Fan control & Temp sensing

[balroggie]

Hello. I am building a PC from the ground up which will look like this:

CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Dual Core Socket 939
CPU fan Arctic Cool Freezer 64 Pro with Heatsink
MotherBoard Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce
Case Fans (2x) ZALMAN FB123 Mountable Case fans
Memory (2x) OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) 184 PIN SDRAM DDR 400 (PC3200)
Video Cards (2x) XFX GeForce 6800 GS 256MB PCIe SLI 485MHz
GPU Coolers (2x) ACCELERO X1 GPU Cooler
Hard Drive (2x) WD Raptor 74GB 10kRPM WD740GD
HD Enclosure (2x) SilenX Luxurae Hard Drive cooler/enclosure (for Raptors)
Hard Drive (3x) Samsung SpinPoint 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0
Case Nexus Breeze Quiet Case w/500 Watt PSU
Temp Monitor/
fan controller Thermaltake Hardcano 13 Fan controller/Card reader

The last PC I built was a few years ago, Pentium 2.53 GHz w/ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, Asus Motherboard (forget the exact type), and standard Antec black tower case w/2 fans.

At the time of install I didn't care much about the fans. I wasn't going to overclock and I just plugged them into the Asus motherboard default slots. Now things are different. For starters I want quiet (my present case is quite noisy). I also want cool and some serious control over the fans (hence the Thermaltake controller). Here however is my dilemna... The Thermaltake will allow control of just 4 fans and 4 temp sensors. In my ideal setup I would like to control 7 fans and get input from 8 temp sensors.

Ideal:
1 fan control/1 temp sensor for CPU
1 fan control/1 temp sensor for motherboard
2 fan controls/2 temp sensors for video cards
1 fan control/2 temp sensors for Raptors (they get hot in the Luxurae cases)
1 fan control/1 temp sensor for the case fan and ambient interior temp
1 fan control/1 or 2 temp sensors for the memory

Due to 5 & 1/4 slot space considerations I can't use two Thermaltakes (4 slots total... 2 taken up by the Raptors in their Luxurae cooler/quieters, 1 by the Thermaltake, 1 by the DVD writer = 4) so I figured I could use the temp sensors on the motherboard and supplement with software monitoring. The Thermaltake should control:

CPU fan and sensor
Motherboard fan and sensor
2 x video card fans and sensors

This leaves the two Raptors, the memory, and the ambient case for the built in temp controls on the motherboard. Time to display my ignorance... I have read through the documentation on the motherboard and it appears it is capable of monitoring the board, the cpu, and the hard drive. I am already monitoring the board, and the cpu with the Thermaltake so this doesn't work - I don't need to monitor it twice. What I would *like* to do is simply get some temperature sensors, plug them into the motherboard somehow along with the extra fans, and monitor/control them through software. I have also looked into PCI slot solutions and here the ranks thin considerably with many bad reviews/lack of availability (Zephyrus & Sunbeam Theta TP-101). I would really like advice on this as I have never attempted doing so much fan control. I have every intention of overclocking this beastie so fan control/temp monitoring will be most important. This is particularly true since I am going for quiet which means insulation which means heat. I do not want to do a liquid solution as these suffer from basically the same issues plus sport gigantic devices that do things like only cool the cpu and board or one video card. Any advice appreciated. I will say that I have looked at other controllers (like the Ultra Fan commander which does 7 fans but this only has 3 temp sensors) but haven't found anything really perfect yet. I love the look of the Thermaltake I just wish it allowed control of 8 fans/sensors.

I just need a way to control fans and monitor temperatures through the motherboard that isn't *always* the CPU & Board itself.

thanks!!!!

[blue60007]

There's no need for another heatsink/fan. A Retail CPU will have a heatsink that is sufficient, and not using it will void your warranty.

You need to double check with your case, there may be no reason to get extra fans if the case already ships with some (even if not all the ports are filled, just try it with those - 2 fans might be just as good as 4 (for example))

Let's do this, pass on the Raptors and get a single 250GB 16MB hard drive (they have comprable performance, and costs less, and more space). If you *really* need 1 TB of space, get four of them. Don't get those Samsung drives - they havent' had a good reliability record, get some WD SE16's. Even though I've heard they are quiet, having 4 drives of anything will be loud, you might want to get one or two larger drives to cut on noise. And dual 10,000 rpm Raptors certainly aint going to be quiet. Getting a single 16MB drive over dual raptors saves you about $220 and dropping the heatsink saves you about $250. Let's also drop the video card coolers (or if you are looking for quite - make sure they are actually quiet by reading reviews and such). You can also drop those hard drive enclousers. That's probably another $50 saved.

Next you need to spend some of that $300 on a SLI-Certified power supply - that is *critical*. That's probably about $150-$175 left, which is enough to drop the dual cards and get a single 7800GTX (OC version if you like). A single 7800GTX will outperform dual 6800 GS's every time. That upgrade there will give you better gaming performance than dual Raptors ever could. A single 7800GTX will be plenty for today and tomorrow, leaving room to toss another in later on after prices drop.

One thing I would suggest is waiting to purchase all this extra silence/controlling equipment - you might find some of it is unnecessary. Like with that video cooler, I'm not sure if nVidia cards are the same, but with my ATi card I can control the speed of the fan. So what I've got is a program that runs in the background, slowing the fan down by about 25% - the noise difference is substantial, and only ups temps by a few degrees. You might see if you can do that with a 7800GTX first, before buying a cooler and fiddling with installing it.

I do have a better suggestion for a CPU cooler - look at one of Thermalrights or Zalman's coolers - they are much quieter than the looks of the one you picked out. The beauty of the Thermalright heatsinks is you pick out which fan you want to use and you have total control over the noise. There are 90mm and 120mm available - and you have to check with clearance - they are pretty hefty sized, and may run into the power supply/case fans or hit caps on the board. Both manufacturer's websites list compatible motherboards and the clearance requirements. Another reason why I suggest you wait to get a CPU cooler - that way you can see how much clearance you have. Like with my system, I can probably fit a 90 mm Thermalright in, but there's there's no way a 120mm would fit as the power supply blocks it.

Like I said, I really suggest you just buy the system itself for now, get it up and running and see what really needs to be quieted. There's no sense in buying something you really don't need.