I'm looking to buy a couple of fans (with Lights LED / Cathode) and I'm wondering for cheap fans, is AKASA alright. I don't really have many other options because I'm nly really close to Curry's and PCWorld and don't have much to spend. No money banked on Paypal either

If your budget permits, avoid sleeve-bearing fans at all times. While usually the cheapest fans, they are noisier and fail much earlier than fans with better bearings.

If it doesn't tell you what type of bearing it uses, it is probably a sleeve-bearing. Also, if the MTBF <= 30,000 hours, then it is likely a sleeve-bearing fan.

Pk, that's good, what about ball bearings? The only twn ball bearing they got in 80mm hasn't got any lights. I'm going for a fan at the back then.

The only non-sleeve fan i can find is in6cm when i need 8 or 12 cm. Another thing. My motherboard supports only 2 fans (CPU and 1xCase Fan). On my case I have 4 places they have given to put fans. How can I get more 3-pins or 4-pins connectors, if I wanna put 4 on. Then I'll think about overclocking.

john albrich said:
I actually find sleeve bearings to be significantly quieter than ball for the amount of air they move. I quite often use sleeve bearing fans in non-critical places like the case and ball bearing fans on critical parts like the CPU, NB, SB, GPU, etc.

Because, there is only one size that is ball and it is not my size. Also, anybody know how i can get more connectors to connect fans. or 4 pins. 4-pins preferred.

Sammey said:
There are sleeve, single ball-bearing, dual-ball-bearing, ceramic, and fluid bearing fans. They all come in most all sizes from 30mm to 120mm. Are you looking at only one web-site or store?


FordGT90Concept said:
I haven't had the mentioned noise problem with ball-bearing fans. It sounds like your saying the noise is due to the fan blade, grille, and housing design in the fans you have used, and has nothing to do with the bearings.

I haven't got much, need either 80mm or 120mm and preferrably from PCWorld in the UK. I'm a bit strapped in option and budget wise. But, I really want to know if there is a way to increase the amonut of fans you can connect. At the mo. my mobo only supports 2.

Sammey said:

Each mobo connector may support only about 500mA or so. At 12Volts that's 6watts. Some a little more, some less. Your motherboard manual should tell you what this value is. You can connect additional fans on those mobo fan connectors, in parallel with the existing fans, as long as you don't exceed the total power limit of the connector, AND as long as you disable/disconnect the RPM sensor lead* on all the fans except for one. This means the added fans will spin at a percentage of their top speed as controlled by the fan that you kept the RPM sensor connected to.

For example, let's say your "system" fan connector can support a maximum of 6Watts of power. If your system fan takes 2Watts that means you can parallel up to another 4Watt of fan(s) to the mobo "system" fan connector and disconnect the added fan RPM sensor lead(s). This will use the system fan's RPM feedback lead to control all fans on that connector. Useful if you don't want the added fan(s) to run at 100% and don't want to buy a speed controller. 2nd Warning: do NOT exceed the total power the mobo connector can provide. It will permanently damage the motherboard. (I'd keep the total power to LESS than the maximum allowed. e.g. If 6Watts allowed, I'd only go up to 5Watts total. I'd keep a good safety margin)


If you want to control the speed of additional fans, you need a fan speed controller. They range from the cheap potentiometer controllers (which often can't handle too much power either) or PWM electronic speed controllers...more expensive, but better control and handle more powerful fans.

You can also plug fans directly into 12V (which is sometimes rather noisy). Most fans come iwth a 4-pin molex connector adapter (the kind that plugs into an IDE hard-drive) and if your PSU has a few spare connectors you can tap into those. Some fans even come with Y splitters which let the fan share a power connector with a hard-drive.

You can also modify a connector or adapter so that it provides only 7V instead of the full 12V to a fan. the fan doesn't spin as fast but it usually provides pretty good air flow and is much quieter.



*If you don't want to modify the fan connectors, you can buy fan connector adapters, splitters, and extensions at some computer stores. tigerdirect.com usually has a decent selection, just search on "3-pin cable" or "4-pin cable" as needed for example, http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-detai...;CatId=474

edit to add-
section on paralleling fans to mobo connectors (as long as disconnect the extra RPM sensor leads and don't exceed connection power limits)