Could someone help me out with fans and radiators please?

[LordLeewee]

I'm new to modding and messing with pc's, usually gone pre built (which is what I'm modding now as it happens) 

I've upgraded my acer aspire with a gtx 970 which I've liquid cooled using a corsair h55 who's radiator is in the front grille, with the fan between the car and the rad sucking air from outside. I've also added a corsair af120 to the bottom of the case with a big ol' hole cut out, as an exhaust. 

 

now I'm wanting to add an AIO to my cpu next, with the rad on the back of the case. and i want to replace the fan on the h55 because its loud as balls. I'm quite new to it all but I've seen that it would be best for 2 static pressure fans for each rad with one on each side in push/pull config? thing is i dont have room for a second fan on the front rad and i think it would be very tight if i used 2 on my planned back radiator. i also only have 2 fan headers left on the 1-5 powered splitter I'm using.

 

I'm looking at the corsair h75 which comes with 2 sp120l fans. could i use a single one of those on each of the radiators? they appear to be 4 pin pwm fans, the only signal i can provide to them is from the motherboard, and my bios doesn't seem to have any fan control options. my current fans are 3 pin. 

 

any advice here would be gratefully received!

[EmeraldKiwi]

4 minutes ago, LordLeewee said:

 I'm quite new to it all but I've seen that it would be best for 2 static pressure fans for each rad with one on each side in push/pull config?

 

I'm looking at the corsair h75 which comes with 2 sp120l fans. could i use a single one of those on each of the radiators? they appear to be 4 pin pwm fans, the only signal i can provide to them is from the motherboard, and my bios doesn't seem to have any fan control options. my current fans are 3 pin. 

Push versus pull versus push/pull:

Each provide the same cooling performance. Search up linus' video on it, he explains it better than I can. 

 

As for the second part, you can put 3 pin fans on a 4 pin fan header, but I don't know about the other way around. IE, a 4 pin fan on a 3 pin fan header. 

 

If there are no fan controls, then you can buy a fan speed controller, or just deal with fans that are always say, 100% on all the time. I am not sure what the difference between 3 and 4 pin fans are, so I would look that up. 

 

Hope that helps a little bit!

[LordLeewee]

if i have 4 pin fans running off a splitter which is on the cpu fan header, will that not adjust their speed ad potentially run them too slow? for example, if thats controlling the gpu rad fan, it will base that on cpu temp and my gpu could be running hotter than ideal?

[EmeraldKiwi]

18 hours ago, LordLeewee said:

if i have 4 pin fans running off a splitter which is on the cpu fan header, will that not adjust their speed ad potentially run them too slow? for example, if thats controlling the gpu rad fan, it will base that on cpu temp and my gpu could be running hotter than ideal?

If you run them running off of a splitter, which is connected to the fan header, they should all run the same speed: whatever you set that fan header to. However, they may be a bit slower than what you set because I don't think a single header is supposed to power 4 fans. I would see if you can find a cable for like SATA power to a bunch of 4 pins for fans.

 

If your worried about the parts being too hot, then stop worrying. 4 fans will provide plenty of air ventilation for all of your parts, so none of them should run warmer than normal. 

[LordLeewee]

1 minute ago, EmeraldKiwi said:

If you run them running off of a splitter, which is connected to the fan header, they should all run the same speed: whatever you set that fan header to. However, they may be a bit slower than what you set because I don't think a single header is supposed to power 4 fans. I would see if you can find a cable for like SATA power to a bunch of 4 pins for fans.

 

If your worried about the parts being too hot, then stop worrying. 4 fans will provide plenty of air ventilation for all of your parts, so none of them should run warmer than normal. 

oh yeah its a sata powered 1 to 5 splitter. would 1 fan be enough for each radiator then? my only concern is that the h75 must ship with  2 for a reason?

[EmeraldKiwi]

1 hour ago, LordLeewee said:

oh yeah its a sata powered 1 to 5 splitter. would 1 fan be enough for each radiator then? my only concern is that the h75 must ship with  2 for a reason?

It ships with two fans for two reasons:

1. To satisfy customers that want to have a push/pull configuration and

2. Because the fans are super cheap and costs barely anything to include one fan, even two fans. 

 

Corsair's stock radiator fans (only the fans that come with one of corsair's AIO coolers) are notorious for being really noisy at full power, and they have a tendency to rattle since they don't have those rubber grommets like their SP/AF 120/140 fans do.

 

To answer your question, one fan is enough on a 120/140mm radiator. You won't be getting better cooling with two fans versus one fan; they give about the same performance.

[LordLeewee]

yeah the fan that came with my h55 is very loud, I'm currently running with it unplugged if I'm not gaming. the h75 comes with sp120l fans though, are they not as quiet as my af120 that I've got installed, do i have to get a specific quiet model?

[EmeraldKiwi]

2 hours ago, LordLeewee said:

yeah the fan that came with my h55 is very loud, I'm currently running with it unplugged if I'm not gaming. the h75 comes with sp120l fans though, are they not as quiet as my af120 that I've got installed, do i have to get a specific quiet model?

The only difference between - for example the SP120 and the SP120 Quiet edition - is the maximum speed. The quiet edition is set to a lower RPM. Less RPM = less noise. You can achieve the same effect with a fan controller or setting the fan header to a lower speed. Noctua fans come with a splitter that lowers the power limit to the fan, making it easier to just plug and play a quiet fan, rather than messing with BIOS fan settings.

[LordLeewee]

i dont have any bios settings. can i get a software based controller rather than having dials or switches to control it?

[EmeraldKiwi]

3 minutes ago, LordLeewee said:

i dont have any bios settings. can i get a software based controller rather than having dials or switches to control it?

I know you can setup fan curves for your GPU with something like MSI Afterburner, but I don't know about system fans. 

[EmeraldKiwi]

I just did a quick search, and in order for a program to control your fan speeds, your motherboard needs to support fan speed settings. Since yours apparently doesn't support that, then a software fan controller won't work.