Voltage regulated fan control

[AlainGr]

Hi Peter,

I actually have a standard way of controlling the fans for temperature of the different parts of my music PC. It is my understanding that this management (partly through BIOS, partly through a few "Low-High" buttons) is not optimal for the potential electrical noise it can induce...

The PC you sell has some kind of voltage regulated fan controls that are placed behind it. Do you have a brand to suggest, or at least some specifications that I should look for to implement this here ?

Thanks,

Alain

[PeterSt]

Hey Alain, here you go :


Scythe Slipstream PWM+VR 120x120x25. Notice the PWM+VR means : PWM regulated + Voltage regulated.

Regards,
Peter

[juanpmar]

Hi Alain,

I know you have read this in HOW I´VE BUILT MY NEW PC...http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1673.msg16893#msg16893 but just in case:

"CPU Cooler. I looked for a way to cool it as silent as possible. As I said the use of water cooling made me kind of insecure so I got a good fan system: the Noctua NH-U12P SE2. Why this Noctua?, because it has good fans, it´s a quiet unit and it´s very versatile. It has two 12mm fans, one at each side of the heatsink, this way you can use one or two fans depending on your needs. This fan uses a way to control the speed that´s called Low-Noise Adaptor  (L.N.A) and Ultra-Low-Noise-Adaptor (U.L.N.A.), depending on the reduction of the fan speed. The adaptor reduce the voltage to a fixed value and that way the rpm. You could think that would be better to control the fan´s speed by the motherboard using PWM (Pulse-width modulation), the PWM makes the fan speed variable but also produces RFI interferences and that´s not good at all for sound. I use just one fan and the ULNA to get 900rpm and 12,6db. So again true silent and between 35ºC and 45ºC in the CPU, not bad at all!.
- CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12P SE2: http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&products_id=31&lng=en&set=2"


You can also take a look here: http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&products_id=56&lng=en

Best regards,
Juan

[AlainGr]

Hi Juan,

Thanks for the insights My music PC reflects a lot of what you suggested (Silverstone Fortress FT-02 case, a powerful PSU that should never need to have its fan working, the Western Digital enterprise hard drive for my music to express a few)... I also have a Noctua CPU cooler and the fans are connected to the motherboard through a L.N.A. extension. But there was no U.L.N.A provided with the kit (and it does not seem that they provide it anymore ?).

I also changed the top case (located near the extensions for PCIe connections) for a Noctua (the one provided with the case was "ticking"). It is also connected through a L.N.A..

Except from the 3 fans located at the bottom of the case, all fans have a Sotm fan filter.

The only difference (and it surprises me a little) is that though I don't even have an internal hard drive (it is a SSD in an external case, like the music drive), the CPU temperature is higher than what you indicate in your posts and I need to let the 2 CPU fans running. Maybe removing the fan filters would help the air flow more freely through the bottom of the case, but I am reluctant to do this as the dust would accumulate more easily.

I read that the Noctua fans "smoothen" the impulsions from a PWN regulation, but I was wondering if a voltage regulator would help things further or with what I have done yet, it would be too much of the same thing ?

Regards.

Alain

[juanpmar]

Thanks for the insights My music PC reflects a lot of what you suggested (Silverstone Fortress FT-02 case, a powerful PSU that should never need to have its fan working, the Western Digital enterprise hard drive for my music to express a few)... I also have a Noctua CPU cooler and the fans are connected to the motherboard through a L.N.A. extension. But there was no U.L.N.A provided with the kit (and it does not seem that they provide it anymore ?).

Alain, Noctua have a lot of fans with the possibility to regulate the speed, not sure if now they use the ULNA but anyway take a look here in the FANS section: http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=produkte&lng=en

On the other hand the Scythe fan suggested by Peter seems to be a good choice due that it has both possibilities (PWM + VR).

The only difference (and it surprises me a little) is that though I don't even have an internal hard drive (it is a SSD in an external case, like the music drive), the CPU temperature is higher than what you indicate in your posts and I need to let the 2 CPU fans running. Maybe removing the fan filters would help the air flow more freely through the bottom of the case, but I am reluctant to do this as the dust would accumulate more easily.

I see that your mb (https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_X79/#gallery) has two fans incorporated... You have also a more powerful processor than mine.

As you can see in the picture of my case I took off the upper and the rear part of the case, no filters either and no fans in the cpu, the only fans that are working are two of the three ones that are in the bottom of the case and they run at the lower speed (800-900 rpm). About the dust I clean it up once in a while with a Giottos air Blower and I keep it clean (http://www.giottos-tripods.co.uk/index.php?page=productpage&product=491846169ec51)

The temperatures I see in the BIOS are:

- CPU: 41ºC
- MB: 39ºC
- MCH: 61,5ºC

You can see in the picture the temperature of the cores with XXHihEnd playing (with Ultimate XTweaks on).

Regards,
Juan

[listening]

Hi Juan,

as the picture shows you have been playing Blow Up/Three Blind Mice XRCD. I had yesterday an "old school" vinyl session with a friend of mine and I brought this vinyl with me for tracking test - and enjoying the music. Is that XRCD of similar quality?

Georg   

[juanpmar]

Hi Georg,

The Blow Up cd (and vinyl) is famous for its SQ among the audiophiles, personally I don´t play it very often mostly because I don´t like very much the music in this cd but the sound is great anyway, I had the vinyl also and I remember great SQ also.
It was by chance that I took that cd to take the picture.

Best regards,
Juan

[AlainGr]

Hi Juan,

I think that the fact that you removed some components helps the flow of air to better circulate (it's a guess on my part). The removal of the filters at the bottom may help...

Since I don't have much components inside the pc, I hope that a fan VR controller would improve things, at least eliminating the need for a PWM.

I was told that iFi-Audio (the makers of the iUSB power supply) have the intention of offering other power supplies (with different voltage) and since the iUSB has very good specifications, I am interested in having another power supply specifically for the fans (in a near future).

Regards,

Alain

[juanpmar]

Hi Juan,

I think that the fact that you removed some components helps the flow of air to better circulate (it's a guess on my part). The removal of the filters at the bottom may help...

Since I don't have much components inside the pc, I hope that a fan VR controller would improve things, at least eliminating the need for a PWM.

Alain, I still have inside the Pc case three hdd, two with music and one with the OS and XXHE. Even with that, the temperature remains in the safe margin.

I was told that iFi-Audio (the makers of the iUSB power supply) have the intention of offering other power supplies (with different voltage) and since the iUSB has very good specifications, I am interested in having another power supply specifically for the fans (in a near future).

The only hdd I use connected to an USB port is the Playback drive that you can see in the pictures but it is also externally powered.

Regards,
Juan

[AlainGr]

Juan,

My apologies, I did not express myself well... By "components", I meant the fan that you removed on the top of the pc case, plus the filters for the bottom fans and maybe somes covers that you also removed (that the picture does not show)... Apart from the necessary components (CPU, memory, passive video card, sotm USB card and Xaudio card), I have not much inside the case... Maybe the fact that my case if covered inside with insulation material (I do not have a plexiglass window) does not help for the better flow of air...

Alain

[juanpmar]

Alain,

Sorry, it was me that haven´t understand you well. What if you try to remove the back cover and the filters to start?. Test the temperature that way, the FT-02 case has a special configuration that allows the heat flow easily toward the upper part of the case but the back of the cpu is very close to the back isolated cover and probably if you remove that cover the temperature of the CPU will be lower. Keep the bottom fans at maximum speed to start just for protection and see what happens.

Juan

[PeterSt]

FYI :

I wouldn't use the BIOS to check the temperatures. In that stage, all is running at max without OS cooling facilities. So all will show more hot and it is not representing real life - when the OS is running.

Peter

[juanpmar]

FYI :

I wouldn't use the BIOS to check the temperatures. In that stage, all is running at max without OS cooling facilities. So all will show more hot and it is not representing real life - when the OS is running.

Peter

Thanks Peter, in fact I only use Real Temp to test the cores temperatures while XXHighEnd is running. I gave the BIOS temperatures also just to give a complete information. The BIOS temp. gave a value near of the maximum (41ºC) reached by some of the cores at a specific moment (43ºC), while the temperature of the cores was stabilized at 31ºC/34ºC.

Juan