Zero RPM Case Fan Experiment

BigDaddyKong

Active member
I am trying a new experiment. Since seeing so many of the new graphics cards and power supplies come with 0 RPM fan modes, I wanted to see what happens when I run my case fans this way.

My current setup is an Corsair 900D with the standard front 3 fans, and the single rear exhaust. On top I have a 360 rad P/P and my Gigabyte 7970GHZ GPU's. They have a cooler that does not exhaust air out of the case.

Using my Aquaero 6 I found I can totally turn the case fans off and tie them to my water temp to kick them back on when the water starts heating up, about a 2C change. My rad fans are PWM, and the lowest I can spin those down are 738RPM.

With this setup, I can surf or do anything but game and the case fans stay in the off position as long as my second GPU has 0 core active.

Using Aida64 I found there has been no change in my GPU idle temps, even when using a screen saver when the PC is not in use. My CPU temps have went up about 1C on idle. Since my fans are kicking back on under the heavy load of gaming, or something very CPU intensive like P95. I have no change in loaded temps.

For years, I have been fighting dust, and everything says keep more intake than output on air flow to cut down on dust. I am going to challenge that idea. Before I started I blew everything out, and cleaned all the filters in the case, and power supply. I'll give it 30 days before I inspect my system.

Anyone else tried something like this?
 
not so much try. but aim for it lol.. silent running is a Huge priority for me always has been as my main gaming rig is in our bedroom.
however i dont go for 0rpm as you notice when they spin up or stop. instead i aim for the lowest possible rpm that i can use at full load and stick with that.
thats why i always try and shoe horn as many rads as i can in a case.
 
I had a Bitfenix Recon and set it up to do a similar thing. I unplugged my case fans if I was downloading something overnight (we have really bad internet so games take forever and I slept in the same room...) In the end tho I just went back to manual settings and fan reducer cables.

I do like the idea of an off switch. I think most new components would run at idle with passive cooling only. I'd like to experiment on my H100 to see what temps I get on the core with zero fans and just a passive radiator. If that works then a hardware controller may be the way to go.

The only thing in the back of my mind is 'what if they don't spin up' - Cookeda
 
I do this all the time by just using speedfan. If I'm not in csgo I'll switch my case fans off (connected to one pwm header on the mobo) and just run my cpu fan at ultra low rpm if I'm watching HD video.
 
This is one of the beauties of having an Aquaero with an inline temp sensor. It does not matter what the PC does, it will spin up the fans. Even if the PC locks ups, the fan controller will operate as it should.

I had an H100i and I had an issue where I could only run a single fan for a week. My 4.5ghz OC was a no go with my video cards. Now if you were only doing productivity at stock speeds, you might get away with passive cooling. Especially with a newer CPU that uses much less volts to run.
 
This is one of the beauties of having an Aquaero with an inline temp sensor. It does not matter what the PC does, it will spin up the fans. Even if the PC locks ups, the fan controller will operate as it should.

I had an H100i and I had an issue where I could only run a single fan for a week. My 4.5ghz OC was a no go with my video cards. Now if you were only doing productivity at stock speeds, you might get away with passive cooling. Especially with a newer CPU that uses much less volts to run.

I might have to bug you a little and get some tutorial on my aquaaero 6xt since I have only set it up for my pumps. The fans however are all set to a fixed speed which would be nice to configure more. I like the idea of having 0 rpm. All my fans are non pwm 3 pins.
 
I might have to bug you a little and get some tutorial on my aquaaero 6xt since I have only set it up for my pumps. The fans however are all set to a fixed speed which would be nice to configure more. I like the idea of having 0 rpm. All my fans are non pwm 3 pins.

That makes it easy, just use a curved controller to slave the fans too. With power controlled fans, you can totally turn them off. With PWM, there is a minimum speed for those to run at. Do you have an inline temp sensor on your loop? The reason I ask is to me this makes doing this safer than relying on a software sensor.

After I get home from work, if you post any question, I will be happy to answer or post screen shots if needed.
 
I do this with my external radiator's fans. The case fans are at a low inaudible speed so that there is some air flow over the motherboard and graphics cards but kick up a gear should the motherboard temperature increase.

It's a different story when gaming. The temperature of the water increases and this is where having 2 water temperature sensors is great - you can work out the delta and determine how efficient your radiator is, what has the best effect - pump speed and or fan speed. Although the consensus is that the water reaches an equilibrium temperature throughout the loop, it's not strictly true.

When my pc is at idle the delta of the temperature can be as little as 0.2C, but with a game running that delta can be as much as 3.5C. Never use this temperature delta for a curve controller on the Aquaero - imagine temperatures of 50C and 52C, pretty bad temperatures for coolant but only a 2C delta. If your controller limits fan speed at a low delta, both those temperatures will rise together, all your Aquaero is doing is controlling the delta and not the actual temperature of the coolant. Apologies if I'm teaching egg sucking here :).
 
If you are referring to a delta of input and output temps on the rad, you are right, that could be bad. I like a delta from rad input water temp to ambient air temps. My house is pretty well climate controlled, so I am not worried about this. This gives me a constant sound profile year around.

I also have two, well actually four inline temp sensors. One after the outlet of the res, then it hits the CPU block, another sensor on the rad intake port, one on the outlet port, and another on the back side of mobo tray going back to the res.

***Edit***

On a side note, I had always set chrome not to use hardware acceleration ever since it came out. When watching YT, this would peg my CPU at 4.5ghz. Now that I turned the acceleration back on, my CPU is staying in an idle state, and my GPU temps are not jumping up from browsing YT.
 
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