probably the worst option in my opinion. Software tends to be a bit clunky, and you have extra wires going into the motherboard so it looks messier.

 

[Wraith]

My setup is as follows.
Intakes = 2x 120mm with micro filters

Exhaust = 1x 120mm on radiator
GPU standard exhaust
PSU standard exhaust

 

[cooperman]

x2 140MM fractal design silent series r2 fans as intake PWM controlled with fan xpert running @700RPM up to 900RPM depending on case temps.

2x 120MM noctua nf-f12's mounted on to a H80i in push pull acting as a exhaust permanently set to 1000RPM controlled by corsair link.

The top of my case is pasive there are no fans.
Fan set ups are just try it out and see what works best for you this is what works best for my cube case and is set to be silent i hate my pc to be noisey.

 

[Chadwokie]

i run 2 120 intakes atm with a h100i in push pull in the roof with a 120 on exhaust in my 750d.

Because i want to replace the standard fans with the quiet af 120s next month with a fan controller i had just hooked the fans at the moment to the motherboard.

so couple of things have arisen the more i think about the layout.

1st do i really need the h100i in push pull (no but i do like the look of it droping down the extra distance because of it)

At present i have more exhaust than i do have intake so i would assume id want to run the two intake fans at a higher rpm than the exhausts? and what sort of speed ratio would i want (i know now thinking way to much about way to little a performance change)
Alternatively i could run a fan in the base as intake keeping my intakes at a low rpm and would directly feed the gfx card with some fresh air.

Ill have a good old play about with it once i get the new fans and controller in

 

[Mysterae]

Running more intake fans than exhausts (positive air pressure) means that (filtered) air that doesn't go out by exhausts escapes out other holes as you'll never have a case that's completely sealed. More exhaust fans than intakes creates the opposite effect, where air is drawn in through other holes, and as this is unfiltered air, means a lot more dust in your case.

I have 3 AP181 filtered intake fans at the bottom of the case and a single nondescript 120mm fan performing the exhaust duties. The 140mm fan of the PSU is isolated due to the way it's mounted. There are another 4 AP181 fans mounted on a 1080 radiator configured as push.

This fans (amongst other things) are all autonomously controlled by an Aquacomputer Aquaero. I think it's the perfect balance of adjustment and control. It is probably a bit overkill for an air cooled only system though.

I think I'm becoming a bit of a fanboy for it !